I agree. St. Louis doesnt care about football. Great baseball town, & good hockey town. Move to LA.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

The Rams and Blues have always seemed to exist on shaky ground in St. Louis. The Blues have staved off insolvency and relocation (Saskatoon!) time after time, but always find a new sucker AHEM I MEAN DEVOTED CIVIC BOOSTER who's going to buy low on them and finally run them right. It's easy to point to the five-year run where the Rams went 15-45 as the deathblow to the NFL in St. Louis, but look at the city's NFL history since the Big Red moved down from Chicago:

1960-1973: missed playoffs
1974-1975: made playoffs, lost in first round both times
1976-1981: missed playoffs
1982: 5-4 in a strike season, lost to the Packers
1983-1987: missed playoffs
1988-1994: didn't have a team to miss the playoffs with
1995-1998: missed playoffs
1999-2001: HUGE-ISH CULTURAL PHENOMENON, WON SUPER BOWL, SPIED ON IN THE OTHER ONE THEY LOST
2002-2004: a kinda-sorta good NFL team
2005-2006: a kinda-sorta bad NFL team
2007-2011: 15 wins in five years
2012-pres: a kinda-sorta bad NFL team

God, it makes you thankful for the crushing mediocrity of the Bears over that time period. It even makes the Blues look good. Football has been an afterthought to St. Louis, and why wouldn't it be with a record like that, especially vis-a-vis a dominant baseball club? How do you get attached to a team, especially with that seven-year lacuna in there at what would have been a formative time for a lot of today's adults?

Beyond that, I just don't think there's enough money and population in St. Louis to support three teams when the best one is the baseball team. There's only enough money left for a second team: the seemingly unkillable Blues. The other thing to take heed of with St. Louis and the Rams is that the fandom maps for St. Louis sports teams aren't equal: the Blues have the area pretty well covered with a few flags planted around up Peoria and B-N (though pulling the farm team out of Peoria while the Blackhawks rack up championships does not augur well for maintaining their downstate fandom...), while the Cardinals' expanse of Middle America is legendary, but Rams fans are pretty much localized to the City and County. Go west and you hit Chiefs fans pretty quickly (or, in my experience with the state, Packers fans. why?), while downstate Illinois still pulls for the Bears. Indianapolis and Nashville have teams of their own, so there's even more Cardinals territory that doesn't apply to football. The NFL could pull right back out of St. Louis and not miss a beat.

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and they will.
The Rams will be in LA. The owner wants it...the NFL wants it.

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Sounding more and more like it's only gonna be one team moving to Los Angeles and that team is the Rams. Doesn't mean the Raiders or Chargers won't move to St. Louis, though.

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Have the Rams share a stadium with the Chargers and play at Dodge Stadium.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

The Chargers are eligible for huge loans from the NFL if they build a stadium in San Diego. As I vaguely understand things, the main point of contention -- behind the Chargers themselves having to put up any of their own money -- is that the team wants to build the stadium right in downtown San Diego, near the convention center, whereas the city would prefer they stay out in Mission Valley and just build in the ocean of parking adjacent to the existing stadium. I side with the city on this; a football stadium is a terrible use of downtown real estate COUGH COUGH BEARS COUGH COUGH, and logistically it makes much more sense to keep them out where they are now, where parking is plentiful and you don't have to worry about a giant venue mostly sitting empty in the middle of the city.

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I had always thought the Chargers were the team bluffing, but it appears they are the aggressive ones being the first team to announce they'll apply for relocation.

This whole thing is a disaster. The league really needs to step in, broker a deal and get it announced....preferably with only 2 teams. 3 teams in LA is stupid.

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i'd actually be sad to see the chargers leave san diego.

years and years of thinking that you need a NFL team in LA. That you cant miss that market, yet, without LA...they are the biggest thing on TV. they cant support a team. Just seems like an ongoing mistake.

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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.’”

Me too. I would imagine that the Chargers players and employees feel the same way. Who in the hell would rather live in LA?

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

from what i know, there are so many people who live there that aren't from there that a lot of sports bars actually cater to different fan bases because of that. and whoever is from there is all about USC, not the nfl.

i'd like to see the LA rams just for selfish nostalgic reasons but i know it wouldn't work. just like a team in england won't work.

Jesus, are they really going to put TWO teams back in LA? Nobody gives a shit. It's been 20 years. Raiders need to stay in Oakland. If a team has to go then I say the Rams back to LA all the way. Fuck St. Louis. Keep the Chargers in SD. And London no. Just no. Nobody cares about it over there. I'm so sick of this global empire bullshit of the NFL. Can no one ever be content? Do we constantly need new markets and more revenue streams?

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Before St. Louis, the LA Rams moved to Anaheim. Anaheim (Orange County) is the antithesis of LA. They are drastically different cities and cultures. the LA fans dropped them like a slutty, cheating girlfriend the day the moved to Anaheim. The team was awful for years and as a result their following faded in Orange County. They wanted their own stadium for financial reasons...couldn't get one...off they went to St. Louis. This has nothing to do with LA supporting a team.

Once the Rams left, the Raiders moved in and were supported. They were LAs team. There were 3 problems, though:
1) Al Davis was insane
2) They played in the Coliseum which is a shit hole
3) LA was broke....no way to get a new stadium

Davis get a slight addition / renovation and $$ to move back to Oakland so he did. this had nothing to do with LA supporting the team....the Raiders were HUGE in LA and across the country. Arguably a leader in NFL merchandising at the time.

LA can and will support an NFL team. It's quite possible they can support 2. The Rams and Raiders in LA i get....I think the Chargers leaving San Diego is a mistake.

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It should only be the Rams, at least for now. St. Louis is a dead spot on the league and I doubt the NFL wants the whole L.A. Raiders thing back.

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They'd be smarter to put a second team in Chicago instead.

Maybe get back all those disgruntled Packers fans like Kirkwood and FavreFan.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They should put a football field next to that new 8 plex cinema and shopping center!

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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.’”

he gone!

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I will only accept the LA Rams in the proper colors.

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Elections have consequences.

Same here, though I noticed even in the old days, the helmet was midnight blue while the jersey was royal blue. Weird. They'll have to get that right this time around.

Farewell to that shithole dome in that shithole city.

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The 1980s Giants did the same thing.

Helmet technology probably wasn't what it is today and that was the only shade of blue they could mass-produce.

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Dickerson was pretty good at Rammin' it.

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-"God is great. Beer is good. And People are crazy!"

So, Rams with an option for the Chargers to join a year later. Where does this leave the Raiders? Oakland remains a small venue; shrunken further by the closer proximity of the 49ers. I don't think LA's supporting 3 teams, let alone 2.

So what does this mean? Oakland moves to San Diego or St Louis? Because while they get some stipend for staying out of LA, I don't really think that somehow makes staying in Oakland more workable. On the other hand, there's always Portland. Salt Lake City.

Waiting for someone to show up in Chicago to give Ginny a run for her money. Far better chance for a second team, than one in LA.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Man, crazy stuff going on in the NFL!

Raiders in the city of Mormons? HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT.

I think the Chargers and Raiders get shit worked out. Mark Davis is a sentimental dope and the Raiders are a California team. They might wind up in Los Angeles as a tenant of the Rams or Santa Clara as a tenant of the 49ers, maybe even Berkeley as a tenant of Cal for a little bit, but there is no way in hell they go to St. Louis. The Chargers I'd say are 50/50 between Los Angeles and San Diego at this point. Spanos is getting reeeeeeaaally cunty about not getting his way with his toxic waste dump stadium and doesn't want Kroenke as his landlord. I don't think Los Angeles can support two teams and I think deep down the NFL knows too.

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LA is salt of the earth. They deserve another chance.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.- JD Vance on the J-6 insurrectionists

A couple of years ago, there was talk of the Raiders going to San Antonio & Jerry Jones being supportive of it. Not sure if that holds water, as that's Cowboy cuntry.

I also remember a long time ago there being talk of the Raiders coming to Chicago. I'd kind of welcome it.

It may have killed the A's ability to stay in Oakland. The A's are willing to pay for most of their own new building in Alameda but the Raiders and NFL come stomping on that plan every time it comes up. They want all the public funds dropped right into a shiny new Super Bowl site.

The A's have been riding some good teams and a weird little fan culture for the past decade but a 5-6 year absence from the playoffs will kill them. They don't claim a plurality of fans in any county in the country, which would be OK if they played in a metro area of 25m like New York (the Mets also don't have a single county, those are the only two) and not the Bay Area.

Meanwhile LA gets two teams it won't care about, while the one they do stays where it is.