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Rams for sale: Time to panic?
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I am certain there were a lot of Rams fans over the age of 30 this morning that picked up their newspapers and had a sinking feeling. On the front page of the Post-Dispatch the headline stated For Sale: Rams. The thought had to be...oh no here we go again.
Bernie Miklasz broke the story this morning that the St. Louis Rams are officially for sale and have retained the services of Goldman Sachs to facilitate the deal. The news that the team will eventually transfer out of the hands of Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez is not a surprise. They have had to deal with a huge estate tax burden following the death of their mother Georgia Frontiere. It was always believed that they would eventually have to sell to settle up with the IRS. That time has come.
Rosenbloom and Rodriguez are not crying poor, but they do not have the financial means that an owner of an NFL franchise needs to have, so they are in the position to have to sell. They have always stated their preference to sell to local ownership to keep the franchise in St. Louis. The sad and disheartening part of today's story is that they are going to open up the bidding to out of town parties. Apparently there has been no one to step up locally to buy the franchise. According to Miklasz's article there is frustration within the Rams inner circle that there has not been a local buyer to step up and try to buy the team. I understand that position from their perspective. The problem is that, unfortunately, the number of St. Louisians who can foot this sort of bill is a pretty short list.
The franchise is listed for about 1 billion dollars. Chip and Lucia's piece of the team is worth, roughly, about 600 million with Stan Kroenke owning the other 40%. Kroenke cannot buy the other 60% because of NFL ownership rules. He would have to sell the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche to become the majority owner of the Rams. It does make me wonder why Kroenke does not want to own the Rams outright? The Avs/Nuggets and Pepsi Center are a nice property but they are certainly not the money printing machine that an NFL team is. So because Kroenke can't, or won't, become the principal owner who among St. Louis people could step up.
So doing a little math the Rams would need someone with about $600 million, or be able to finance $600 million, to buy an NFL team. Among the names that COULD do it are the Taylor famliy, owners of Enterprise Rental. Jack Taylor has an estimated net worth of over 3 billion dollars. Jack is 82 years old and is probably not looking to get into the NFL business at this point in his life. Andy, his son, might be but there has been nothing to indicate that he has any interest. The other name that is out there is August Busch IV. The net worth for Busch is not known, due to the recent sale of AB, but it is estimated the family worth was also north of $3 Billion as well. How much that has fluctuated due to the sale of Anheuser Busch is not known. But the Busch's wanted to get out of the sports business when they dumped the Cardinals in the mid 90's. That is pretty much the list of people outside of Kroenke who are locals and could afford to get into the NFL ownership business.
The Rams are upset because there is no local group coming forward and the city of St. Louis doesn't have that many people who can get into the game. That is a problem. The reality is that the team, unless Stan Kroenke wants to make a move to become majority owner, is going to be sold to an outside party. That does not necessarily mean the team is going to be moving. In my mind who owns the team is not as concerning as the stadium situation, because if the stadium situation is not figured out then any owner of the Rams will have to make the decision to move this franchise out of the outdated Edward Jones Dome.
The Edward Jones Dome is what is going to have to be addressed before the thoughts of the Rams packing up and moving out of town will be forgotten about. The Rams are going to have to get a new facility or have one under construction before 2020. It is as simple as that. What scares me the most is what Bernie Miklasz suggested in his article. Miklasz asks whether a deal could be worked out that would "make the Dome workable for the Rams and the CVC for the immediate future until both sides agree on a long term plan?" I have been told at multiple points through the years that the CVC and the Rams are not one of the best working relationships. Add on top of that the CVC's track record is not real good and you really have to question whether they are even capable of getting something like that done. In short if Rams fans are holding out hope that the CVC is going to solve this problem they are probably fooling themselves.
It is also no secret that public financing for a new stadium is out of the question. The Cardinals found that out to some extent and certainly in this economic climate there is no way the state or city is going to be in a position to put big time dollars in a new facility. So what is a workable situation? Here is my realistic scenario....
The Rams are bought by an unnamed owner who is at least open to the idea of keeping the team in St. Louis. That person and Stan Kroenke understand that they are going to have to build their new stadium but the government will provide land, infrastructure and some dollars for a brand new facility to be built somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, and I do mean the entire metropolitan area. If the best place to put the new stadium is in the county somewhere then that is where it needs to be. The region cannot get bogged down in an in-fight on where to put the stadium.
As soon as Georgia Frontiere passed away I knew that there were troubling days ahead for the Rams and their future in St. Louis. It does not need to end in a doom and gloom scenario but it is time to not bury our heads and figure out a way to keep the team in St. Louis. Hopefully this is the start of something good and not the beginning of the end.
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