Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The Rams just announced plans to build & move to a stadium in Los Angeles
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la...ry.html#page=1

As fantastic as the Dome is for FRC (now that FTC and FLL are moving cross town), what could this mean about the long term plan to stay in St Louis? Currently FIRST is committed through 2017.

I really hope it doesn't go the way of the Astrodome (after the Astros moved out).

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The optimistic outlook is that this is just sabre-rattling by the Rams' owner as he tries to get the city of St Louis to pay for stadium upgrades or a new stadium entirely.

This is a pretty common tactic by big sports teams - they threaten to move, and no politician wants to be the guy that let Local Sports Team leave, so they end up extracting huge piles of money from cities that often can't afford it. By making their threat of leaving more credible, the Rams are hoping to get better concessions from the city.

You can see more analysis from that viewpoint on deadspin: http://deadspin.com/report-rams-owne...d-l-1677488994

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Currently, the news is that the Rams owner, Stan Kroenke, and his real estate firm are planning a stadium in Inglewood, CA. The Rams have yet to publicly state they are moving their team there. They are still negotiating with St. Louis for updates to the Dome.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Move the Championships to Indiananpolis, IN :D

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Even if they do move, it would take a couple years to actually build a new stadium and the infrastructure for the team to move.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Move championship to Staple Center and Los Angeles Convention Cent?

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

For the next 4 years min, this is a non issue. Business, politics, and construction all take time, and even if this does become a reality, the Rams won't have moved until well after FIRST's contract with EJD is over.

Story still in speculation mode.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Well dont the St Louis Blues play there too? So the stadium would stay kept up, right?

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Blue's play in a arena down by Busch Stadium.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The Blues play at the Scottrade Center.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

According to several reports, the Rams are looking to move to LA by 2016 before their new stadium is finished in 2018. I'm not sure how much the stadium will degrade in one year. I think the biggest take away is that it is looking unlikely FIRST will hold the championship in St. Louis after 2017. If the Rams cannot agree with the city by the end of this month on stadium upgrades and goes to a year to year contract, FIRST better start looking at other options.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Huge public money going into expensive stadiums bothers me. I wish cities negotiated better deals for themselves. I'll spare everyone the long rant, but I could easily produce one on this topic.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

This may all be a moot point. FIRST has a contract to hold their championship event in Saint Louis at the Edward Jones Dome through 2017. 2018 and beyond is still up in the air, Rams or no Rams.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Exactly they want about $800 Million in upgrades, the negotiations are about $540 million apart. With the St. Louis population the team wants $2,100 per person. :ahh:

Which means about $800 million that won't go into schools, infrastructure, etc.

All the major sports teams do this. In the Philly area the two new stadiums won't be paid off until 2050.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

To me it would be like the situation in San Antonio with the Alamodome. There is no NFL team there but they have no plans to demolish the arena. I doubt they would demolish the Jones Dome. In fact they would probably want the championship there even more to have something there.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Since Indy was nearly selected back in 2010, it would be one of the stronger candidates to succeed STL whenever FIRST moves on.

I lived in St. Louis for a long time, and have enjoyed going back for CMP these past several years. I've also enjoyed going to IRI at Lawrence North HS these past several years, so in my imagination Indy is an ideal place to play robots. While I have a personal bias toward the outstanding FIRST volunteer corps in St. Louis, I know from many direct experiences that their counterparts in Indiana can match or exceed any others, anywhere. [And yes, I include Michigan.]

However, the logistical challenge of CMP is an order of magnitude (at least) larger than that of IRI, or any other event Indiana has hosted so far. Is downtown Indy a good place to walk around, near the venue that FIRST would use? Is there metro rail from the airport to that part of town? Enough hotel rooms? I know those were important considerations when St. Louis made its pitch to FIRST, and I think we all have seen how CMP growth has strained St. Louis' capacity.

TL/DR; does Indy have the capacity to handle CMP?

------

edit@Foster: Unlike Indy, St. Louis population figures divide into city (~300k) and county (~1M), so the per capita figure for stadium improvements is not as high as you calculated. In any case your main point is correct -- sports teams demand and often get funding concessions that are not justified by their impact on the community.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

That would be a tough question for even previous places like Atlanta.
I do wonder why Houston was never considered. Reliant Stadium was a fine place to host the championship. It was the Astrodome that I had issue with...

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Maybe there's no easy access between the convention center and Reliant Stadium? I also think it would be an ideal location, as it also has Reliant Arena in the plaza and Houston is a major hub for United Airlines which means it wouldn't be as hard to get flights as it is for St. Louis.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

There may well be out clauses for both FIRST or the Edward Jones Dome. It wouldn't surprise me if losing their main tenant triggered such as clause for the EJD, as it would signal a huge restructuring of their business model.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

I was very surprised when I saw this:
http://www.10best.com/awards/travel/...nvention-city/

Then I saw this:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/arti...worst-airports

And when you combine the two, you'll get a pretty good idea on what cities are the most qualified. I'd weight the first one more than the second.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Over the short-term (few years), loosing the football team is not a big deal operationally (other than revenue). Football is only a guaranteed 8 days per year.

Most of the costs are fixed costs (debt service and maintenance). So, running a full program of non-football events helps to offset the fixed costs.

The first budget item to be cut will be maintenance. That should not materially impact the facility in the short-term (through 2017). Whether non-football revenues are enough to cover required maintenance (health and safety issues) will determine whether it is cheaper to keep the facility open past 2017, or to close it.

If St. Louis does commit to a new stadium, that may have a more immediate impact. If the current facility is closed in order to build the new stadium ... Chicago did something similar a few years ago, and games were played at the Univ of IL in Champagne during the renovation.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

10 days. All NFL teams (that don't play a regular season game in London) host 2 pre-season games and 8 regular season games.

The Rams don't want a new stadium. https://explorestlouis.com/rams-proposal.pdf (Visuals start on Page 20)

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

NRG Center, a large (706,000 sq ft) convention center, is about 200 yards from Reliant Stadium in Houston.

I don't know why, or even if, Houston is being considered as a future site. The facility is certainly large enough. However, that 200 yards is uncovered and exposed to the elements. Given Houston's climate, that may be an issue.

That said, Houston is still considering what to do with the old Astrodome. It's always possible that whatever is done will result in a better venue for FIRST championships.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

This is what can happen to a football stadium in a very short period of time when left alone.

http://youtu.be/vAKCNK5TAiE

Crazy.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

My team would find it hilarious if Championship were to be held in a place named NRG.

- Beth Moursund, 13 year mentor of team NRG 948

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

What the championship looked like back in 2003. You can see both domes were being used.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

It appears they want 1/2 of a new stadium. They want to rip the interstate highway side of the building down, move the field over 52' in that direction and then put a new set of seating in place.

The document was pretty interesting. Thanks for posting it.

@Richard Wallace - thanks for the population count update. I was sort of wondering why St. Louis appeared small in the population graphs. The triple sized county around it makes up for it.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

It is an ambitious plan. I'm not surprised the CVC didn't go for it.

Here's the CVC's proposal: http://slcvc.explorestlouis.com/cvc/...t%202 012.pdf

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The dome is not going to be torn down for at least the next 10 years for a few reasons. First and foremost the convention center brings millions if dollars to the Saint Louis area each year and losing the dome would make much of that money go away. Secondly there would be not much the city could do with the space to match the money that the convention center is bringing in without convincing and giving major tax breaks to a large manufacture. Finally Saint Louis has a strong soccer fan base and I wouldn't be surprised if mls would expand for a team in the dome. With all that being said, I still believe that First will leave after 2017 just for a change of scenery. If another location has similar perks of Saint Louis, i.e. Indy, then I thinka move will be in the works. I think it would actually help the Eastern Mo./Western Il. teams as well since it would allow our event organizers to focus more locally, not that they don't do a great job for both but Champs does take focus away.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The CVC's proposal was a good read (and actually readable compared to the apparent legalese in the beginning of the Rams proposal). Seems like some reasonable renovations (and thankfully no demolishing of the whole building).

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The issue is that the Ram's lease says that the Edward Jones Dome has to be in the "first-tier" of NFL stadiums by this year, and an arbitrator said the Rams' proposal accomplishes that, and the CVC's doesn't.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The city will be releasing a new plan by Friday in hopes it will be a "first-tier" stadium.

It is an interesting situation where the owner is prepared to pay for a brand new stadium in LA, but is looking for the tax payers in St. Louis to pay a good chunk of the upgrades to the current stadium. The NFL is really good at a lot of things, especially using LA to get tax payers to pick up the tab on their stadiums.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

QFT.

Although if somebody moves to L.A., the NFL will be using that team's old home city instead.

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Looks like Edwards Jones Dome days are numbered.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/09/st-...adium-proposal

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

If that's the case then FIRST's days in St. Louis are numbered as well....

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

Back to Orlando!

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

I don't think either of those are big enough

Re: Future of Edward Jones Dome?
 

The new stadium would be on a different site than the Dome (closer to the river). The Dome would stay as part of of the convention complex.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/g...56c6d233b.html