As of today, there still has been no official rejection by the St. Louis CVC of the Rams' (purportedly) $700 million Edward Jones Dome renovation plan. That plan won out in arbitration three weeks ago as the only way to upgrade the Dome into a first-tier facility under terms of the current lease. The delay in action may not be on the CVC, which has stated they're waiting for the Rams to give an official go-ahead. Supposedly, the plan can't be rejected till that happens. (It also hasn't helped clear things up that at least three different deadlines for rejecting the plan have been reported. The CVC may have had 30 days, 60 days or till "mid-April".)
Brian Burwell, who has carried no shortage of water for the Rams in the Dome matter, let the CVC have it in a STLToday column February 5th:
So let’s hope the CVC acts as quickly as the arbitration panel did in identifying what the city needs to do to provide St. Louis with a first-class venue that can attract Super Bowls, Final Fours and other big-ticket sports events to the city. Then we can let these earnest folks at the CVC get on with the business of bringing to the grossly outdated Dome all those tractor pulls, marching band competitions and “bag-lunch” type conventions that the CVC seems to think are infinitely more important keys to a thriving downtown revitalization than a National Football League franchise.
...But I can’t blame the CVC for thinking this way, since it’s in the business of thinking small. So let the good folks at the CVC reject the arbitration decision and move off the point in these negotiations with the Rams and put someone with a real vision for the region’s future in charge.
Again, if the CVC has correct in waiting for word from the Rams before proceeding, Burwell's criticism doesn't ring entirely fairly. Burwell does continue to insist strongly that the Rams are not looking to move anywhere:
The Rams have already made it clear that they want to stay in St. Louis. Go back and listen to the interview team president Kevin Demoff did with me last month. He didn’t try to be cute. He didn’t tap dance. He said the Rams want to put together a deal that will keep them in St. Louis for the next 40 years.
The Rams are not talking about Los Angeles now, and that has a lot to do with the simple fact that they still have two years left on their current lease, the stadium issue in LA is still unresolved and I doubt that Kroenke wants to give up a slice of his ownership to any potential ownership group in Southern California.
The CVC has made a big move seemingly aimed at preventing that; Mom (they're Mom, because in divorces, Mom always seems to get the house) locked up the best divorce lawyer in town, figuratively speaking. They have retained Goldman Sachs to
"keep the Rams in the Dome, or, if that's not possible, to maintain a National League Football (sic)
team in St. Louis."
OK, some comments on that. First of all, that statement sure has a lot of "we give up" in it right off the top. Second, thanks to the CVC for idiotically perpetuating St. Louis' image as only a baseball town by trying to put the Rams in the NATIONAL LEAGUE.
More important is the presence of Goldman Sachs. Managing director Greg Carey is their chairman of public sector and infrastructure. He's apparently a superstar lawyer at convincing cities to make concessions to sports teams. Goldman has financed or advised on the financing of EVERY NFL stadium recently built, but up till now, they've always represented team owners. Well, like I said, the city, Mom, got the best lawyer in this possible divorce, not Dad. Turns out one of Mom's friends is the governor. The CVC hired Goldman on the recommendation of Missouri governor Jay Nixon, who's certainly gotten himself involved early in this process. Hard not to like that; Jay's a big football fan.
Also hard to like. Politics is unavoidable here, and I'm probably Sean Hannity compared to most people, let alone sports bloggers, so you may want to skip this paragraph. The Goldman link is political incest at its very worst. Goldman is a huge Democratic Party contributor, so of course Nixon and the city want to work with them, and vice versa. They're also a bunch of crooks as far as I'm concerned, making money off selling the awful mortgage-backed derivatives to investors last decade while turning around and shorting said derivatives for themselves because they knew they were utter trash. They played dirty, crashed the market, came out far ahead of anyone, and will never get in trouble for it because they're now the people regulating the market. They're also basically the people running the financial machinery of the NFL.
Follow the money here. What does the NFL want more than anything? A team back in Los Angeles. (Goldman is, however, also currently advising the Chargers.)
Anyway. Welcome back. Goldman's official role is to advise the CVC on ways to pay for Dome renovations, ways to finance construction of a new stadium, or ways to get more money out of the Dome if the Rams leave. The CVC states its official objective as to renovate or build a facility "sufficient to retain a National Football League franchise in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area." The local politicians speak with more determination than the headline writers do. Governor Nixon:
"The state has a long-term interest in the future of the Dome and in ensuring Missouri continues to be home to this proud NFL franchise." CVC board member Jim Shrewsbury:
"It's a sign we haven't given up. The option is to let them go. This is trying to find an alternative." That nothing's gotten done so far, blame Stan Kroenke, says "Kitty" Ratcliffe, another CVC board member. She's
interviewed that the big problem so far in trying to keep the team is that Kroenke has taken no part in talks, so there really hasn't been a negotiation at all.
You've also got St. Louis' dysfunctional political system threatening to rear its ugly head. The CVC has legal authority to buy land and build and operate other stadiums besides the Dome. But you've also got St. Louis County, echoing Burwell,
proclaiming the community can now have "a broader conversation about the Rams, and the CVC is not the tip of the spear for that conversation." That sounds like a broadside at the CVC, which, remember, says
it represents the whole metropolitan area, or at least it's the county laying a marker that it's going to take a crack at luring the Rams out of the city. We know there are a couple of sites in the county (Fenton and Maryland Heights) mentioned as prospective stadium sites; we also know the county's still paying part of the original bonds taken out to build the Dome. They've got long-held, hard-earned skin in the game.
Stan's input is going to be needed at some point, obviously. Local news has pointed out that Kroenke paid for the Pepsi Center in Denver, which houses "his" NBA and NHL teams, in its entirety, and he's also the full owner of The Emirates stadium, the home of his Arsenal soccer team in London. It would be completely disingenuous of him to expect to pick up none of the bill for a new stadium. Though I'm personally fairly suspicious of the viability of the state of Minnesota's
fundraising plans, (do Minnesotans really gamble billions of dollars on
pulltabs?) Ziggy Wilf is basically splitting the cost of the Vikings' new stadium 50/50 with them and the city of Minneapolis.
$200 million of Wilf's share comes from a loan from the NFL's G-4 program. Kroenke would assumedly be eligible for a similar loan, though the league, to its credit, currently only grants those in efforts to keep teams in their home markets. That makes St. Louis a much more economical option for Kroenke than Los Angeles, at least for now. Stan can put down $300 million on a new stadium and get a friendly loan from the NFL, or he can fork out an estimated $500 million relocation fee to move into an L.A. stadium he won't own any part of.
Ultimately, everything here's still up to Stan. Not like you really needed 1,400 words to tell you that!
Last but not least, the Minnesota stadium, like I suppose every stadium built since the mid-90s, will be funded to some degree by PSLs. St. Louis is in a unique position here, as the Dome could be the first stadium built with PSL money to be replaced by another stadium built with PSL money. RamView more than likely isn't going there. What was a $1,000 PSL in 1995 seems likely to be at least $2,500 based on what I've seen in other stadiums. I have seats in the Dome so perfect I have all but requested to be propped up in one of them after I die. I won't get 50-yard line seats in the new place, won't probably get to stay with friends I've made over 15 years of screaming for our Rams together; I'm sure not paying for another PSL for the opportunity to lose all of that. If I were younger, maybe I'd buck up and do it. But I'd have to go to Rams games another 25 years or more for that kind of investment to be worth it to me.
I'm too old now for that. Sunday Ticket is a hell of a lot cheaper.
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