On Friday, a new task force formed by Missouri governor Jay Nixon published a proposal for a new stadium in St. Louis. For the Rams. To play in. If they don’t move to Los Angeles.
The Rams, who didn’t attend the press conference at which the new stadium was announced, have issued a statement regarding the proposal.
“The St. Louis Rams have worked for many years, with several agencies and commissions, and their senior management, responsible for stadium facilities in St. Louis. This includes multiple discussions with the Governor’s recently formed NFL Task Force. We received the Task Force materials shortly before the press conference. We will review them and speak with the Task Force representatives.”
That’s what they said. Here’s what it likely means.
We’ve given the politicians years to make a viable proposal for a new stadium. They’ve yet to do so. We even went to an arbitration over what it would take to put the current stadium in the top 25 percent of all NFL stadiums. Our proposal won, but the politicians chose not to upgrade the stadium. Which puts us on a one-year-at-a-time lease. Which allows us to leave.
And leave we will if, as we expect, the proposal made Friday contains the same deficiencies that past proposals exhibited. Actually, we now hope that the proposal is deficient, because we’ve begun the process of emotionally detaching from St. Louis, given the recent announcement that owner Stan Kroenke wants to build a stadium in Los Angeles. We would have preferred no proposal at all. But now that a proposal has been made, we need to read it and find fault with it to justify our intention to move.
