Well, here we are. We’re in another fine mess that only St. Louis can pull off. Yep, another team is in a position to leave. Only this time, it would be a first – the first major city to lose a pro team for the second time in the same sport.
Let’s look back at how we lost the first team. Bill Bidwill, the owner of the St. Louis (football) Cardinals, wanted a new stadium and no one was willing to build it. You see, Bidwill did not go to high school in St. Louis, therefore he was an outsider.
Bill Bidwill moved the Big Red, and while it took him awhile to get a stadium built in Arizona, he finally got it. Where was the so-called civic leadership? Where were the deep pockets? Ok, so the team was lousy and Bidwill did not endear himself to some. Understandable.
Along comes the Rams. A team that was hapless in L.A. with an owner who was looking for cash and a sweetheart deal with a new stadium, not to mention a few gullable citizens. I give it to Jerry Clinton. He worked hard to galvanize St. Louis to get a stadium built. Heck, he even went to high school
here. But when the going got tough, everyone but Jerry got going … the other way. No, thanks. They did not want to spend the real money it took to make it locally owned.
Then, there was City Comptroller Virvus Jones, the only person who saw what was coming with respect to the financing and who was going to be on the hook. His other political colleagues wanted to shoo him away because he was making trouble. In reality, Virvus was making sense, only no one wanted to get into that line and get some.
So now we have a team we think we can get. The negotiators gave everything away – I mean everything – to the Rams (including, I am sure, someone’s first born) to have football in St. Louis.
Now the Rams are trying to move again. Why? Because the current owners cannot pay the inheritance tax on the team after Georgia Frontiere died. Somewhere in the vicinity of $300 million is what the IRS charges these days, and for Chip Rosenbloom and his family it would be better if they just sold it.
It has happened before when a family gave up ownership due to taxes. The Robbie Family had to sell the Miami Dolphins a few years ago because of a similar situation. Fortunately, they had a local investor that kept the team in Miami. The same will not be said for St. Louis. Not one person who went to high school in St. Louis has raised his hand to claim ownership. The silent minority are the same ones who nearly thwarted efforts to get the team here in the first place. The same minority that has more money that they will ever spend in a lifetime, and yet they still elect to sit this one out.
Why is that? Surely, it’s not because St. Louis is short on millionaires.
Every excuse you can imagine will be used. The economy, for one. I get that part. People with a whole lot less are suffering a whole lot more than the ones that can afford to buy a football team. The stadium is an issue, and there will be no more sweetheart deals made by politicians and taxpayers. So come with cash if you want to build a new state-of-the-art stadium.
As for the fans, here we go again. You work hard to scrape up money to buy tickets for a haphazard team, only to be told that won’t be good enough. They want you to still come, although they will be working to sell and eventually move the team. Life sure is fair, isn’t it?
To second-guess those who were involved in negotiating this mess will not save the Rams. It only says, “Never let emotions get in the way of business with guys you didn’t go to high school with.”