The Los Angeles Rams
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And I'm done with the NFL for good. If they want to walk all over the #21 media market in the US, an area that is much larger than some other NFL markets, and that has bent over backwards to try to keep the NFL in town, only to be screwed over, twice, then they're not getting ad revenue from my eyeballs. Even if the team I've followed since 1984, the Miami Dolphins, were apparently one of the two teams principled enough to vote "no."
Yes, big business sports leaves a bad taste in ones mouth.
Sorry about your city's loss Sam, loyal Rams fans and undeserving of this outcome.
LA City ain't what it used to be.
For those interested, here's the 2015 TV DMA list: http://www.tvb.org/media/file/2015-2016-dma-ranks.pdf
There are 32 NFL teams, but seven of the 39 largest markets that don't have NFL teams are within three hours, give or take, of at least one other NFL city, leaving only two of the top 39 markets without an NFL team within a roughly three hour radius: St. Louis and Salt Lake City (though Portland-Seattle, San Antonio-Houston, and Austin-Houston are right at the edge of that radius).
With the Rams moving back to LA (which didn't attend games when they were there prior to 1995), the #1-18 markets all have an NFL team.
#19 is Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, which is less than an hour and a half from Tampa, and just over two hours from Jacksonville.
#20 is Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto, which is about an hour and a half from San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose. The San Francisco/Oakland market, by itself is almost exactly twice the size of the St. Louis market (with, at least for the moment, two teams).
#21 is St. Louis, with more than 1.2 million TV households, and a location nearly four hours away from the nearest NFL team (Kansas City).
#22 is Charlotte, the Carolina Panthers home.
#23 is Pittsburgh, which is, like St. Louis was, an NFL/MLB/NHL city.
#24 is Portland, Oregon, which has NBA and MLS teams, and which the NFL seems to be, perplexingly, completely uninterested in, though Seattle and the Seahawks are about 2.75 hours away.
#25 is Raleigh-Durham, two hours away from Charlotte.
#26 is Baltimore, an MLB/NFL city in a very sports-dense chunk of east coast real estate.
#27 is Indianapolis, a city with a mind-boggling array of professional sports teams, including the NFL, NBA, WNBA, triple-A baseball, Div. 2 soccer, Div. 3 hockey (the ECHL), and semi-pro women's soccer.
#28 is San Diego, currently home of the Chargers and their crumbling, 50-year-old stadium.
#29 is Nashville, an NFL/NHL city that also has triple-A baseball.
#30 is Hartford/New Haven, less than two hours away from Boston and the Patriots.
#31 is Columbus, OH, which is right at two hours away from Cleveland, and Cincinnati, 2.5 hours from Indianapolis, and 3 hours from Pittsburgh, and which has local NHL and MLS teams.
#32 is San Antonio, TX, which has a pair of top-level sports teams in the NBA Spurs and their associated WNBA Stars. They also have minor-league pro soccer and baseball. They're three-ish hours from Houston and the Texans, and four-plus from Dallas and the Cowboys.
#33 is Kansas City, home of the Chefs (if you don't get that joke, look it up).
#34 is Salt Lake City, an NBA/MLS city with minor league soccer, hockey, football, and soccer.
#35 is Milwaukee, two hours from Green Bay, and an MLB/NBA market.
#36 is Cincinnati, home to the NFL's Bengals and MLB's Reds.
#37 is Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson South Carolina and Asheville North Carolina, less than two hours from Charlotte.
#38 is West Palm Beach/Ft. Pierce, FL, which is just over an hour from Miami and the Dolphins - awfully close for separate TV markets.
#39 is Austin, TX, two and a half hours from Houston.
#40 is Las Vegas, which has been sort of a professional sports no-go zone due to legalized sports betting, though they do have a triple-A baseball team.
Then you get the weirdly located NFL teams:
Jacksonville, the #47 TV market, but which is about two hours from the NFL-less #19 market. (The Jaguars are owned by a businessman from Southern Illinois, but he has shown a distinct lack of interest, at least publicly, for moving his bargain-basement team to the much larger St. Louis market. His purchase price of the franchise was only $50 million more than St. Louis was going to put into a new stadium for the Rams.)
New Orleans, the #51 TV market, though they're moving upwards as the city continues to rebound from Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans was #53 in 2010-2011). They've always been a small NFL market, however, sitting at #42 on the 2002-2003 DMA list, pre-Katrina.
Buffalo, the #53 TV market. The Bills would seem to be a prime relocation candidate, in a small and shrinking market, (Buffalo/Niagra Falls was #51 in the 2010-2011 rankings), but the current owners also own the Buffalo Sabers NHL franchise, so they probably plan to stay put, unless they have an overall plan to move both teams. (In comparison to New Orleans, Buffalo was #44 on the 2002-2003 DMA list, without the concomitant city-obliterating natural disaster in the interim.)
The fact that New Orleans and Buffalo, as such small-market cities, support two professional teams (NFL/NBA and NFL/NHL) is somewhat perplexing, considering the larger markets that don't have one pro team.
I haven't mentioned #68, Green Bay, with good reason. The city is two hours from Milwaukee, and their ownership situation is unique among American professional sports. Without that tether (which the NFL specifically banned from replication in the 1980s), and the insane loyalty of their Green Bay/Milwaukee market, they'd be a prime candidate for shifting to a larger area.
Judging by this, I'd say there are three areas that *should* be prime markets for the NFL to target, either through expansion or relocation of some smaller-market teams: St. Louis, Portland, and San Antonio/Austin. The question is, will the NFL move a third team into St. Louis? At least one owner seemed downright gleeful at screwing over the city and its NFL fans - John Mara of the Giants. If the NFL does put a third team into St. Louis, have they done themselves irreparable harm in the eyes of the fans?
There are 32 NFL teams, but seven of the 39 largest markets that don't have NFL teams are within three hours, give or take, of at least one other NFL city, leaving only two of the top 39 markets without an NFL team within a roughly three hour radius: St. Louis and Salt Lake City (though Portland-Seattle, San Antonio-Houston, and Austin-Houston are right at the edge of that radius).
With the Rams moving back to LA (which didn't attend games when they were there prior to 1995), the #1-18 markets all have an NFL team.
#19 is Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, which is less than an hour and a half from Tampa, and just over two hours from Jacksonville.
#20 is Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto, which is about an hour and a half from San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose. The San Francisco/Oakland market, by itself is almost exactly twice the size of the St. Louis market (with, at least for the moment, two teams).
#21 is St. Louis, with more than 1.2 million TV households, and a location nearly four hours away from the nearest NFL team (Kansas City).
#22 is Charlotte, the Carolina Panthers home.
#23 is Pittsburgh, which is, like St. Louis was, an NFL/MLB/NHL city.
#24 is Portland, Oregon, which has NBA and MLS teams, and which the NFL seems to be, perplexingly, completely uninterested in, though Seattle and the Seahawks are about 2.75 hours away.
#25 is Raleigh-Durham, two hours away from Charlotte.
#26 is Baltimore, an MLB/NFL city in a very sports-dense chunk of east coast real estate.
#27 is Indianapolis, a city with a mind-boggling array of professional sports teams, including the NFL, NBA, WNBA, triple-A baseball, Div. 2 soccer, Div. 3 hockey (the ECHL), and semi-pro women's soccer.
#28 is San Diego, currently home of the Chargers and their crumbling, 50-year-old stadium.
#29 is Nashville, an NFL/NHL city that also has triple-A baseball.
#30 is Hartford/New Haven, less than two hours away from Boston and the Patriots.
#31 is Columbus, OH, which is right at two hours away from Cleveland, and Cincinnati, 2.5 hours from Indianapolis, and 3 hours from Pittsburgh, and which has local NHL and MLS teams.
#32 is San Antonio, TX, which has a pair of top-level sports teams in the NBA Spurs and their associated WNBA Stars. They also have minor-league pro soccer and baseball. They're three-ish hours from Houston and the Texans, and four-plus from Dallas and the Cowboys.
#33 is Kansas City, home of the Chefs (if you don't get that joke, look it up).
#34 is Salt Lake City, an NBA/MLS city with minor league soccer, hockey, football, and soccer.
#35 is Milwaukee, two hours from Green Bay, and an MLB/NBA market.
#36 is Cincinnati, home to the NFL's Bengals and MLB's Reds.
#37 is Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson South Carolina and Asheville North Carolina, less than two hours from Charlotte.
#38 is West Palm Beach/Ft. Pierce, FL, which is just over an hour from Miami and the Dolphins - awfully close for separate TV markets.
#39 is Austin, TX, two and a half hours from Houston.
#40 is Las Vegas, which has been sort of a professional sports no-go zone due to legalized sports betting, though they do have a triple-A baseball team.
Then you get the weirdly located NFL teams:
Jacksonville, the #47 TV market, but which is about two hours from the NFL-less #19 market. (The Jaguars are owned by a businessman from Southern Illinois, but he has shown a distinct lack of interest, at least publicly, for moving his bargain-basement team to the much larger St. Louis market. His purchase price of the franchise was only $50 million more than St. Louis was going to put into a new stadium for the Rams.)
New Orleans, the #51 TV market, though they're moving upwards as the city continues to rebound from Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans was #53 in 2010-2011). They've always been a small NFL market, however, sitting at #42 on the 2002-2003 DMA list, pre-Katrina.
Buffalo, the #53 TV market. The Bills would seem to be a prime relocation candidate, in a small and shrinking market, (Buffalo/Niagra Falls was #51 in the 2010-2011 rankings), but the current owners also own the Buffalo Sabers NHL franchise, so they probably plan to stay put, unless they have an overall plan to move both teams. (In comparison to New Orleans, Buffalo was #44 on the 2002-2003 DMA list, without the concomitant city-obliterating natural disaster in the interim.)
The fact that New Orleans and Buffalo, as such small-market cities, support two professional teams (NFL/NBA and NFL/NHL) is somewhat perplexing, considering the larger markets that don't have one pro team.
I haven't mentioned #68, Green Bay, with good reason. The city is two hours from Milwaukee, and their ownership situation is unique among American professional sports. Without that tether (which the NFL specifically banned from replication in the 1980s), and the insane loyalty of their Green Bay/Milwaukee market, they'd be a prime candidate for shifting to a larger area.
Judging by this, I'd say there are three areas that *should* be prime markets for the NFL to target, either through expansion or relocation of some smaller-market teams: St. Louis, Portland, and San Antonio/Austin. The question is, will the NFL move a third team into St. Louis? At least one owner seemed downright gleeful at screwing over the city and its NFL fans - John Mara of the Giants. If the NFL does put a third team into St. Louis, have they done themselves irreparable harm in the eyes of the fans?
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Kroenke is operating on the Jerry Jones model of a crap product in a pretty box. I'm going to laugh my ass off if attendance is just as bad as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s before the Rams moved to St. Louis. If Karma is really being nice, maybe it will drive Kroenke into bankruptcy in the process.
Of the three cities that applied to move, only St. Louis actually put together a workable proposal to keep their team in town, and they were the only city (so far) to be screwed in the process. San Diego and Oakland now have ammunition they can use to try to force the issue on their stadium problems at home, while St. Louis had both a perfectly serviceable existing 20 year old stadium (with by far the league's most generous lease terms) and a plan to build a state-of-the-art new stadium across the street. This wasn't "big business," it was a calculated move to completely destroy a fan base.
Mystic
We're all born mad
I agree w/ all of your points. Need we remind folks what a failure the "Raider" venture @ LA (um, more like Irwindale) was back @ the (mid?) 1980s? Raider Nation indeed. Not that you'll not see 100+ "Raiders" stickers @ the rear windows, bumpers, and/or tailgates of 100s of "monster trucks" @ LA Basin freeways & byways on a daily basis. But they didn't attend the games. Stickers are cheap, game tickets are not. I predict the (re)christened "LA" Rams will prove to be a(nother) Left Coast NFL Flop.
This is interesting: NFL attendance, by team from 2006-2015: http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2015
Compare that with the Rams' home games in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Los_Angeles_Rams_season
Even in 2014, after being terrible for a decade and with an owner that kept talking about moving, the Rams were doing better in both raw attendance numbers and percentages of tickets sold than several other teams. Only in 2015, when everything seemed hopeless, did it fall off at all - and the ticket sales were still light-years ahead of where they were in the huge LA market in 1994.
Roll back to 2006, and they were doing quite well.
Not that they're going to actually be in LA after the new building is built, anyway.
Attendance during the next 2-3 years in the Coliseum should be enlightening, especially as Carol Rosenbloom moved out of it in the 1970s because it was both too big to fill and too out-of-date for even that era.
Compare that with the Rams' home games in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Los_Angeles_Rams_season
Even in 2014, after being terrible for a decade and with an owner that kept talking about moving, the Rams were doing better in both raw attendance numbers and percentages of tickets sold than several other teams. Only in 2015, when everything seemed hopeless, did it fall off at all - and the ticket sales were still light-years ahead of where they were in the huge LA market in 1994.
Roll back to 2006, and they were doing quite well.
Not that they're going to actually be in LA after the new building is built, anyway.
Attendance during the next 2-3 years in the Coliseum should be enlightening, especially as Carol Rosenbloom moved out of it in the 1970s because it was both too big to fill and too out-of-date for even that era.
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Mystic
We're all born mad
Not that they're going to actually be in LA after the new building is built, anyway.
Inland Empire, here we come!
It sure will.
SoCal Sam
Lunatic Member
Inglewood is a dump. Freeway access is terrible and if you make a wrong turn, have "91" pre-dialed on your cell. I am not sure about the wisdom of having a domed stadium in L.A. It's not like it ever rains or snows here. Good luck selling out the place. When the Rams were in L.A. or Anaheim, they never sold out which blacked out the Sunday TV double header. And when the team signs a local cable deal, our rates will go up just like with the Dodger deal. Sigh, at least it is not the Raiders or Chargers.
Erik Tracy
Everyone's happy when the wizard walks by
Oh, but it could be the Chargers.
The proposal approved was for the Rams to relocate to Inglewood, and the Chargers were given a one year 'first option' to join them.
This does force Spanos to give token effort to work something out with the city of San Diego, but given his aversion and resolve not to deal with the city, it is probably a foregone conclusion that the Chargers will leave.
Good riddance, I say (and I live in SD).
Mystic
We're all born mad
Quoted for truth and accuracy.
Mystic
We're all born mad
Exactly.
Mystic
We're all born mad
Maybe they'll build a stadium in Bakersfield. They could name it "Baker's Field".
The blackout rule has rarely been applied in recent years, and was suspended entirely by vote of the owners in 2015.
This is interesting: NFL attendance, by team from 2006-2015: http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2015
Compare that with the Rams' home games in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Los_Angeles_Rams_season
Even in 2014, after being terrible for a decade and with an owner that kept talking about moving, the Rams were doing better in both raw attendance numbers and percentages of tickets sold than several other teams. Only in 2015, when everything seemed hopeless, did it fall off at all - and the ticket sales were still light-years ahead of where they were in the huge LA market in 1994.
Roll back to 2006, and they were doing quite well.
Not that they're going to actually be in LA after the new building is built, anyway.
Attendance during the next 2-3 years in the Coliseum should be enlightening, especially as Carol Rosenbloom moved out of it in the 1970s because it was both too big to fill and too out-of-date for even that era.
And if you look at the real attendance in LA during the 60's to 79, the LA Rams did quite well, leading the league in attendance for many years. The problem was the Coliseum being so vast and huge (can seat 92K), the blackout rule became an obstacle for TV exposure and revenue. Carroll Rosenbloom decided to move the franchise to Anaheim because 1) there was more likelihood that they could sell out the 69K seat Anaheim stadium (shared with the Angels), 2) they couldn't get LA City and the Coliseum to come up with $$$$ to rebuild or update the Coliseum, 3) they couldn't get the NFL to change the sell-out rule, 4) establish a new more suburban fan base in Orange County away from the heavy competition of the resurgent Lakers of the 80's (80, 82, 85, 87, 88), Dodgers (81, 88) and UCLA and USC Football. The fact that the Rams of the late 80's didn't fare very well hurt their attendance and support as well.
I agree the Coliseum has been and remains an outdated stadium. That has been an issue ever since the trend of NFL owners around the league pushing for City and State $$$$$ going into helping or financing stadium renovation or building, with the threat of litigation or moving the franchise elsewhere. The City of Los Angeles had suffered greatly in the 80's due to recession, loss of aerospace and manufacturing jobs, and a trend to suburban flight, along with poor budgetary management in the 80's and 90's (but not limited, many cities had the same problems.
Now Carol Rosenbloom died in a drowning accident prior to the move in 1979. His wife, Georgia Frontiere, inherited 70% ownership, fired her stepson Steve Rosenbloom, and completed the move, essentially alienating the LA fan base. The Raiders Al Davis saw a huge opportunity to take over the partially empty LA market, and bugged out of Oakland, leaving those fans, and forced the NFL to allow them to move to LA (through threat of litigation). Now the LA fanbase was split, and attendance at Anaheim, while selling out, eventually withered when the team played poorly in the late 80's and early 90's, coupled with Orange County's recession due to defense spending related layoffs. If you don't field a competitive team, it can be quite a challenge to keep your fanbase, in any sport.
A quote from Wikipedia:
"As has become increasingly common with sports franchises, the Rams began to blame much of their misfortune on their stadium situation. With Orange County mired in a deep recession resulting largely from defense sector layoffs, the Rams were unable to secure a new or improved stadium in the Los Angeles area, which ultimately cast their future in Southern California into doubt.
By 1995, the Rams franchise had withered to a mere shadow of its former self. Accusations and excuses were constantly thrown back and forth between the Rams fan base, ownership, and local politicians. Many in the fan base blamed the ownership of Georgia Frontiere for the franchise's woes, while ownership cited the out-dated stadium and withering fan support."
IMHO, having lived through that era, most of us RAM fans hated Frontiere, she not having much business or football acumen, seen as a gold-digger owner, and expecting to extract money out of the cities she was trying to deal with. When she tried to move to STL, the owners voted 21-3-6 No. She then took a page out of Al Davis' book by threatening to sue, and the owners acquiesced, changing to 23-6 Yes, only the Steelers, Giants, Jets, Bills, AZ Cardinals, and Redskins opposing. When she moved the Rams out of LA, we felt the same way as you feel - good riddance, had enough of her.
The Raiders "enjoyed" having the LA market to itself only until 1995, when they too leveraged cities against cities (and basically extorted $10M from the hapless Irwindale City Council) and moved back to Oakland. Again, they suffered the same issues as the RAMS, namely moving into an old Coliseum stadium, and expecting improvements, renovations, luxury boxes and finding it impossible to get sell outs and $$$$ from a tumultuous 80's LA economy. Couple that with the thug mentality of the Raiders and their fan base, now expanded into the LA gang scene, a fairly called risky area in Exposition Park (home to USC too), and Raiders games became terrible places to go for real football fans. Thus, the Raider fan support also dwindled, and Davis could not compensate with TV revenue.
Again, in the End, Al Davis, IMHO, basically outmaneuvered the City of Oakland and Alameda County into the following:
"In order to convince Davis to return, Oakland spent $220 million on stadium renovations. These included a new seating section – commonly known as "Mount Davis" – with 10,000 seats. It also built the team a training facility and paid all its moving costs. The Raiders pay $525,000 a year in rent – a fraction[clarification needed] of what the nearby San Francisco 49ers paid to play at the now-extinct Candlestick Park – and do not pay maintenance or game-day operating costs."
Now, apparently, the City of Oakland, and the County of Alameda, because of relatively poor economies and a poor population base (especially compared to the rest of the SF/San Jose area) cannot come up with anything that helps a stadium renovation or rebuild for years to come, the Raiders are stuck. IMHO, Karma came around there.
Well, you are entitled to your own opinion. The LA and Orange Counties area refused to give money it did not have to finance improvements that would benefit the private owners. Yes, new venues in Staples Center and LA LIVE were created with tax breaks, but the majority of funding there was private through AEG, who also tried to float the Farmers Field concept in Downtown LA as well.
LA has many many options that are well known today for its entertainment dollar (Lakers, Dodgers, Angels, Kings, Galaxy, UCLA, USC, Sparks - and that's just sports) while the STL and Missouri have primarily the Rams, Cardinals (very strong baseball town), Blues, and then the Chiefs and Royals. Mizzou football too. Given the resurgence of the California economy, and big $$$$ here, it was a matter of time till the right situation came around for an NFL team to relocate. I'm not happy for the STL fans, they deserve an NFL team. But obviously Kroenke believes there's a lot better business model in LA than STL, no matter what STL/Missouri came up with.
And the vast majority of the money is being spent privately, with comparatively little coming from city or county coffers. And that's the big stumbling block for San Diego, Alameda/Oakland, and to a lesser extent, STL.
Not common knowledge, but the San Diego Chargers actually were originally the LA Chargers in their infancy, and moved to SD when it was apparent the Rams would make huge competition for them.
Wow. I admit I gave this only marginal attention, but I thought San Diego would be the most likely to move, not the Rams.
But I grew up in Missouri and still have a warm spot for the Cardinals (even now that they're in AZ) and good memories of the old Busch stadium.
So whatcha gonna watch now? Mizzou, Arkansas or Australian Rugby?
But I grew up in Missouri and still have a warm spot for the Cardinals (even now that they're in AZ) and good memories of the old Busch stadium.
So whatcha gonna watch now? Mizzou, Arkansas or Australian Rugby?
St. Louis was going to spend a boatload of public money to build a new stadium, when the existing building wasn't even 20 years old. The NFL did not deal with the situation in good faith, but still supports teams in much smaller markets. If the situation was a foregone conclusion, as it appears to have been, then the league shouldn't have made St. Louis spend $11 million dollars coming up with proposals only to constantly move the goalposts.
As far as the commentary about Frontiere's ownership, the three times that the Rams made it to the Super Bowl were under her ownership.
Anyway, as I said, I'm done with the NFL. At least until the hopelessly corrupt and incompetent Roger Goodell falls over from a heart attack, and some (hopefully) more ethical leadership steps in. This should be a wake-up call to NFL fans everywhere - unless you're in Green Bay, your team's market isn't safe, and they're going to try to wring every possible cent out of you for stadiums and Zod only knows what else. At least most MLB and NHL teams pay more than lip service to working with their markets and fans, whenever possible.
And I know exactly what's going to happen with Kroenke's glittery new "entertainment complex," and I desperately hope that it does, just to give the LA market what it really deserves - first, the ambitious plan will come in over budget, and they'll beg for public funds. Then they'll start scaling back all of the ancillary stuff, until only the stadium is left, and probably not in the fancy form of the current proposal. Then Kroenke will still play the Jerry Jones game of packaging a terrible product in a pretty box, except hopefully to the 40k crowds that the Rams drew in the 80s and early 90s. Such an endgame would warm my heart, just a bit.
As far as the commentary about Frontiere's ownership, the three times that the Rams made it to the Super Bowl were under her ownership.
Anyway, as I said, I'm done with the NFL. At least until the hopelessly corrupt and incompetent Roger Goodell falls over from a heart attack, and some (hopefully) more ethical leadership steps in. This should be a wake-up call to NFL fans everywhere - unless you're in Green Bay, your team's market isn't safe, and they're going to try to wring every possible cent out of you for stadiums and Zod only knows what else. At least most MLB and NHL teams pay more than lip service to working with their markets and fans, whenever possible.
And I know exactly what's going to happen with Kroenke's glittery new "entertainment complex," and I desperately hope that it does, just to give the LA market what it really deserves - first, the ambitious plan will come in over budget, and they'll beg for public funds. Then they'll start scaling back all of the ancillary stuff, until only the stadium is left, and probably not in the fancy form of the current proposal. Then Kroenke will still play the Jerry Jones game of packaging a terrible product in a pretty box, except hopefully to the 40k crowds that the Rams drew in the 80s and early 90s. Such an endgame would warm my heart, just a bit.
