Let some other fans worry about L.A. for a change

Illustration - St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission

There's more good news accumulating about efforts to keep the Rams in St. Louis past 2014 lately than there has been in a long time.

* First, the team announced it was abandoning the London series after this season so it could concentrate on the "First Tier process." This finally looked like the team admitting some level of commitment to try to stay in St. Louis. It also looked like an act of goodwill toward the city and local fans by restoring home games in 2013 and 2014.

* Next, the city stepped up its offer to upgrade the Dome to "First Tier" status with a proposal addressing many of the features and concerns mentioned by the Rams in their counterproposal to the city's original plan. Highlights of the city's updated plan:
- Glass exterior on the east side to let in natural light and provide an expansive view of the city from inside
- Hanging scoreboard at midfield goes from 2-sided to 4-sided
- Existing end zone scoreboards are removed in favor of club seating
- Enough seating added overall to get capacity to 70,000, which qualifies Dome to host the Super Bowl
- Significant suite upgrades and (oh, puh-leeze) a private stadium entrance for club seat owners
- Expanded concourses
- Two-level team store with a street entrance
- Double the number of existing escalators
- Close Broadway Avenue on game days, but not permanently

The CVC says their new offer will cost "tens of millions" of dollars more than, "but not double," their original $124 million renovation plan. The city did not offer a new cost estimate of the updated plan. They're still expecting the Rams to pick up slightly more than half of the tab, and still contend there will have to be a public vote to approve the city's share of the cost. The panel of three has been selected for the arbitration process but there have been no proceedings yet.

A very important item to note is that the Dome does not have to be closed during the football season for the improvements in the city's new plan to be made. The Rams' initial proposal involved extensive renovations which the city insists would require the Dome to be closed for two years.

The takeaway here is that the Rams and the city are actually engaged in honest negotiations. The Rams aren't tanking it for L.A. and the city isn't half-assing their end of the deal. Both sides look serious about getting a mutually beneficial deal done. I haven't felt this positive about the Rams' long-term prospects in St. Louis in a long time.

* Finally, Shad Khan has committed the Jagwires to play a home game in London for FOUR years starting in 2013. Hard not to like that move from St. Louis' standpoint. Let our Florida counterparts, who stole our expansion franchise in 1995, and got to host a Super Bowl, despite their dump of a stadium, while St. Louis never has, worry a while about losing home games and a future where they've lost their team to London or Los Angeles or wherever. (Though Khan, unlike Stan Kroenke, has committed publicly to keeping his team where it is.)

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