ST. LOUIS, Dec. 17 (UPI) — Many of the fans filling the stands at St. Louis’ Edward Jones Dome Thursday night might be getting a sensation of déjà vu right about now.
That’s because Thursday’s prime-time matchup between the Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers could possibly be the team’s final game in St. Louis. If it is, those fans will see their NFL team leave town for the second time in the city’s history.
For years, the National Football League has been trying to put a team back in Los Angeles — the second-largest and most lucrative media market in the United States. And after many months of discussions and negotiations, the St. Louis Rams might be one of the teams that ultimately fill that role.
Team owner Stan Kroenke has made no secret of the fact that he wants to move to Los Angeles, possibly as early as this offseason. As Thursday’s is the Rams’ final home game of the 2015 season, a successful move in the next few months would also make it the last home game in St. Louis — with no guarantee that the NFL would ever return.
Fans in St. Louis have been through this before. In 1987, the watched their beloved hometown St. Louis Cardinals become the Phoenix Cardinals. Nearly a decade later, in 1995, they welcomed the replacement Rams from Los Angeles.
The Rams became NFL champions five years later by winning Super Bowl XXXIV over the Tennessee Titans in one of the closest contests in the event’s history. It remains the team’s only Super Bowl title.
“It is emotional because it seems like I’m just living everything déjà vu,” Rams fan Bill Endicott, who has held season tickets since the team’s first season in St. Louis, told ESPN. “It’s like, ‘Here we go again.’ And it’s in someone else’s hands to decide what’s going to happen to the future of football in this town.
“I was at the very last game that the Cardinals played in St. Louis.”
In addition to the Rams, other teams considered possibilities for a move to Los Angeles are the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders. Incidentally, all three teams were located in Los Angeles at some point in their histories — the Rams from 1946-1994, the Raiders from 1982-1994 and the Chargers for its inaugural season in 1960.
Advocates of Los Angeles are developing two competing stadium projects with the hope of attracting a team — as is St. Louis, which revised a proposal Tuesday to build a new $1 billion stadium complex intended to keep the Rams in the Midwest.
That plan, however, also asks the NFL to assume $300 million of the project’s cost — something league commissioner Roger Goodell said is “fundamentally inconsistent with the NFL’s program of stadium financing.” Goodell said the league’s policy only permits it to pay a maximum of $200 million toward new stadium costs.
Any move to L.A. would have to be approved by most of the league’s team owners, who are scheduled to meet in Houston on Jan. 12-13. At the meeting, a relocation application fee is expected to be established and additional steps in the process set forth for prospective owners.
Many expect the meetings will make a final determination about the NFL in Los Angeles — possibly answering exactly which teams and how many will make the move. There are currently a number of potential scenarios regarding which teams might be chosen and where they might play.
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