He won’t pay the full $790 million, but he’ll be paying most of it.
Seth Wickersham of ESPN.com reports that NFL owners are expected to approve a resolution that will compel Rams owner Stan Kroenke to pay the $571 million in unallocated settlement proceeds to St. Louis, resolving the litigation arising from the relocation of Kroenke’s team.
The league already has collected $219 million from all NFL franchises. Kroenke wanted his partners to share the full amount of the settlement. His position was bolstered by sloppy wording of the relevant paperwork, along with a belief that the efforts of the Chargers and Raiders to push a competing stadium project gave St. Louis the blueprint for suing the Rams and the league.
The headline to the ESPN.com item is a little confusing. It reads “NFL to OK Stan Kroenke $571M payment to St. Louis.” As if Kroenke wants to do it. He doesn’t. His partners are making him do it. It’s not a happy resolution for Kroenke.
For some owners, it’s also not a good outcome. They believe Kroenke should foot the entire bill.
Ultimately, they’re all responsible. They all disregarded the NFL’s relocation policy in order to justify taking a team away from St. Louis and dropping it in L.A. They’re all guilty of allowing Kroenke to get what he wanted, at the expense of St. Louis.
Would some or many or most of the owners who voted to approve the move have declined absent a clear commitment by Kroenke to foot the bill if/when things go sideways? Yes. Still, they voted to approve a move that they arguably shouldn’t have approved. They allowed a team to escape its home market not because the home market was bad, but because Kroenke saw another market that he thought was better.
So while Kroenke perhaps should be financially responsible for the most or all of the settlement, every owner who voted to approve the relocation of the Rams is responsible for the outcome.
