Stan Kroenke – the Grinch that stole the Rams, have given the City of St. Louis another tab for leaving the fans high and dry. Since Kroenke decided to abandon St. Louis, more and more has been revealed about what the the city is going to foot the bill for, even as the team starts the next season in Los Angeles.
The latest is a report that St. Louis is on the hook for a $16.2 million bill, for a failed attempt to build a stadium in the city to keep the Rams playing there beyond this year. The monies will go to pay a number of folks involved in the potential stadium deal, including lawyers, consultants, planners, as well as many other firms who are due to receive payouts from the potential deal.
Kroenke, who swore he would ‘never’ move the Rams from St. Louis, after their departure from Los Angeles, is a multi-billionaire, owning teams in Denver – the Nuggets and Avalanche, as well as the MLS Colorado Rapids and Colorado Mammoth, part of the National Lacrosse League, as well as being the largest shareholder of English soccer club Arsenal. Despite the protests from the city and fans, Kroenke seemed to have made this deal over the last two years – despite St. Louis promising him that taxpayer dollars would pay for almost half of a new stadium for the team.
According to those close to the situation, besides today’s news about the $16 million payout for a ‘non-stadium’, St. Louis stands to lose over $10 million in taxes from games being played in the city, over $4 million in game day tax losses, that doesn’t include other revenues in food, beverage, parking, and other fees that would normally provide the city with additional dollars. The only silver lining, is that the taxpayers are off the hook for all the dollars that were promised to Kroenke to build the new stadium.
This is just another in the long line of lies that owners of NFL teams have thrown on their fans. They don’t care that these people, who spend their hard-earned money paying for tickets, parking, merchandise, and other things when they attend the games, are now out of luck. This happened in Baltimore when the Colts moved to Indianapolis, and when the original Browns moved to become the Ravens. It’s a vicious circle, but the bottom line for these owners is just that – who can make the most money in the deal, without giving one hoot about the fans that made them all the money in the first place.
The NFL is mostly to blame, allowing teams to just fold up their tents and take a franchise away from a good fan base – like St. Louis – where some of the most passionate fans live and die with all their teams. San Diego and Oakland are not far behind – and who’s doing their due diligence on them and what their motives are at the end of the day. The league has to decide what’s more important, continuing to make a mockery of the public, and keep moving teams like the circus does from town to town, or really telling these owners that they made a commitment to the city they belong to, and the fans that pay the bills for the owners.
Let’s face it – the public is duped, but no one cares. You and I would buy tickets to our favorite team if given the opportunity – bitch and moan about it, but at the end of the day the owners and league wins – and we all look like horse’s rearends. Until something change, by those that pay the freight for these teams – nothing will ever be normal. Kids buy jerseys of their favorite players, and the next year they’re playing for the teams they hate. It’s a business, plain and simple.
No one begrudges Kroenke for buying as many teams as he wants, nor doing whatever he thinks is best for his bottom line, but sometimes there is a right and wrong way of doing things in this world – even in sports. People can protest and rally all they want, but unless it truly affects them in their day to day livelihood, it is what it is, and that’s that. We don’t have that problem in the New York metro area, since we have multiple teams in multiple sports, but now I know how my old man felt when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It’s a shame, but heck – it’s just a sports team, right?
