Dies Are Cast

New York

Chargers, Raiders, Rams all file formal relocation to L.A. applications, as expected.  Stan Kroenke’s public statement on his application is only two sentences long.  Goodbye says it all.

It is said that no team has the requisite 24 out of 32 owners’ votes, but you know they’ll vote to let Kroenke move the Rams, and they will also approve the Chargers.  That’s because the league has set a relocation fee of $550 million, and only Kroenke and the Spanos family, the Chargers owners, have that kind of either war chest or cash flow to pony that up.  The Davis family, Raiders owners, does not, so they’ll be stuck in Oakland.  I take the $550 million relocation fee as an advance hint that the league is going to approve the Rams and Chargers but not the Raiders; I think the league wants the Raiders to stay in Oakland, hoping all the Bay Area/SF/SV wealth can somehow be channeled into a new stadium in or near Oakland.  The other reason is that the league voting for the Rams and Chargers to move means that it gets $1.1 billion in cold hard right away paid to it, and two teams, one from each conference, in the highly coveted L.A. market, and a new stadium which the league doesn’t have to contribute a dime to build, which also means lots of future L.A. Super Bowls.  A new stadium which Kroenke wanted to have internal facilities for two home teams all along, meaning that the Chargers will be the second team and his tenant.  The league not voting for the Rams to move means that it would have to contribute $200 million to help build a new stadium here in St. Louis.  Let’s see, if you’re the NFL, which would you rather want?  To get $1.1 billion, two L.A. teams, a new L.A. stadium courtesy of one of your owners, meaning L.A. Super Bowls, or have to pay $200 million to keep a team in St. Louis, a city which has had mostly bad relations with the league going back for almost a generation?  No St. Louis Super Bowls, ever, even with a new stadium.

All that is left to happen:

1. For the league to approve the Rams and Chargers applications and reject the Raiders application at their next owners meeting next week or another one very soon

2. For St. Louis’s political and civic officials to hold a press conference, semi-sobbing but semi-bragging that “we did everything we could” to keep the Rams here, as they cross their fingers behind their backs hoping that people buy it and direct all of their rage at Kroenke and none at them

3. For the local media to record the moving vans, moving an NFL team away from St. Louis for the second time in a generation

4. For more and more people around here over time to realize that the new stadium proposal was PR vaporware all along