With all the recent talk about the fate of the Rams and their future in St. Louis, one would think the sky is falling. Now might be the time to start handing out helmets.
This team will probably be sold within the next year or so. It has now been determined that the Rams’ current home will soon outlive its usefulness.
Now for the bad news. There does not appear to be a knight in shining armor who will pony up the nearly one billion dollars it would take to buy the team, nor does it appear the local economy is in a position to start a tax run to support the construction of a new facility.
Where is Virvus Jones when you need him? It wasn’t that long ago when then Comptroller Jones thought the stadium and its method of funding was a bad idea. Jones was villainized by the mainstream media as an obstacle who had to be ignored – after all, what would the guy in charge of fiscal responsibility know?
St. Louis wanted a football team and was willing to pay for it at any price … mission accomplished. We got one, and we have paid dearly for it. While the Rams have been entertaining, to say the least, the question remains: Was it worth it?
The Yay Sayers will tell you it has had a great impact on the city. After all, we won a Super Bowl. The team has created national exposure (with St. Louis being one of 32 cities in America that can boast of having an NFL team) and has done well in tax dollars. Besides, if you lose this team you may as well board up the town, because then no one is going to come here, especially corporate America.
The Nay Sayers will ask: What impact? The stadium was built on the pretense that it would increase convention business. When was the last convention that came to St. Louis when the 65,000 stadium seats were used? If not for the Rams, you could have built a more reasonable facility that could be used year-round and not block out dates in the fall for NFL football.
The Nay Sayers would ask: What tax dollars? Finally, how could anyone form their lips to ask the taxpayers to fund another stadium and then possibly charge for those PSL’s again?
By the way, since the Rams have come to St. Louis, nine of the city’s 18 Fortune 500 companies no longer call St. Louis home.
There needs to be discussion on what to do next. To allow the Rams to leave without a realistic dialogue would not be right. To accommodate them again with the option of them leaving would be criminal. This will not be solved overnight.
The search should be on for local ownership. I have consulted with some of my colleagues, and it has been determined that we may be a few dollars short of making a bid. So where is the money going to come from? This conversation should get started as soon as possible.
St. Louis is in trouble no matter what here. How they fix it will be quite interesting, as no politician wants this on his watch. Or do they? Can anyone remember who was mayor when the football team left the first time or when the Blues were all but gone to Canada? Folks, they come and they go. The problem is we do not know when they will come again.
I would like the Rams to stay, but not at the price it cost to bring them here. The stadium issue will be a hard sell on the non-football fan, who at last check outnumber football fans by a significant margin – which will be an even larger margin should someone start talking about raising taxes.