Inglewood is not suburban. But regarding that, I generally agree, though less so for football. I don't see how tailgating is supposed to happen at an urban venue.
This has been coming for a while. It's as much on the team as on St. Louis, as for years the Rams couldn't be bothered to put eleven defenders on the field who could even tackle properly. Of course the thing about keeping the stadium in the top tier nationwide is on the city. It's a bummer if they leave, especially apparently being on the upswing to competence, but we had some good times together.
Kroenke is nothing if not a smart businessman. Worst case scenario, he has more bargaining power in his negotiations with St. Louis to get a new stadium built here. Best case (for him), he ends up moving the team back to LA and making an ass-load more money.
L.A. needs a team, but all the owners like having L.A. stand in as a re-location threat when jerking around actual host cities for stadium deals. Unfortunately, the cartel is not likely to approve any moves, leaving the Chargers as the only option, since they are technically already allowed to move there without permission. They were originally in L.A. As an AFL team, but the Rams are the true NFL history in that town, so I'd rather have them.
The Rams were always the great underdog. They'd beat San Francisco early in the season, then come in to the final game needing to beat them again... and lose. Growing up in the area, we watched John Robinson coach a very conservative game, strictly fundamentals, and it worked so long as they weren't up against a Joe Montana or John Elway, pre-cursors of the modern aerial era. I miss that transitional NFL, and the Rams have always symbolized it to me.
I remember reading somewhere that the Jaguars aren't nearly as profitable & popular as they ought to be down in Jacksonville. Maybe if ANY team should move to L.A. County, it should be them? The Rams originated in Cleveland before their long residence in L.A. County. Odd how L.A.'s been NFL-less for so long now. It's like Chicagoland or Gotham having NO NFL ballclub!
Yeah, it's very strange, as there have been four successful pro football franchises in LA, and yet it's now been a couple of decades with none. How a city that large can be missing one of the major sports, especially when they have two teams in each of the other major pro circuits, is just a complete mystery.
Been a Rams fan since I was 5.. I don't think the they'll move. LA fans are too wishy-washy.. If there was SO much money to be made in LA the NFL would have someone there.
LA has been a great option for the NFL Owners to threaten their cities with when they want to get a better stadium or more taxpayer $ or whatever. But let's face it, since the latest rounds of expansion and stadium builds and everything, the geography of the NFL is pretty stable. Off the top of my head, only Jacksonville and San Diego don't have great fan support and stadium deals. St. Louis *should* rank above both of those two with regard to not being moved, but let's face it...there is far more $$ to be made in LA, and the Rams do have a history there. I'm hoping they stay in STL, but it wouldn't surprise me if Kroenke moved them, either.
It would take them SEVERAL years to move back to LA, there still is no stadium built, the city would still have to approve that as well, it took Cincinnati 18 months to build the new Paul Brown Stadium. Add that to at least a year to get permission from the city to build, and your looking at close to 2017-18 before any NFL team could move UNLESS they'd be willing to play in the OLD LA Coliseum, And I cannot see that happening. They'd have to SHARE it with the USC Trojans.
They might be willing to play a season at the Coliseum, as long as the new stadium is under construction. I haven't been there in a long time, but back in the day, the Coliseum was pretty cool. Also, the Rosebowl is an option, which I believe is in better condition.
The SOONEST they could leave is after NEXT season, but current negotiations are ongoing. The Edward Jones Dome is only 19 years old, and was renovated in 2010. But it still ranks as one of the worst as far as fan friendly. They may build a new one. Who knows. I'll still be a fan no matter where they are.
On this we agree. I am a lifelong LA Rams fan even though I live on the east coast. Fearsome Foursome, Jack Snow, Lawrence McCutcheon, Henry Ellard, Jack Younblood, Dryer, and even Broadway Joe! I hope they bring the 70's colors back too.
Right on as far as the 80's. In the mid-70's however, they started many seasons as Super Bowl favorites. Now, the Steelers took the trophies and the Rams could never beat the Vikings in frozen Metropolitan Stadium, but they were among the NFL's best of that era.
The NFL has more intense revenue sharing and a league-wide national television contract. In other sports teams are primarily in the business of providing local cable television programs, but not in the NFL. It still doesn't make sense for the NFL to not have an L.A. team, but it makes a lot more sense than it would for any of the other major sports leagues.
The issue there is that when they have games against west coast teams one of them or the other will suffer from the travel. Eight non-conference games a year, 4 of them on the road. The bye week would help them with one of those 4. All the other teams that travel to them could obviously use the bye week to help. So to me that puts the team in London at a significant disadvantage. Even the teams within their own conference would be able to use the bye week for their London Game. Unless the team can buy an old Concorde Jet and get it running it doesn't seem like the right time for a Euro-franchise. Now if they can usher in the era of supersonic jet travel I'm all for it. I'm tired of regular jet speeds holding us back.
They'd have to be smart with scheduling for any type of Europe-based team. Road trips would be 2- or 3-games, with the team staying over here during the interim between. Likewise, they'd have to host home games 2 or more weeks in a row to cut down on TransAtlantic flights. And yes, opposing teams travelling there would likely need to work in/around their bye weeks to deal with the disruption. Honestly, with 32 teams in a balanced Conference/Division format, I don't see any expansion anytime soon. Maybe St. Louis moves back to LA. Maybe San Diego moves to LA. Maybe both occur. Maybe Jacksonville moves to St. Louis after the Rams go to LA. An easier-to-execute plan to European NFL expansion would be for 4 teams over there, all in the same division. That way American-based opposing teams could do multi-game road trips, and there would also be weeks where the European-based teams play head-to-head, when the travel for them would be no worse than it is for current US teams. Of course, then you have the issue of 36 teams, not dividing up evenly across Conferences/Divisions, along with the headaches of having 4 expansion teams diluting the talent levels.
Yeah, I don't really see an expansion in the NFL working any time soon. I could see MLB moving to 32 teams, though, hopefully including a team in Mexico.
Four teams in Europe, that would be cool. It could be done by organizing the conferences into 6 divisions of 6 and expanding the regular season to 18 games by cutting out 2 of the preseason games. Then you get 2 times a year vs all your division teams and 1 time a year against 6 other teams. They've been talking about expanding the playoffs from 6 and 6 to 8 and 8 anyway. 3 division winners, 3 2nd place from divisions, and 2 wild cards based on record per conference. I would love to see this happen.
Speaking of that, the Dodgers set some all time, if NOT the greatest attendance records ever in the MLB when they first moved to L.A., playing their homegames in the Coliseum until Dodger Stadium was built. But the dimensions for baseball were just ... the less said the better!
Yeah, I would love to have seen one of those games! Left field was less than 200 feet, and right field was something like 600. Some football stadiums can kind of work for baseball. That is not one of them!
Too bad Roy Campanella was crippled before having a chance to play in LA. Even though he was at the end of his career, I think Roy would have hit a lot of home runs in the Coliseum .
