Locking horns

Sporting News, The, March 27, 1995 by Terry Frei

Let the Rams go.

That said, there are more subplots involved in the NLS's vote to block the Rams' move from Anaheim to St. Louis than in Hugo's "Les Miserables," and to trim this into a which-side-is-right debate would miss the point.

It's all about money.

Dividing it up.

It is not about the NFL's concern for fans, not about balancing the interests of the ticket-buying and television-watching public in Los Angeles, Las Cruces, St. Louis or Sheboygan.

Rams Owner Georgia Frontiere and her front office are fleecing football-starved St. Louis, taking advantage not only of that city's determination to dispel the knocks against it as a football market but also of its insecurity.

Even in announcing the no vote at the conclusion of the league meetings in Phoenix, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was using terms such as "at this time." He cited three major reasons for the rejection: 1) Disagreement with the Rains over how revenue from personal seat licenses would be shared; 2) Fox TV's opposition because it - and the NFC - would lose the nation's No. 2 television market and, 3) The Rams' refusal to contribute to a "non-profit" stadium trust.

Tagliabue and the owners said the Rams hadn't met the league's guidelines for franchise shifts, primarily because they hadn't been losing money and were partly responsible for their lack of fan support. "Along with the federal court, we set up guidelines and the Rams didn't meet those deadlines," Bills Owner Ralph Wilson says. "Every time we make an exception, we get tackled hard down near the goal fine."

Tagliabue came off like a man trying to forestall litigation, but also like someone saying: We've established what we are. Now we're just haggling over the price. Make us another offer." Why? Because all three of those itemized objections above come down to this: $$$. And nobody said the door is closed.

Do we hear another bid?

"They arbitrarily created some criteria," Rams Executive Vice President John Shaw says. "They arbitrarily created a stadium trust fund there's never been a precedent for. So there wasn't much negotiation."

So who - or what - do you blame for this mess?

Al Davis

Many of his fellow NFL owners don't like the idea of giving the Raiders - and their most maverick owner - a monopoly in the Greater Los Angeles market. If the Rams leave, Davis immediately has more leverage to arrange a sweetheart deal of his own.

Bill Bidwill

Absolutely, this is piling on. The Arizona Cardinals' owner has been held culpable for everything in St. Louis from White Castle hamburger heartburn to the St. Louis Cardinals' NFL ineptitude and poor attendance in Busch Stadium. Some of it has been unfair, in part because Bidwill did little Rams Owner Georgia Frontiere isn't trying to do - only better, and with St. Louis as the destination rather than the departure city.

That said, Bidwill's "no" vote on the Rams' move to St. Louis was an abomination. Why? He should have stood up in that meeting room at the Arizona Biltmore and made a speech along the following lines:

"Look, I've taken a lot of heat - and unfairly - from St. Louis. My family moved the Cardinals from Chicago to St. Louis because it was a sound business decision. I moved them from St. Louis to Phoenix for the same reason. The stadium held 51,000, it was outdated about three days after it opened, and it was a rotten place to play - and watch - football. I was upfront that we couldn't last in that market under those conditions.

"But now? St. Louis is building a wonderful new stadium. They've figured out that it has to be a partnership, that a football franchise is a civic investment. If they had decided that sooner, I'd still be there. Personally, I don't think Anaheim Stadium's that bad compared to what I had in St. Louis, but the rules of the game have changed and those folks in Orange County ought to realize they need to get a better stadium and a better deal for a team out there. We ought to tell them that when they do that, we'll get another team back in there faster than a Super Bowl MVP can say: `I'm going to Disneyland.'

"I paid $7.5 million to the league to buy my way to Phoenix; we can squeeze more than that out of the Rams. I'm going to vote yes on the Rams' move, and I'll throw this in: I'll change divisions if it will help.

"The commissioner has said that one of our concerns is that the Rams moving to St. Louis would make the NFC West a geography teacher's nightmare. The 49ers, St. Louis, New Orleans, Atlanta and Carolina. If you ask me, we'd look pretty stupid continuing to make that an issue because we've shown all along those direction names don't mean anything to us, but I'll volunteer to switch the Cardinals from the NFC East to the NFC West and trade places with the Rams. Let's get a team back in St. Louis. And then when L.A. wakes up, put an NFC team back there, too. Maybe in Baltimore, too. We add two more teams, we get another $400 million or so in expansion fees, we have eight divisions of four teams - and we all win."

Owners' envy