Rams - LA or StL?

Inglewood? ....I wish they went with plan A and built something next to Staples Center, LA Live. Much better night life for before and after the game.

 

Have been to Hollywood Park a few times when visiting LA. I thought the whole idea in closing the track was that the land was too valuable for retail/houaing development? While NFL is certainly more popular than horse racing, I'd be hard pressed to believe that putting the kaibosh on something that will help the tax base (homes/biz) and replacing it with something that will likely help deplete the public coffers (a publically funded stadium) is a good idea. I get civic pride and all, but LA is not some two-bit town that needs an injection of glamour and relevance.

However, some reports indicate that if they move, the Rams would privately fund the development in the Hollywood Park area. If true, then that would certainly be more attractive I would think...T

 

I lived in St Louis when the Rams were lured away from LA. Lured is perhaps the wrong term, the city threw millions at them and hungry fans and wealthy socialites paid thousands per seat for Personal Seat Licenses. PSL were basically a premium on the right to purchase the season ticket for a particular seat. Ranged from about $1500 for nosebleed to over $5000 for choice seats.

STL made the Rams owner (Frontiere, whose husband drowned under questionable circumstances IIRC) an offer the organization would have been stupid to refuse. Hundreds of millions of dollars. It was a stupid deal then and the practice has only gotten worse as the NFL has grown.

It is only fitting that today Los Angeles might do the same thing and take the team back, although for some reason I doubt the final balance sheet might show this to be only a so-so deal for the city and the investors.

If they leave, good riddance. St Louis is a baseball town anyway. More than half the state roots for the Chiefs as it is.

 

IIRC the PSL was charged to raise money to pay the NFL's "fee" for moving the team...after STL lost a bid to a) move the Patriots to STL (just prior to Bob Kraft buying the Patriots, they were owned by a distant relative of the Busch family who lived in STL), and then b) lost the expansion bid to Carolina and Jacksonville, the NFL wasn't keen on a team back in STL...so they charged a huge "moving fee" for taking the team out of LA.

the funny thing is most die hard NFL fans in Missouri are Chiefs fans, as you say; and most die hard NFL fans in LA are Chargers fans

but it's clear to me that the NFL wants a team out of a dying midwestern town with a terrible reputation, and in a key market in a "glamorous" city. so it's just a matter of when, IMO.

 

An contraire-,most die hard LA fans are COWBOYS fans

 

The Cowboys have done training camp in Oxnard for quite a few years have they not?

 

I don't recall ever seeing a Cowboys fan in LA...lots of chargers, raiders and rams fans, and even bars catering to eagles, browns and packers fans...but no love for Jerry's sparkly cowgirls.

 

I don't travel enough to LA enough but when I've been in Vegas, always seems to be a healthy contingent of Cowboy fans. Of course, those are tourists mostly...T

 

I kept reading that with the cost of real estate and the cost of a new stadium, parking, traffic,
the only way LA can have a team is if they have TWO teams, and they alternate which weekends they play on.
I thought at one time the Angels and Dodgers never played home games at the same time, I may be mistaken...

 

Whisky...The Giants & Jets share a single stadium so it can be done.

LA can, in theory, handle two teams, perhaps better than some smaller cities can handle a single team - just in terms of demographics and shear # of people to draw from. However, I can't see the NFL expanding to 33 teams; if thats the case then LA would have to snag two teams from somewhere else - Rams and who?

T