Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

I'm sure many of you have heard already, The St. Louis Rams that played in The Edward Jones dome (The FIRST world championship home for only 2 more years :( ), have officially become the Los Angeles Rams and will longer play in St. Louis. It's sad for me as I am a St. Louisan myself and grew up a fan from birth. The Edward Jones Dome will never have the same feel now that the Rams are leaving. By the time April comes around there's a possibility that a lot of the Rams merchandise around the dome/America's center will be gone. Of course it's not the end of the world but it will never be the same. I know it's not directly FIRST news but, what are your thoughts?

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

The NFL is greedy and does not care about fanbases. St. Louis will become a bargaining chip to threaten other teams for years to come.

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I was thinking that with both the Raiders and the Chargers unhappy with their current stadiums, St. Louis knows exactly where to recruit a team to relocate (particularly if the Chargers decide not to join the Rams).

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Nobody wants to be in STL. The Raiders and Chargers want a new stadium and can't get one. The Rams wanted a new stadium and couldn't get one. Nobody is coming to a city that won't build a new stadium.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

As someone named Ram from Los Angeles, I'm ecstatic. Hopefully Champs follows them to LA. :rolleyes:

In actuality, being that FIRST arranges the location of Champs way in advance, I don't see their move being too big of a problem on our end.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Actually we as a city put up $150 million and created a stadium task force that created an entire new stadium plan. It's not that didn't have the resources/money and or ability, it's that Stan wanted to move the team and the NFL is interested in the money sitting in LA vs. STL.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

The shiny new car feel of the Rams will wear off after one season and the LA fans will stay away when they are lulled to sleep by Jeff Fisher's complete dislike of offense.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Having lived in Southern California all thorough my younger years (read Youthful Years Here...I'm old now), The Rams were always to me The Los Angeles Rams (and my High School was R.A. Millikan High in Long Beach, CA so we were The RAMS also, same name, same colors)...I know exactly how you feel, and felt so when L.A. lost the rams to elsewhere. 30 years from now, I can absolutely guarantee that you'll get over it, I fully assure you.

I know I did. And when at Champs at the Edward Jones Dome the last couple of times...I felt funny really seeing ST. Louis RAMS and all the RAMS colors everywhere as I walked the concourses there...It just didn't feel right...It was like the old LA Colliseium days to me...But, a whole lot darker inside! It just felt uncomfortable...like it was wrong...I'm sorry, but it did.

They are just going back home to their roots (and following the BIG MONEY, it is what NFL Teams/OWNERS do). I have a college aged child that still does that...at least for a few more years.:yikes: :D

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

OK you win...Your story was much better than mine Ram. Especially if you are a Rams fan.

I have to say though, the only decent sized bet that I ever made on NFL Football, was on the Rams in the early 1980's and I won big!

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Where are they going to play in L.A....Anyone know?

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

The LA Coliseum for a couple years, then a new stadium.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Thanks,

Just read the article.....Yes, back home to where they fled from, then over to Inglewood (if and when the deal goes through and construction is completed and financed. Right where I used to go see those pretty horses run "The Old Location of Hollywood Park." And it only seems like they were gone 30 years to me...More like 21 years ago. Both the Rams and the Raiders fled L.A. in 1994 to seek fame and fortune & much greener grass elsewhere......Neither have found it yet.

I do sympathize with the OP...It is hard to be a pro sports fan and watch your teams (that you supported by attending regularly, buying high priced official team memorabilia, high priced food and tickets, etc. just turn their backs on you as thanks (no good deed goes unpunished), because those poor broke (financially strapped), team owners make bad business decisions (even though they have as NFL Team owners IRS Non-Profit Status), and are always looking at slamming the local taxpayers to build them new BILLION $$$$$ stadiums and or they will just seek greener pastures and kick their fans right in the stinking teeth.

L.A. City said they were not going to look to the taxpayers on the deal....RIGHT, SURE YOU WON'T, I believe you, uh huh....Naming rights won't build and maintain a BILLION $$$$$ NFL Stadium these days. Maybe IF, and it appears a huge IF, the Raiders and the Chargers join the Rams in the deal, they may just be able to pull it off. Now, can or will L.A. NFL fans support 3 different teams using the same Stadium? (Except Jack Nicholson and his friends). How do you do that with the colors and graphics on all the concourse walls?...Maybe all light boards or triangular rotating signage everywhere. What a nightmare to design and implement.

I'll take robot building and working w/ kids any day!

At CMP last year, we went to the village by the Stadium for FIRST Volunteers night and The St. Louis Blues were playing a Stanley cup game and they had them up on a huge big screen in a very large (HUGE SCREEN, HUUUUGE place), bar area, which was wall to wall people just going nuts! They love their Blues.

They were mainly local Blues Fans, but the view of the game in that bar was better than any possible nosebleed or even ice or board side seats where they were actually playing. I love NHL Pro Hockey and I felt like I was actually "at the game" after just a few minutes...minus the actual expensive seat of course, as the place was standing room only, and the beer was a bunch less expensive. (The players were about full size or larger on the screen so it was like you were on the ice or sitting in the penalty box actually watching the game).

St. Louis definitely has the fan base to support pro sports teams, so somebody is doing something wrong in their marketing department.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

It's a question of availability.
Apparently there is NOTHING available at all on the west coast til the next decade. How that is possible is beyond me.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

And what 99% of business / business owners do.

I don't see much wrong with a person buying a business, purchasing land in another city, paying for a new stadium and moving his business.

I'd like to think every other business is extremely jealous of NFL owners that they can get other people to pay for their buildings. I think you can call sport teams owners a lot of things (both positive and negative), but bad business men is probably not one of them.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

*Kroenke doesn't want to be in St. Louis. I'm not sure what more St. Louis could have done to try and get the franchise to stay, short of offering a billionaire to build the stadium completely for free. St. Louis had voted to provide a ton of funding to build a new stadium. The St. Louis stadium proposal was more developed than the Chargers or Raiders.

It has been painfully obvious that Stan Kroenke wanted to make the Rams a terrible team in order to leave St. Louis. He's one of the worst owners in all of professional sports who does nothing for the community and only cares about money. This move was financially motivated regardless of what the NFL says.

It's a sad day for St. Louis. Good luck LA, with an owner like Kroenke you'll need it.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Now that the Rams are gone Edward Jones has pulled out their sponsorship and the Dome is no longer the ¨Edward Jones Dome¨, but now ¨The Dome at America's Center¨.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

The dome is just another empty building in the downtown area of St. Louis. I was amazed at how many buildings were closed down. It felt like the dome was the only thing keeping any of the businesses in the area running.

This is a huge loss for STL, but not surprising.

Embrace your hockey and baseball team while theyre decent.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

The problem in St Louis (and about to be the problem in all the places that have NFL teams) is the greed by the owners.

From this article from the Huffngton Post The new stadium was expected to cost $950 million dollars with most of the cost to be covered by the taxpayers and most of the revenues from the games to be taken by the team.

A little bit of Google searching will get you the cost of stadium construction This one has a good summary of other places

More and more owners are asking for "field parity" aka Skyboxes, jumbo jumbotrons, more seating, etc. For a building they will use 9 times a year and will want a new one every twenty years (use is about 185 times, hardly worn out). The NFL is a multi billion per year, 2015 revenue was estimated at $14 billion. They can easily afford paying for stadiums out of their own pockets.

What could St Louis and the state do with $800 million? Lots of improvements in the schools and infrastructure. And remember that 800 million is borrowed dollars, when they get done in 30 years paying off the interest, you are talking over $2 billion dollars. Not a small amount of money.

As you can tell, this is a real hot button for me. I'm good with professional sports. Not good with the cost being carried by taxpayers while the profits go to the owners and the NFL. Yah, yah, I get the "well the money trickles down from the jobs (9 times a year) and the concessions (9 times a year and the team shares the profits) and parking (9 times a year and the team shares the profits) and the hotel rooms, tourists into the area, etc. " Not buying it. If all that money was rolling into St Louis and the state, would they be in the shape they are today?

[/rant]

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

In my day, it was the L.A. Rams, and St.L had their Cardinals. To this day I still have trouble saying "Saint Louis Rams." St.L fans should look on the bright side and hope that this is the first, necessary step in getting their Cardinals back, and restoring order to the universe.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

I have never understood that. What is wrong with the Edward Jones Dome? Seems like a perfectly suitable venue to me.

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$$$$

My understanding is that the owner wanted to move to LA for a bigger market so they could create more revenue.
Also, if you look at NFL stadium rankings, EJD usually ranks near the bottom in quality.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Sports Stadiums are a complicated mess that makes no sense to anyone outside of the teams.

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The Dome is perfectly good as a venue for large gatherings--but it isn't Lucas Oil Stadium. It sure isn't AT&T Stadium. (Shoot, I personally think Williams-Brice Stadium holds up against it--even if it's apples-to-oranges.)

But, of course, the large gatherings aren't the money--it's the suites, the skyboxes, the executive clubs, the big lounges. The ones that go for five figures a season each (considering what we'd call Very Good Seats go for about $9,000 for the Cowboys). THAT is where the Dome is lacking, and because it's next to impossible to retrofit a domed stadium you're left starting over.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

I get it. $$$$

Any idea what use will be made of the building now?

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Looks like not a ton.

http://explorestlouis.com/venue/americas-center-dome/

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WOW. Five scheduled events through December. Might be a ghost town soon.

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One day cities will pour over the data and realize there is no real long term net benefit to paying for stadiums.

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Not while government at all levels remains a tool of the investment class.

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There are a lot of reasons to be upset with the Rams moving to LA, but taxpayers paying for a new stadium isn't one of them. Kroenke and the NFL are funding the Inglewood stadium without tax money.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Remember, as FIRST itself discovered when trying to book a western Championship, that convention bookings tend to happen 3-4 years out. And further, they've examined renovating the Dome in a way that would improve America's Center as a convention facility while removing the stadium capability.

(The University of South Carolina ended up doing a similar thing with the Carolina Coliseum, which was replaced by Colonial Life Arena a block away but couldn't be demolished because--as I was told--it was built on war bonds. After a few years of languishing as home for a doomed ECHL franchise, high school graduations, and events too cheap to use Colonial Life Arena, they ultimately gutted enough of the arena seating to expand the basketball practice facility next door. They're currently looking at converting the rest of it into classroom space and a second student union.)

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

My thoughts on the NFL and Kroenke leaving St. Louis is: Good riddance. I don't ever want the NFL back in St. Louis because they don't care about the fans. Hell, they don't even care about the players. If ever a team needs a new stadium, the NFL just uses an empty city as the bargaining chip. It's quite ridiculous. It's only about how much money they can put in their pockets.

Furthermore, Kroenke has 3 teams in the 4 "major" American sports: the Nuggets in the NBA, the Avs in the NHL, and the aforementioned Rams. The Nuggets were 30th out of 30 in attendance because he hasn't shown interest in actually building a team. The Avs were 19th out of 30 in league attendance because the team somehow managed to stay in the playoff hunt. And lastly, the Rams were 32nd out of 32 teams in attendance because he has not fielded a winning team since 2003, or a team that reached .500 since 2006. He also owns Arsenal, a professional Soccer team in England, and the fans recently started a petition to remove him as controlling owner because of his comments that he didn't invest to win trophies. Kroenke is not fit to be an owner of any sports teams because he is a self-centered, worthless, POS that doesn't actually care about the performance of his teams because it puts money in his pockets no matter what.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Couldn't have said it better myself - nailed it.

St. Louis is also larger than just the area around the dome... just an FYI to those who think the place is going to turn into a wasteland or something.

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Exactly this. There are lots of people that can pay lots of money for those seats and most of that money goes into the owners and NFL pockets, very little of it comes back to the people that financed the stadium.

Class, this is one of the most important things you will learn today. You need to take a good look at where your government dollars go. State have given companies huge tax incentives and cash to bring jobs. In some cases it works out. Other places are holding their breath (1 billion to Tesla for the factory in Nevada) and others are looking at clawing back some of the incentives when companies move. Companies are now treated like people for donation purposes to elections. Do you think that Koch Industries will spend 889 million on this year's elections because they think democracy is cool? Today's phrase is "quid pro quo" (this for that). You can assume that the $889 million investment in 2016 will pay of 3-5 times across the next few years.

Umm, not quite. This story about stadium tax breaks shows the area will pay for the infrastructure developments to the tune of $60 million and another $40 million not collecting taxes and fees. So that's a $100 million in tax money to support the building of the stadium. But the ink isn't dry on the $2.6 billion dollar project, so that number will go up. (By the way the city of Inglewood where this thing is going has a budget of $86 million, so the $100 million is a bigger deal than people think.

[ Sorry about steering a robotics forum so far off topic. ]

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

A tax break is not the same as using tax money to pay for a stadium, and public infrastructure is not the same thing as a private stadium.

According to the article you linked, the NFL is loaning $60 million to Inglewood to fund public roads, utility improvements and parks. After Inglewood is receiving an extra $25 million in tax money each year, the town will begin to pay that back. (After all, roads, utilities and parks are all the city's responsibility, not the NFL's). As I said earlier, the taxpayers are not paying for a new stadium.

Now unless you're suggesting that the NFL should pay for public roads, utilities and parks, I don't see anything remotely objectionable about this agreement. In either case, I think we can both agree that's what's happening in Inglewood is a lot better than what happened in St. Louis when the Rams moved there.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

This is a little unfair to him considering he purchased the team in 2010 (when they were 30th in attendance)...

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As I noted, sometimes tax breaks work (I won't charge you property tax on your building if you bring jobs. Thats assuming the money I get from new jobs offsets the money that I'm not charging you) and sometimes they don't. If they don't, then the taxpayers are up for the difference.

Ok, lets see NFL loans $60 million and the money gets used to build roads and stuff there. Then the loan needs to get paid back with interest. They don't pay it back until they are $25 million ahead. Wonder if that loan is interest free until then? If the Stadium was not there they wouldn't need to build the roads for it.

Lots of places make developers pay for the improvements. There is a new development going in near me, the developer is paying 1.2 million in road improvements. Granted the state did say "Ok, we'll put that on the 2021 project list, maybe we'll fund it then." Just a side note, 60 million in a 2.6 billion project is rounding errors assuming the normal cost overruns.

Also Inglewood has agreed to not charge services like police, Fire and EMS to the stadium. Ask a FRC event person how much they spend on those items. (They are often a line item in the venue contract). So that's more expenses the NFL and the Rams are not paying. (And as I recall the Raiders want to come their also (may be old news) so rather than 9 weeks it might be 18 weeks a year.

Bottom line is will the overall tax money flowing into Inglewood exceed the $100 million that is flowing out (60 million for infrastructure and 40 million in lost revenue)

We do agree, St Louis, and other NFL cities paid a fortune for their teams. Inglewood isn't paying that much. And I can imagine the discussion: "So, we aren't robbing you as much as we robbed St. Louis, ya shoulda feel good about that." :rolleyes:

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Is the quality of the St. Louis Dome in 2017 going to approach the quality of the Astrodome when the Championship was there?

All things being equal, hands down voting for the Detroit Event if I have the option for which Championship to attend, the quality of the venue will deteriorate fast unless they can find something to fill up the space.

The real downfall to the Rams tenure in St Louis was probably the contract they had with the Dome. I hope the city of STL sue the NFL for part of that $550M relocation fee, it could cover the stadium debt.

Re: Edward Jones Dome/St. Louis Rams
 

Yes, he gained FULL ownership in 2010, but he bought 30% of the team in order to help move the team to St. Louis in 1995.