[2ndDivisionVet]

Does “Ferguson” and all that have anything to do with this?

[allendale]

The St. Louis Rams wasted a draft pick on Michael Sam to please the NFL as part of the plan to get the NFL to approve its return to LA.

[Nachum]

Los Angeles is looking better and better.

[kingu]

Pretty sure the current stadium contract outlines the terms that the Rams are operating under. Unless the call is ‘we're doing what you're asking for’, I'm unclear what particular conversation they plan to have.

Do I particularly care if the Rams come to Los Angeles? No. Do I think that most owners would poo poo the plan? Probably - with the greater Los Angeles area being unaffiliated, all franchise merchandise sells quite well. When Los Angeles has a team, stores tend to stock mostly the local team's logo wear, which doesn't sell quite as well as the entire line does.

As well, Los Angeles not having a team is a massive stick to wave at cities to say ‘hey, do what we want, or we'll move to Los Angeles.’ The only leverage that cities have is that there's no available skybox ready stadium in Los Angeles. Sure, the Rose Bowl could be adapted, but local regulations that limit the number of events would pretty much preclude a franchise being based there. This is changing - there will likely be at least one built in the next five years.

[oldplayer]

The same “leaders” caused Bidwell to take the Cardinals to Phoenix. They wouldn’t do anything to help keep the family owned and run Cardinals in town. But they opened the vault for the Rams.

To heck with them. NO municipal or state funds should be used to bribe millionaires and their overpaid players to come to a town.

That’s just my opinion.

Oldplayer

[AnotherUnixGeek]

St. Louis city officials said Wednesday that the owner of the Rams isn’t returning their calls, so they plan to work directly with the NFL on efforts to keep a team—any team—in St. Louis

Yeah, good luck with that. As Al Davis showed way back in the '70s, if an NFL owner decides to move his team, the NFL can do very little about it. The NFL can't make Stan Kroenke talk to anyone, they can't block him from moving his team unless they want another losing lawsuit, and the NFL won't be giving St. Louis a replacement team.

If that's what it's down to, the good folks of St. Louis might have to be content savoring the glory years of The Greatest Show On Turf and wait for pitchers and catchers to report.

[Kozak]

This is another reason I’m a Packers fan. No owner to move the team , or interfere in the draft, or management of the team.

[Colofornian]

Good. LA is no Bastian of exemplary lifestyles...but between Ferguson and St Louis being the second most violent city in the country...others than just the Rams should be thinking about abandoning that metro area...

[lurk]

It is a city passionately in love with a baseball team. Other sports will always be peripheral.

It is also a city going through an urban reduction, a move to the suburbs.

Unless an NFL franchise wins and creates a history and a relationship with the population, it will not gain traction in St Louis.

[Jim Noble]

Hands up! Don’t scoot!