Readers: St. Louis Rams Will Opt Out Of Dome Lease
A huge majority of readers who voted in the poll last week came to the correct conclusion: the Rams will exit the 30 year lease after just 20 years. Similar to when an apartment lease expires, the Rams will become year to year tenants of the Edward Jones Dome.
Q: At the end of the current NFL season the St. Louis Rams have the right to opt out of the last 10 years of their lease at the Edward Jones Dome. What’ll they do?
- Opt out, switching to a year to year lease 78 [83.87%]
- Opt in, committing to the last 10 years of the original lease 7 [7.53%]
- Unsure/no opinion 6 [6.45%]
- Other: 2 [2.15%]
- move
- new open-air stadium.
This doesn’t mean they’ll move, just that they’ll need to figure out a new facility. In the meantime, they’ll continue playing here. Once they formally opt out they’ll probably be quiet for a while, building support among state & local politicians while also talking with groups in other cities seeking a team. The Raiders are doing the same:
The Raiders and Rams would both be formalizing plans to move to Los Angeles in 2015 if not for NFL intervention and the league’s overriding control of the process, according to numerous sources with knowledge of the situation.
Both franchises continue to devote considerable time, energy and resources toward securing an eventual move. There is no lack of desire or intent by either club, sources said, however there is a fear of running afoul of the league office, which has made it explicitly clear to those clubs that no franchise will secure the 24 necessary votes to facilitate a relocation to LA without its stadium, property and development deals being approved by the NFL.
Both teams, whose current leases expire after the season, continue to actively seek solutions to their hurdles currently preventing them from moving to Southern California, sources said. “There are live discussions involving two clubs potentially relocating there,” as one source put it. (CBS Sports)
In January the LA Times reported Rams owner Stan Kronke bought a stadium-sized parcel of land in the Los Angeles area.
My feeling is if they want a new stadium here let them pay for it, I can think of many more projects to invest tax dollars. I do hope it takes them a while to move, that’ll help reduce the remaining debt on the dome.
— Steve Patterson
“A huge majority of readers . . . came to the correct conclusion”?! That implies that this was a push poll! While I agree with most of your other readers, I’m not sure I’d classifyy it as the “correct” answer, it’s more the majority opinion. Polling is not (should not be?) intended to be a test, it’s (should be?) a way to gauge the opinions of a group of respondents.
It’s just how I phrased that I agreed with the majority.