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Poll: What Outcome Do You Want With The Rams And The Dome?

February 3, 2013 Downtown, Featured, Politics/Policy, Popular Culture, STL Region 5 Comments

On Friday arbitrators ruled in favor of the St. Louis Rams — the CVC’s proposal was insificient to make the Edward Jones Dome a “top tier” facility. They didn’t create a new plan but favored a proposal put forth by the Rams last year:

ABOVE: Dome would be expanded across the existing Broadway and Baer Plaza

ABOVE: Rams proposed expanding the EJ Dome across the existing Broadway and Baer Plaza

If the CVC does not meet that plan, however, the Rams and CVC will go to a year-to-year agreement, but the team could still leave town after the 2014-15 season. (KSDK)

So now what? Many options still exist:

The CVC could try to get city/county/state funds to rebuild the dome per the Rams proposal, though highly unlikely
A new stadium could be built somewhere else in the region funded by taxpayers and/or the Rams
The Rams could pack up and leave the St. Louis region in two years.

The poll question this week wants to know what outcome you’d like to see happen. I personally want to see the Rams use their own money to build a facility in the region, the site of the former Chrysler plant in Fenton is often suggested.

Why? I don’t want the Rams to leave because I don’t want to hear the moaning about us not having an NFL team, heard enough of that in the early 1990s. But I also don’t want taxpayers to foot the bill for another facility, especially since the current facility hasn’t been used for even 20 years yet.

The poll is in the right sidebar.

– Steve Patterson

moe

Spending 700 Million so one doesn’t hear the moaning of a lack of a team is not even an argument. If the Rams want an upper tier stadium, they either need to pay for it or have their fans pay for it, not the taxpayer. Other than that, don’t let the moving van door hit you in the a__ on the way out.
JZ71

Will the Rams pay for their own new stadium and stay here? No. Will the taxpayers pay the full cost? No. The NFL is willing to participate, so I expect some sort of public-private partnership will be cobbled together to make something happen . . . .
samizdat

The Rams can bugger off. Enough with the bald-faced extortion racket these sports teams, developers, and manufacturers practice by sucking off the public teat, and then threatening departure if we don’t pony up more money. Bloodsucking parasites.
- JZ71
  
  As both the lack of comments on this post and the lack of “buzz” in the local community show, and as one of the pundits on the radio pointed out yesterday, the Rams may be facing more apathy than outrage. And that, more than anything, will make it very difficult for them to extract more money from the taxpayers . . . .
equals42

I don’t believe the Rams can move from St Louis even if their lease is year-to-year. I heard a good discussion about league rules and “failed markets” a few weeks ago. Basically, the league will not allow a team to leave a market without a “market failure”. Defining that is somewhat murky but not having a nice enough stadium isn’t itself a reason to be able to leave. LA itself is a failed market as both teams left in the 90s due to terrible attendance and general apathy toward the teams. (I lived there a long time. LA is huge geographically. It’s a pain in the @$$ to drive all the way across town 30 mins to 1.5 hours to park in a bad part of the city and then have to deal with traffic all the way home as well.) While the market is huge, the opportunity is risky as seen by the lack of private stadium funding to be found.

The NFL is also sensitive to the perception that its teams hold communities hostage and have begun to put together a program by which the league can help finance stadiums in part to reduce the need for public funds. The growth areas for NFL stadiums are really in luxury boxes and other amenities which are very hard to push through public financing. It’s one thing to ask the public for funds for a bigger stadium so more fans can see the game with a better view, et cetera; it’s quite another to rebuild simply to have more corporate luxury boxes, dining, retail and general concessions with which to fleece attendees.

That all said: single-purpose NFL stadiums are a terrible waste of money, in my opinion. They hold 8 regular season games plus two preseason games per year. That’s 10 days of use out of 365! MLB stadiums get 81 regular season games plus a few preseason as well. That’s around 25% utilization for MLB compared to less than 3% for NFL. At least the dome is part of the convention center so it gets used more. A stadium out in Fenton would be less utilized. If private money wants to build such a structure, I don’t object, but I’d prefer that to be out in Fenton and not a dead spot Downtown but for 3% of the time.

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