Rams moving training camp? To Wisconsin?

After a 3-year run at Rams Park, the Rams are apparently going to move training camp to Wisconsin this year, says Scott Linehan, speaking to the Post-Dispatch as though he has unilateral authority on the subject. Wisconsin's advantages would be cooler weather and better opportunity to scrimmage against other teams. Wherever the Rams set up camp, they'll be close to the Bears, Chiefs and Packers.

Disadvantages would seem to include cost, one reason the team stopped training in Macomb, and facilities, another reason the team stopped training in Macomb. Another disadvantage is that training camp is like three months away and NOBODY IN THE ORGANIZATION KNOWS WHERE THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE IT. That is some awesome damn advance planning right there, isn't it?

I personally dislike the move because it puts a large obstacle in the way of folks who want to see training camp. Macomb's far enough away that I only attended training camp once while the Rams were there (2000). With the Rams practicing in St. Louis, though, it's been easy to see them any weekend. Heck, I played hooky from work to catch a weekday practice last year. A move to Wisconsin - no, it's not Timbuktu - substantially increases the effort and expense required to see the
team. Certainly it would limit me to one visit at most, with zero being very likely.

If most fans are in my situation, there figures to be a mere trickle of fan reports for future training camps, which borders on tragedy, because local media coverage of training camp is completely inadequate. Hell, even when the team's training here, the local radio stations can barely be bothered to report live from camp. I don't see a big media caravan rolling up to Whitewater or Oshkosh or Oconomowoc or wherever. As good as Jim Thomas is, there's not enough of him. The Post-Dispatch is the Cardinals' paper first and foremost. We're going to be limited to the restricted space the paper
gives Jim and to whatever the Rams let Nick Wagoner say on their site.

The tragedy is that you have a fan base craving for info, and a team and media outlet putting little info out. The fans have succeeded greatly at bridging that gap on their own. Where did you first find out about Cliff Ryan kicking butt, or Quinton Culberson making eye-opening plays in camp last year? I know I heard it first from fan reports.

Moving Rams training camp to Wisconsin will have the same effect as closing training camp to the public altogether. The rabid fans the team should be cultivating are going to be starved for information instead. Once again this offseason, the Rams, a franchise that should be doing everything it can to be fan-friendly, have instead chosen another fan-unfriendly move.

Do you people want fans, or not?