St Louis Rams moving to LA: The View from America
Wednesday 13 January 2016 17:37, UK
Now that the St Louis Rams are going back to LA, the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers are weighing up their options. Our US sportswriter Alex Ferguson looks at the demise of the Rams in St Louis, and looks at what the US media has been saying about the other situations....
St Louis is mourning once again. Their Rams are gone, walking through the city's incredible arch and taking the gateway to the west all the way back to Los Angeles.
St Louis has lost a football team before - the Cardinals bolted in 1988 - but this team's loss is a particularly sad one. Memories of the Rams throughout their existence in the Midwest have not exactly been pearly, but I fell head over heels with the 1999 team which included Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Marshall Faulk. They were so damn fun.
But now they're gone, and the Edward Jones Dome will stand there, Sunday-less for the ages. Mark Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, has already said that during his search for another city (which will happen pretty soon now that the NFL has told him that they weren't interested in his bid to take Oakland to Carson) that St Louis isn't an option. "It hurts," one fan told USA Today, while another said: "It's depressing to see a team that I poured all my Sundays into leave." That's pretty right.
St Louis (the city) tried everything to keep the team, offering billionaire owner and St Louis (the team) $150m of public money towards a new stadium and keeping the team in the city. Owner Stan Kroenke refused.
Kroenke got his wish in a 30-2 vote, moving off to Inglewood, leaving the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers the odd ones out at the table.
Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis now have some working out to do.
Spanos still has to work out whether he wants to move - he has first option of moving to LA, while the Raiders are second on the list if he says no. If the Chargers stay, both teams will get $100m towards a new stadium for the league if the plans are in place within the year, plus the 'usual' $200m they'd normally get from the league in stadium moves.
What's interesting to note is that the Raiders knew the game was up - and withdrew their relocation request to a Carson site which they would have shared with the Chargers - before the owners' vote happened.
"It's very difficult to say right now [that] I'm going to do this or do that," said Spanos in a press conference.
The San Diego Union Tribune has reported that if the Chargers decided to up sticks and leave, they could share the LA Coliseum, the home of the University of Southern California Trojans, with the Rams while the Inglewood property was fully prepared.
And as for 'Raider Nation'? Davis was, according to reports, visibly miserable about not getting his team moved (did I mention that a move would have doubled the value of his franchise thanks to LA's massive TV market?).
Davis said: "This is not a win for the Raiders today. We'll be working really hard to find us a home. So for our fans and everything else, don't feel bad. We'll get it right."
It's impossible not to want to give all three sets of fans a big hug to get through their pain. 'Raider Nation' and Chargers fans might dislike each other immensely, but they must feel like they united in the uncertainty of the bad relationship. Their current partners - who have given them hell for the past few years - don't want to be with them in their current house, and want to leave. That can't be fun.
And as for the St Louis Rams fans? Give them another hug. Their partner has already walked off to Tinseltown, where they'll be "treated better". Apparently.
