Rams on the chopping block to be headed back to LA. I have to ask WHY???? It's a market that just doesnt support the teams they have had in the past? Is the local market starving for Local NFl ratings that bad? 10 AM Sunday....if you are going to watch great, I just don't think moving a team there does much...and the same people will go for a little while...

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I don't care but want them back in the right colors. I did see a doc a long time back about how the Raiders leaving affected LA fans. But you are right it seems a little like Atlanta as far as football loyalty.

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Elections have consequences.

The way I always describe LA is a bunch of Evanstons connected by overcrowded freeways. Thus very little concentration of people and thus it doesnt support fan bases.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

St. Louis doesn't seem to be capable of supporting them either, unless they are winning Superb Owls. I had them on my candidate list for London.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Los Angeles has supported the Lakers and its baseball teams well. The Kings have never had a huge fanbase relative to market size but it's always been steady: one of those "15,000 fans and they're all at the game" things. Only the Ducks and Clippers have been poorly supported, the Ducks because they're one hockey team too many in the area marketing only to Orange County, and the Clippers because until recently, their name has been synonymous with futility and racism.

The Rams made the mistake of moving to Anaheim in the '80s and leaving the Coliseum to the Raiders. However, the mistake may have been intentional, as the owner of the team (who inherited the team from her husband under mysterious circumstances) was from St. Louis and wanted to move the team there and systematically ran the team into the ground. Rachel Phelps from Major League is based on her; where else would Hollywood screenwriters get the idea?

Even though Los Angeles isn't a great sports town, St. Louis isn't much of a great one either. Yes, they love the Cardinals, but that's really about it. The Rams have had lots of local blackouts, and why wouldn't they? The team's last ten years have been some of the worst an NFL team has ever had, and that's half the team's local lifespan. The team isn't ingrained in the community on the same level as the Cardinals by a longshot, so why stand by them, especially when the Cardinals are dominant? And the Blues, despite being contenders just about every year until the 2004-05 lockout, have always struggled at the gate, which is critical to NHL success. They've either had bad attendance or high attendance with dirt-cheap ticket prices. The team has been a huge money-loser for every owner it's ever had except the Wal-Mart kids who owned it in the '90s for fun. Even the current ownership has lost so much money on the Blues that they had to sell their farm team in Peoria just to have working capital. I can't imagine Sloo hoops is a big deal.

The Rams' lease with their current stadium was written to say that the facility has to rank in at least the 50th percentile in a bunch of categories or the lease would be up, but seeing as the place was slapped up for cheap and on short notice, there was no way the place could ever keep up with newer stadiums. Missouri is strapped for cash, St. Louis County (white) doesn't like to work with St. Louis City (black), which are independent of each other, and the Rams' owner just bought a huge parcel of land that will fit a football stadium and parking. It doesn't look good for them keeping the team. Even though Los Angeles isn't a great sports town, there's still a bigger pie of money in Los Angeles than there is in St. Louis.

The league has successfully used Los Angeles to blackmail Minnesota, San Francisco, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Arizona, Indianapolis, Houston, and Seattle's respective government entities into either furnishing new stadiums or making significant capital improvements to existing ones. That's pretty significant. San Diego is probably going to join the list too. But now the league is running out of places to threaten. It might be time to just cash in the Los Angeles card, might as well do it with the team that played there for about 50 years.

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The NFL seems hell bent on placing a team in LA. The league has done fine without one for almost 20 years. If the Rams and/or Raiders go, what city will owners threaten to move to when they want a new stadium?

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

There aren't really any portable teams left once the Rams and Raiders are accounted for. Only nine out of 32 stadiums are more than twenty years old, and of those nine, five don't count: Soldier Field and Lambeau Field are almost total rebuilds, Arrowhead Stadium has been heavily renovated, Ralph Wilson Stadium is going to be heavily renovated, and the Georgia Dome is going to be replaced altogether. That leaves the Oakland Coliseum, the Superdome, Qualcomm Stadium, and Joe Robbie's Name of the Week. Saints aren't going anywhere, duh, I don't think the Dolphins are either, and the Chargers seem to have changed their tack from exploring a move to Los Angeles to asking for indemnification fees (that they aren't entitled to) from whoever does move in. The Raiders will keep sniffing around San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Oakland until someone gives them what they want, and with that the NFL will be pretty much rock-solid, or at least as rock-solid as a league based around sociopathy and brain damage is going to get in the coming years.

And sure, the league has done fine without Los Angeles, but if you can subtract a low-ceiling market in St. Louis and add a high-ceiling market in Los Angeles, why not do it? Bear in mind we're talking about America's Favorite TV Show here, not the goofy-ass niche-market economics of hockey where Winnipeg can generate more revenue than cities five times its size.

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On the topic of facility ages, it's pretty crazy that the dear old United Center is tied with the Kiel for 8th-oldest among NHL arenas and will be tied for 4th soon as Nassau, Joe Louis, Northlands, and the Saddledome close in the coming years. It's probably about the same in the NBA. I hope we get another 50 years out of it. Of course, they could just move to the Rahmarena in the South Loop.

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