Locking horns

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

The Rams' deal with St. Louis was just too good - and the owners wanted a major cut without having the salary cap go up too much.

Oilers Owner Bud Adams says the Rams saw their pot of gold at the end of their rainbow and they quickly jumped at a unique deal. If you had asked NFL teams if they would be interested in the same deal in St. Louis, seven or eight would raise their hands and there would be a stampede. It would be like the running of the bulls at Pamplona." Adams says he wouldn't be shocked if the Rams end up in St. Louis. "We want to see them go," Adams says. "I think they can sit down and work out their differences. I'm sure they will get it together."

Patriots Owner Robert Kraft also was frank. "A lot of what happened here could have a tremendous impact on the Patriots and any stadium situation we might have in New England," says Kraft, who owns Foxboro Stadium but wants a better arrangement. Me way this would have worked out would have put us at a great disadvantage to these teams with new stadiums and large revenues. The Rams in St. Louis, with the deal they have, would be making $25 million while I'd be in New England losing $10 million. In 1999, there is no salary cap and what kind of chance would I have trying to compete against that?"

Georgia Frontiere

and John Shaw

With deft pre-meeting lobbying and maneuvering, the Rams' moguls would have had a significantly better chance of swaying Tagliabue, members of the crucial finance committee and the rest of the owners. Instead, the Rams' "approve-this-or-we'll-sue" posture offended owners and gave them one more excuse for saying no.

Shaw was one of the architects of the salary cap, but that didn't earn him the right to expect a quid pro quo. And this is where Frontiere's own point about her not being a member of the good ol' boys club comes into play. It wasn't sexism as much as a reality that because she isn't a member of the trading-gossip and pick-up-the-phone inner circle of owners, it hurt the Rams in this deal.

The Carolina Panthers

To get a stadium built in Charlotte without going to the taxpayers or getting the franchise intolerably in debt, the Panthers and Charlotte marketing guru Max Muhleman came up with the permanent seat license concept - under which the purchaser makes a one-time payment for the right to buy season tickets.

It worked wonders in Charlotte, where the PSLs went well enough to conditionally finance the stadium and convince the NFL to award the franchise to Jerry Richardson and his partners. The NFL loves the idea of new ways to generate revenue but wants to establish the precedents about PSLs now. With Muhleman as a consultant St. Louis took the concept one step further, targeting the personal seat license money not for stadium construction - the taxpayers had to foot the bill there - but for the Rams' settlement of their stadium lease in Anaheim, their relocation costs and their own pockets.

So with the trend established, and with other owners looking at PSLs as possible avenues for stadium financing, the league needed to shake down the Rams as much as possible. The question: Is that money ticket revenue and subject to revenue sharing? The answer: pending. The Rams offered a package amounting to about $26 million, but the league wanted more. It wanted much of it in a non-profit stadium fund, and wanted it outside the realm of gross revenues, which wouldn't jack up the salary cap. Which leads us to... .