If the enthusiasm and packed stadiums for the XFL's Battlehawks were an audition for an NFL team, I'd say the fans of St. Louis have passed the test. I realize there may be other factors involved.
It would take an extraordinary ownership like the owners of Enterprise Car Rental here that just privately built a new soccer stadium for a new MLS team. Attendance is not an issue. St. Louis just got burned bad by the NFL and Kroenke for public funding of the Dome now used by the Battle Hawks. The XFL owns that team. At least there was a lawsuit settlement.
St.Louis NFL problem has nothing to do with the fans. It has always been bad luck with team owners and poor politicians running the stadium management group.
I think the Big Red Cardinals in 1988 was about the conflict of STL city and county politixians over new stadium location since the owner Bill Bidwell wanted a new stadium and he thought Phoenix was building him one right away. It instead took 18 years so they played at Arizona State. The Rams were all about Kroenke wanting that huge L.A. TV market. That being said, I think STL should have been awarded an expansion team and not been penalized losing the NFL. The momentum was there to build a new stadium and good chance an owner would have been found for an expansion team but who that owner would have been was key. It took an indemnification agreement signed by Kroenke to compensate NFL ownersfrom any STL lawsuits to change their relocation vote to Kroenke as the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis but Kroenke would have only kept trying to move the team regardless. I agree it had nothing to do with fan support in either case. @@thelivingear990
No they didn’t have support in St. Louis other than the two years the were the greatest show on Turf .. I went to St Louis and they would basically give you free tickets.. They are in a better place..
@@andrerodriguez966 Wrong. They may not have sold out the Dome, but people absolutely supported that team right up until it became obvious Kroenke had no intention of staying. And any "lack of fan support" also comes from the fact that Kroenke, in his efforts to really claim that St. Louis didn't support the Rams, put an awful product on the field the last several years they were in St. Louis to drive down attendance. And even then, people still came out. So GTFO with your "no they didn't have support" because you are dead ass wrong.
@@jasonkoch3182 They did not have support!!!! St Louis only rooted for the Rams on good times not bad .. They were never supposed to even go to St Louis in the 1st place.. Better off in LA
One other thing you have to remember is that the Rams leaving St. Louis for L.A. isn't the first time that the city of St. Louis got screwed over and abandoned. At the end of the 1953 MLB season, the St. Louis Browns left for Baltimore, where they became the Orioles. In the summer of 1968, the NBA's St. Louis Hawks relocated to Atlanta. And in March 1988, the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals left for Phoenix. Add in the Rams leaving, and that's 4 times a strong sports city has been burned, which is a rotten shame. BUT...at least the MLB's St. Louis Cardinals have one of the best fan bases in baseball, with a rich history of great players and winning championships. Plus, the NHL's St. Louis Blues finally won the Stanley Cup in 2019. So those are good things for St. Louis to take comfort in.
@MetalGod999 Also, I don't know if you know this, but the Blues almost went to freakin' Saskatchewan in 1983. It looked like a done deal. However the NHL owners didn't want a market that small getting a team, and they voted it down (look up The Saskatoon Blues: The Story on a search engine for the full story).
Yes, @@billsherwin1705, this is true. But what also factored in the Browns moving from St. Louis to Baltimore was that unlike the Cardinals, who grew into an MLB powerhouse, the Browns almost always fielded bad teams. The only time the Browns reached the World Series was in 1944. But the sad irony is that the St. Louis Browns lost the ‘44 Fall Classic to…yes, you guessed it…the St. Louis Cardinals.
St. Louis only lost the Cardinals in 1988 because the separate governments of St. Louis city and County could not agree on a location for a new stadium. Owner Bill Bidwell thought Phoenix would right away build a new stadium for the Cardinals but it took 18 years for funding so they played 18 years at Arizona State. Attendance was never an issue. You made a good point about how terrible the Rams had been for years so there had been some slip in attendance. Even attendance for the baseball Cardinals will slip if they have a run of last place teams like this season. The great XFL BattleHawks attendance of close to 40,000 shows there is strong football interest still in STL. St. Louis when forced by Stan Kroenke was willing to abandon the 20 year old Dome to build another new downtown stadium but did need owner contribution. St. Louis did some amazing things never before seen here to be prepared so quickly to begin building the new stadium. If only other matters were given the same importance. Kroenke wanted the large TV market of L.A. and his building on his own the Taj Mahal of all NFL stadiums showed he was not a good ftr as an owner of a St. Louis franchise. Remember the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis based on its new stadium and as a result of the ST. Louis NFL lawsuit it was learned the NFL owners only swung their votes on a second vote once Stan Kroenke signed his indemnification agreement to protect NFL owners from any St. Louis lawsuits. I guess the owners realized their guilt and needed protection. The NFL should have let Stan Kroenke move the Rams to L.A. as he wanted but targeted St. Louis as an expansion team. A new owner woud have been found. St. Louis is an outstanding sports city as seen by its support of the Cardinals, Blues, and its new soccer team thanks to the owners of Enterprise and others privately building a new soccer stadium for the huge soccer support here. They are now called the best fans in the MLS. I agree totally St. Louis would have supported an NFL expansion team well. Even if the Rams had stayed in St. Louis, Stan Kroenke would have remained a problem for STL. The local media alerted STL when he had years prior already purchased the L.A. land for SOFI. The St. Louis Post Dispatch after the lawsuit settlement timelined the steps taken by Kroenke and Roger Goodell.
From reading the St. Louis Post Dispatch that came out with a really long detailed breakdown of all that took pllace behind the scenes uncovered from the St. Louis lawsuit settled out of court, Goodell did try some things. Problem is that Chargers owner Spanos is a California person with no interest in the Midwest. Also Kroenke had years prior bought the land for SOFI and his goal all along was that large L.A. TV market. I would not have trusted an owner like Spanos in St. Louis anyway expecting him to move eventually even with a new stadium anyway since an owner committed to a region is necessary. @@Gage_Brumley
Ever been to a Battlehawks game? The atmosphere there is incredible. This city has a chip on its shoulder. Theres so much passion for football here. You hit the nail on the head!
@@iamjacksalias6071 I have not been to a game but tbut came close a couple times with a buddy and son backing out on me.I always drop hints but do enjoy watching the games on TV and the UFL/XFL TV coverage has been great for St. Louis. I like watching the fan support.
Kroenke wanted Los Angeles, he was on the LA Expansion Committee and knew what the league wanted and what it would take to move to Los Angeles. Similar to former Rams executive John Shaw being on the expansion committee back in the 90's and understanding what all the cities were offering, which made him convince Ram owner Georgia Frontiere to relocate. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
You clearly aren’t from LA so let me explain. Teams like San Fran, the Raiders are very popular in California. The Rams actually have a very deep fan base in South Central and throughout the South Bay region you don’t have to take my word for it just go see for yourself… it’s nothing more than a lot of people in the city are 9er fans. Truth is a lot of Rams fans stayed Rams fans when we left LA and moved to St.Louis. It’s like a lot of y’all forget the Rams are the original LA team
That is simply not true. The city did absolutely everything it could to keep the team, including spending millions on the design plan for the new stadium. Nobody was done with the Rams until it became obvious that the NFL, Goodell, Kroenke, and Jerry Jones had no interest in staying and was prepared to scorch the earth on their way out.
This is one thing that really sucks about American sports. Teams are supposed to be part of a city and represent that area. They shouldn’t be able to just leave. This never happens in europe but it happens way too much in the US.
Then according to your own logic St. Louis never should have had an NFL team to begin with, correct? After all, they stole the Cardinals from Chicago and stole the Rams from LA. Those teams should have stayed and represented their original cities, correct? St. Louis fans were fine taking those teams when their owners jilted their original cities to get a better deal, but when they left again fro even better deal then St. Louis was done wrong somehow? Hypocrisy much?
@@MarkMay-cr6bv yeah correct… why is that so shocking to u ? Those teams shouldve stayed where they originally were and St Louis would’ve just had to make their own team… is that really that wild to u ? lmao
St. Louis really got a bad deal in this whole thing. They didn't even need a new stadium and even offered to do some minor renovations. The dome at America's center is still one of the best football stadiums in the NFL. It's so weird how people can subjectively rank stadiums. The Rams had a long sell out streak and the dome was rockin when they played good or okay. They should get a team, I think the Chargers should move to a reasonable renovated Dome.
It won't be the Chargers. The NFL wants two teams in SoCal. Plus, You do that, there's no AFC presence on the West Coast. That matters when it comes to TV contracts.
The frustrating part is it wouldn't have taken much to upgrade the Dome. The biggest issues were adding in natural lighting/skylights and expanding the jumbotrons/installing overhead displays (also making the seats match the team's freaking colors would have helped). There were plans for a radical renovation of the Dome but the city could never get on board with it unfortunately. I think even if that would have happened Kroenke still moves to LA, he had his sights on that city the second he purchased the team.
@@Gage_Brumley The dome in St. Louis is very similar to Ford field in Detroit (but StL is better) which is the most underrated stadium in the NFL and I think is way better than Dallas, LA, Minnesota, Arizona, Las Vegas and any stadium without a dome. The city was willing to do more than $100 million in renovations to get a center hung scoreboard and remove some panels to get some natural light (which is way over rated) it causes really bad shadows and sometimes you can't even follow the plays because of it. Go to a Minnesota Vikings day game, I couldn't see what was happening on the field. The Dome in St. Louis is more like the Georgia dome, RCA dome, the Metrodome. Those stadiums were better for football than these newer ones. Football is a lot different than baseball, I think football is trying to copy baseball in their stadiums and style but can't because they are more about capacity. The Dome in St. Louis is a masterpiece, like Busch stadium, the enterprise center and the new StL soccer stadium. Downtown St. Louis has the best venues for sports and some of the best fans. They got hosed.
Man I was at the Arch with my family and some LA folks were there complaining that they didn't want the team. I wish they would've stayed. Not having NFL representation is not okay in my opinion. LOL 😆
Jacksonville should move to St Louis, waive the relocation fee. They would play the Colts, Titans and Oilers/Texans. Florida doesn’t need three teams and they would be right in the middle of their conference geographically plus the owner wouldn’t from St Louis. Right the wrong of the Cardinals and Rams and they would be supported, but change the name to something with a Mississippi River based theme and build a new stadium on the river, with a translucent dome.
@@maddrone7814y do u think they didn’t wanna show up for them those years. Historically I mean historically bad for 10 years or so then to find out your owner is stabbing u in the back
As a football fan who grew up in the 2000’s, I was disappointed at first when the Rams moved out of St. Louis, as that’s how I always knew them. It took a few years, but the LA Rams name eventually grew on me. However, I still think LA’s team is the Raiders. Las Vegas has fully embraced them at least, but if the Black Hole was in LA again- it would make it a tough place to play.
The Rams at one time were great when they were in Saint Louis. That was during the late 90s, and kurt warner was playing for that team during that time.
Stl Rams had five winning seasons under Georgia Frontier as majority owner. Kroenke was minority shareholder during that time. The Rams moving back to LA was the best thing to happen for the franchise.
@@sawyertuide7636 Kronke simply took advantage of the St.Louis Rams lease which called for Edward Jones to remain in the top quarter of NFL venues. With the onset of the billion dollar plus stadium era with Dallas in 2009, followed by New York (2010) and San Francisco (2014) with Minnesota (2016) and Atlanta (2017) on deck, it was obvious that Edward Jones could not be brought up to standard. St.Louis authorities thought the length of the lease would keep the team.
@@TheLAGopher what makes any of those stadiums better than the Dome in St. Louis? St. Louis has a nice convention center attached, is in a downtown, has it's own train station, is fully climate controlled, right next to a national park. Doesn't have the shadows of some of the stadiums you mentioned. It definitely was and still is one of the best. Because I said so is not a logical reason.
The desired name change from National Car Rental Stadium to Enterprise Field is became Enterprise is headquartered in St. Louis, and Enterprise owns National.
Just an FYI that it is the owers of local Enterprise car rental that just built the outstanding new soccer stadium in St. Louis now being raved as the best in the MLS. St. Louis always has had a great soccer fan base but it took the private building of a new soccer stadium to bring a team to St. Louis especially after the mess with Stan Kroenke and the Rams.
I have somewhat to say about the Rams and the dome that they abandoned. The facility opened in 1995 to rave revues. It was the pride of St Louis and the NFL. It cost 280 million to build and finance. By the way, St Louis city, St Louis County and the state of Missouri still owe $100 million. St Louis was gang raped by the Rams owner and the NFL. So the dome was badly out dated in 21 years? All I have to say is Jesse James is still alive and doing well in L.A. I seriously doubt if St Louis ever gets another team. By the way, that Dome is still beautiful. Later. Vaughn
I think the problem with the America Center Dome is it was built a few years too early. I should have been built more like Ford Field but is instead more comparable to the Alamodome and RCA Dome. It's kinda like an oversized NBA arena, which worked when the team was successful and the fan base was strong, but it became a drab place to watch a game when the Rams began their decline. I think they should have played a few years in Busch Memorial Stadium and not rushed to get a stadium built.
Well said. It was only the big ideals of Kroenke that forced STL in to a corner to build another outdoor stadium after 20 years. That being said, it sure made for excitement to have it built. St. Louis fans I know all liked the Dome. All they needed was a better team. It's like Baseball Cardinals fans wanting a good baseball team over any more Ballpark Village expansion. Seeing the Taj Mahal of all NFL stadiums built by Kroenke shows he was not a fit for St. Louis. I see the problems with other old stadiums in the NFL and see it all comes down to having a good ownership fitr for your city like the owners of Enterprise that just privately built the new soccer stadium.
Rams should’ve stayed in St. Louis, if you put the current product in STL both die hards and the casual fan would absolutely support the team. As a Rams fan it pisses me off that this team has been amazing since moving and even won a Super Bowl but yet still has to play with a silent count IN THEIR OWN STADIUM! In a perfect world Rams stay in STL, Raiders go to LA and Chargers stay in SD and Vegas gets an expansion team.
We have been lucky in St louis to see the Greatest Show on Turf. 4 HOF players + Vermeil & Holt should get in soon. Add those 4 years as the Best in the NFL. Great Times
@@dvferyance For like a year in 1961. Then moved straight to San Diego for 55 years. Chargers were NEVER a true LA team. They will always be the San Diego Chargers.
We're proud of our local companies and yeah we'd prefer it be called Enterprise (even though in this case, I think it was Enterprise that wanted to publicize the National branding on an NFL level) just like how it's St. Louis Bread Co, not Panera.
St. Louis will be Cardinals Baseball #1 meta forever and everybody knows that. Even since the Rams left for LA and just a few last later in St. Louis the Blues won the Stanley Cup.
The Rams would have had a generational fanbase, kind of like how the Twins, Lakers, Flames,, and Ravens have generational fanbases, despite being relocated teams. Once you've hit that generational threshold, you're not going to relocate. Furthermore, this is what would have happened. The Bills stay home. They're too iconic. (Generational fanbase) The Raiders move to Los Angeles. (Non-generational fanbase, but nationally popular) The Chargers follow suit, and move to the NFC. West, swapping positions with the Saint Louis Rams, who move to the AFC West. The Rams, needing money for a stadium, sell the rights to the Rams name to the Chargers in exchange for the Chargers brand name. The Rams then go on to sell the rights of the Chargers name and history to the city of San Diego. The Rams then rebrand themselves as the Saint Louis Wildcats. A reference to the aviation industry in Saint Louis. The I-70 Showdown becomes the hottest rivalry in the NFL. The Jaguars Eventually move to Las Vegas.
You could argue when the Rams first came to STL that a move back to LA was always the long game due to the stadium lease language and that Kroenke's minority share meant he had the first crack at owning the entire team. NFL owners benefited greatly by having LA open as it was a real threat to move the team. Plus NFL owners love moves due to the relocation fee. Having the Rams leave LA may have been better in the long run for the NFL owners, even after the settlement with the city of St. Louis.
Absolutely there would have been fan support for the Rams if they stayed. St. Louis and the surrounding area supported the Rams right up to the point where it became obvious Kroenke had no interested in staying in St. Louis. Had there been a new stadium and Kroenke would have invested in the team, absolutely people would have supported them in St. Louis. But instead, Kroenke, Goodell and Jerry Jones decided to go scorched earth while forcing St. Louis to spend millions to develop the stadium plan that had zero chance of ever happening. The NFL absolutely screwed St. Louis in that process and that's why they won the mega lawsuit a few years later.
What people don't understand understand about the Buffalo market and are constantly trying to move them is that it is part of a larger market called the golden triangle. Buffalo is in the middle of it. To the east in a 45 minute drive your in Rochester NY a market almost as big as Buffalo. To the west is Hamilton Ontario which is a market the same size of Buffalo. When you combine the 3 markets it has a market size of 3.4 Million people. Which is roughly the same size as the Metro of detroit, Seattle or San Francisco. That's why I the tv ratings there always very similar and why it's a very important market for the NFL. Now in 2008 Ralph Wilson the bills owner tried a bills in Toronto series to see if they would draw in Toronto and it was a huge disappointment with less than 30k in the stadium. The golden triangle as a market is bigger than Jacksonville and St. Louis combined. The NFL owners know this and that's why there's a 1.5 billion dollar stadium being built there. Just some knowledge and perspective that people don't commonly know.
I was born and raised in Erie, PA, which is only 90 miles southwest down the Lake Erie shore. However, Erie is almost the same distance from Cleveland and not much further from Pittsburgh. Many fans in this city support the Steelers or Browns, because they are in bigger media-markets and have more tradition because the Bills are a former AFL team. I can see why the Bills would draw many more fans from Hamilton than Toronto. Both cities have CFL teams.
Even you put the Raiders in L A the NFL and L A city leaders will still hate the Raiders because of Al Davis for suing the League and then leaving Los Angeles without a team after the Rams left
Rams ownership wanted to move to a larger city. The ownership never wanted the team to do well once the 'Greatest Show on Turf - area" ended. The ownership made their money from real estate. Building a new stadium in LA meant an instant increase in the value of the franchise. The issue STL fans have with the ownership and the NFL is how the move was made. STL supported the Rams, but the franchise refused to field a good team. The ownership and NFL settled a lawsuit with the City of St Louis, County of St Louis and State of Missouri for leaving under false pretenses. The NFL paid 900 million dollars, because they knew the NFL would loose if it went to trial. The Rams were never going to stay.
Correct. Nobody would have been happy with the Rams leaving, but if the NFL had just been honest that it had no interest in staying in St. Louis and not made them spend millions they didn't have to spend on the new stadium, and if they hadn't scorched the earth on the way out, I think people would have gotten over it eventually. But the way the NFL, Goodell, Kroenke, and Jerry Jones went about trying to eviscerate the city is what people got most upset about. There was no reason to do that considering how supportive the city had been of the team even when Kroenke was intentionally putting a terrible product on the field in those last few years.
@@Moreorlesss996 for the most part fans didn’t show up because the ownership intentionally made the team god awful while simultaneously making tickets more expensive than almost any other team in the league to make attendance look bad to justify the move to LA. And yes, the stadium in LA is usually full. At minimum 33% of the people there are always cheering for the other team, not the rams or chargers.
If the Rams didn't move to LA, the Raiders and Chargers joint bid to move to LA would have been accepted. In that scenario, the Chargers might have switched to the NFC West with the Seahawks, Cardinals or Rams switching to the AFC West.
I read the AZ Cardinals were the primary candidate to switch conferences if the Charger-Raider deal would've been accepted. It would've been: AFC West - LA Raiders, KC, Denver, Arizona (PHX) NFC West - LA Chargers, Seattle, SF, St. Louis Rams. I also remember when the Raiders were considering sharing Levi in the South Bay with the 49ers.
The issue if the Rams stayed in St Louis is that Sofi wouldn't be built. Mark Davis took a leap of faith by moving the Raiders into the Las Vegas Valley because it wasn't an established market for major sports teams. The Chargers will still make the move to Los Angeles, but it wouldn't be in a Sofi mega stadium (the proposed stadium is likely to be 1/3 of the price of SoFi).
Few years back when I was watching a Lions vs Jaguars game on TV with the Jags as the home team, I saw the stadium stands with more Lions fans than Jags fans in Jacksonville.
If the Rams had stayed in St.Louis, I think the more likely scenario would’ve been Raiders and Chargers to LA (with the Chargers building a new practice facility in Orange County to try to keep some “territorial rights” in San Diego as well as the OC and possibly the Inland Empire), and it would’ve been the Jaguars moving to Las Vegas.
im glad the rams moved back to Los Angeles. St. Louis gave them a freaking buff when it came to my saints. even the jeff fisher rams beat us plenty. i dont remember the last time we beat em in St. Louis. 😭
2009-Saints 28 Rams 23..........Courtney Roby returns a kickoff for TD and Saints move to 9-0. Seems kinda ironic since the Rams moved back to L.A. we can't seem to beat them there either.
Had Shahid Kahn been allowed to purchase the St. Louis Rams, they would still be in St. Louis. I live in Jacksonville and am grateful they said no to him buying the Rams. He is surprisingly loyal to Jacksonville. He is from St. Louis and many thought he would take the Jags there. But again, he is more loyal than any ever thought. I agree London looms, but won’t happen unless they bring in a European division.
Correct, but Stan Kroenke spireheaded behind Shahid Khan's back upon his possible purchase to keep as STL Rams after ex-owner's death of Georgia Frontiere.
The Rams had already moved out to Anaheim by the time they moved to St. Louis. The Raiders were L.A.'s favorite football team, and would have been again had they moved back.
Enterprise Field would’ve sounded okay, not the best but it would’ve been the equivalent of EverBank Field in Jacksonville, still was okay with that before the current TIAA Bank Field
The Rams belong in LA. No other team was in LA longer than the Rams. I still supported when we moved to St.Louis but nah LA deserved a team and I’m glad it’s The Rams
I quit watching when the Rams left us. I was watching all their draft picks the years prior and was so excited and then they left. 😢 I’ve only watched the super bowls since that season and haven’t gotten excited about the Battlehawks
The Rams w LA's team for 50 years. Everything that St. Louis was complaining about was exactly what happened when the Rams were stolen by St. Louis in 1995. St. Louis blew it when they failed to keep the Cardinals. At this point they need to get a small market team that can't make it where they're currently located, or they need to get an expansion team. LA's football team is the Rams. (Personally I think that the Chargers should go back to San Diego, but whatever. And I know that the entire league is glad that the Raiders didn't end up in LA.)
Both football teams that Saint Louis had [the Cardinals and the Rams] were relocation teams. Saint Louis should never get another relocated football team again. The only football team STL should get is a brand new team which is created due to an NFL expansion.
Except that LA never built a stadium for the Rams. St. Louis not only gave them the brand new Dome, but then passed legislation to acquire state and local funds to build a new one after only 20 years. Whereas, after 50 years in Los Angeles, they never once got public financing to build the Rams a stadium. Even today... SOFI was privately financed by the Rams and the NFL. Los Angeles still has not lifted a finger ever. St. Louis' problem is its declining population, crime and lack of corporate money that has all left the city over the past 50 years.
St. Louis or LA, don’t care. Just wish they had an outdoor, open air stadium on grass. I loved seeing them at Busch Stadium in 95 and the LA Coliseum from 2016-19
Had the Chargers stayed in San Diego (which would have required San Diego voters to approve a new billion dollar open air stadium on prime bay front property desired by hotel/condo developers) The Raiders would have gotten permission to relocate to Los Angeles and join the Rams as cotenets at SOFI. Unlike the Chargers who moved into a soccer stadium for 2 years, the Raiders would have likely shared the Coliseum with the Rams for 2 years.
As a St Louis native, I was sad that the Rams left, but still being a Rams fan, we ABSOLUTELY would not have the ring that we have. Being in LA gave us a lot of talent and money opportunities
Baloney. Kroenke could easily have invested in the team in St. Louis and won here. He didn't need to be in LA. He wanted to be there. And he screwed St. Louis completely to get what he wanted.
@jasonkoch3182 I'm talking in terms of players wanting to play and stay there. But I get you brotha. I wish it would have been in STL. I just think that the LA market brought in more money. But the fact that we even kept playing in the Edward Jones Dome (which is one of the worst stadiums in America) shows me he didn't want to invest there
It's pathetic they demanded a new stadium when the one there was just 20 years old. As much I as wanted the Rams to stay in St Louis I got to admit SoFi was 100 times better than that proposed new stadium they wanted to build in St Louis.
Maybe Stan would be forced out, and St Louis would get a new owner who wants to be here. A brand new stadium that would have brought super bowls, bowl games, wrestling events, and no stupid chiefs every Sunday. It would have been perfect, but now, since the move, I have no reason to watch the NFL. Why would I want to watch teams like the stupid chiefs and packers who didn't care about St Louis fans. I'm a proud St Louis fan that was born in the 90s and focused on college football and the St Louis Battlehawks
If that happened, Raiders & Chargers would go to LA. Chargers would switch divisions with the Cardinals. NFC West would then be: Rams, Seahawks, Chargers and 49ers. AFC West would then be Raiders, Broncos, Chiefs and Cardinals.
The raiders would have probably moved to LA instead of vegas and build that stadium in carson city instead of sofi. The chargers would most likely stay in san diego, the reason they moved in real life is because the rams let them stay in sofi for free, its unlikely the raiders would do something similar. I think the jags would move to vegas and the bills stay in buffalo.
Had the Rams stayed in St. Louis, there is no way that the Chargers would be in LA by themselves, if I recall the Carson stadium project with the Raiders was a response to the Rams proposal in Inglewood, so if the Rams stay in St. Louis there's a chance that there is no Carson stadium proposal. Neither the Raiders or Chargers would be able to get their own stadiums by themselves and there is no way that in California they would get public funding either.
It would take an exceptional owner like the owners of Enterprise and others that privately built the new soccer stadium. Kroenke was not a good fit for St. Louis. He wanted the big TV market of L.A.. His dreams were in California alongside the movie stars and wanted the big time. That being said, the NFL should have resolved the Kroenke issue by targeting St. Louis for an expansion team as a resolution. Remember the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis and only the Kroenke indemnifcation agreement allowed the team to move because owners realized their guilt but needed protection by Kroenke from STL lawsuits.
Maybe but not at least until Godell is no longer commissioner. Washington DC lost 2 baseball teams and got a 3rd one so it's not impossible. LA lost 2 teams and many like me never thought they would ever get a team again.
St. Louis should have already been awarded an expansion team as a result of the Kroenke mess. Like when the Senators became the Twins in 1961 and the expansion Senators now Rangers started.. The NFL Relocation committee even recomended the Rams stay in St. Louis based upon its new stadium plans. Only Kroenke's indemnification agreement it would be learned during the STL lawsuit he promised to protect owners from any STL lawsuits got him the owners to approve his move. Averaging close to 40,000 for the XFL Battle Hawks shows the fans are still there. It would sure take an extraordinary ownership group though given how St. Louis got burned by the NFL. Roger Gooddell owes it to St. Louis now that the Kroenke indemnification agreement has been exposed. @@dvferyance
I think the Chargers should have stayed in San Diego and the raiders should have stayed in Oakland or else moved to Los Angeles. The Jacksonville jaguars should have been the team that have moved to Las vegas.
St.Louis lost the team because the owner was hell bent on moving the team to LA and make 5 times the money. Nothing less, nothing more. It was a money grab. It in no way means St.Louis cant support a NFL team. They have and did until over a decade long run of poor ownership and 6 of those years the majority knew they were leaving. St. Louis is one if not the best sports towns in America.
I could have lived with the river front stadium in St Louis, but that wasn't to be. Having said that, Stan Kroenke would have not built SoFi or any other stadium for another duo of teams if the Rams were not one of them. Dean Spanos or Mark Davis couldn't have self funded a stadium, between them. I believe Kroenke said that he would just develop into a new community, with or without SoFi.
Had the Rams stayed in St. Louis, then it would have been the Raiders and Chargers moving to LA and SoFi obviously wouldn't have happened as that was Stan Kroenke's doing. Instead there would have been the Carson Stadium getting built with both the Raiders and Chargers each paying half the cost similar to the Giants and Jets with MetLife. I believe the Chargers would have then moved to the NFC West and the Seattle Seahawks would have moved back to the AFC West taking their place. I don't think in this scenario Vegas would have had a team unless the Chargers ended up moving there because something fell through with the Carson plan leaving the Raiders as the sole LA Team (which honestly would be the case in a perfect world). The problem with that though is Mark Davis isn't/wasn't one of the billionaire owners that could swing a stadium by himself hence why the Chargers were involved with that plan in the first place, and unlike with Nevada and Clark County there likely would not have been a massive public money handout in LA, this was why the NFL was absent from the LA Market for so long. Until Stan bought that land in Inglewood no NFL Owner would step up and privately finance a stadium and the city sure the hell wasn't going to do it esp without a guaranteed team.
The Chargers never should have left San Diego. Great fans there!
Agreed. It was stupid for them to move to LA in the first place.
Especially considering how many times the Chargers broke their hearts in the playoffs.
SD shoulda just chipped in to build another stadium
Teams do this all the time
As a diehard Rams fan I think about this a lot. Thank you for the what if video!
If the enthusiasm and packed stadiums for the XFL's Battlehawks were an audition for an NFL team, I'd say the fans of St. Louis have passed the test. I realize there may be other factors involved.
It would take an extraordinary ownership like the owners of Enterprise Car Rental here that just privately built a new soccer stadium for a new MLS team. Attendance is not an issue. St. Louis just got burned bad by the NFL and Kroenke for public funding of the Dome now used by the Battle Hawks. The XFL owns that team. At least there was a lawsuit settlement.
XFL is a minor league
I agree. @@1999bill1999
St.Louis NFL problem has nothing to do with the fans. It has always been bad luck with team owners and poor politicians running the stadium management group.
I think the Big Red Cardinals in 1988 was about the conflict of STL city and county politixians over new stadium location since the owner Bill Bidwell wanted a new stadium and he thought Phoenix was building him one right away. It instead took 18 years so they played at Arizona State. The Rams were all about Kroenke wanting that huge L.A. TV market. That being said, I think STL should have been awarded an expansion team and not been penalized losing the NFL. The momentum was there to build a new stadium and good chance an owner would have been found for an expansion team but who that owner would have been was key. It took an indemnification agreement signed by Kroenke to compensate NFL ownersfrom any STL lawsuits to change their relocation vote to Kroenke as the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis but Kroenke would have only kept trying to move the team regardless. I agree it had nothing to do with fan support in either case. @@thelivingear990
If the Buffalo Bills had moved to Vegas they could have renamed themselves The Las Vegas Dollar Bills !
They could have taken the whole name. Las Vegas Buffalo Bills. Name it after the casino, lol
There would be lots of Buffalo Gold Machines in the stadium
That's is also my idea and called them the 'Las Vegas Bisons'. Then the Raiders should've move back to LA with the Rams.
More likely "the horseshoe" since that's a famous historical name of a casino in Vegas.
F A X 😂
Fan support was always great in STL until the owner started building a stadium in LA and did all but fly the double bird to the city.
Kroenke and the rest of the NFL ended up getting sued for $790 million too.
Reminds me of the A’s
No they didn’t have support in St. Louis other than the two years the were the greatest show on Turf .. I went to St Louis and they would basically give you free tickets.. They are in a better place..
@@andrerodriguez966 Wrong. They may not have sold out the Dome, but people absolutely supported that team right up until it became obvious Kroenke had no intention of staying.
And any "lack of fan support" also comes from the fact that Kroenke, in his efforts to really claim that St. Louis didn't support the Rams, put an awful product on the field the last several years they were in St. Louis to drive down attendance. And even then, people still came out.
So GTFO with your "no they didn't have support" because you are dead ass wrong.
@@jasonkoch3182 They did not have support!!!! St Louis only rooted for the Rams on good times not bad .. They were never supposed to even go to St Louis in the 1st place.. Better off in LA
One other thing you have to remember is that the Rams leaving St. Louis for L.A. isn't the first time that the city of St. Louis got screwed over and abandoned.
At the end of the 1953 MLB season, the St. Louis Browns left for Baltimore, where they became the Orioles. In the summer of 1968, the NBA's St. Louis Hawks relocated to Atlanta. And in March 1988, the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals left for Phoenix. Add in the Rams leaving, and that's 4 times a strong sports city has been burned, which is a rotten shame. BUT...at least the MLB's St. Louis Cardinals have one of the best fan bases in baseball, with a rich history of great players and winning championships. Plus, the NHL's St. Louis Blues finally won the Stanley Cup in 2019. So those are good things for St. Louis to take comfort in.
The reason why the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore in 1953 because St. Louis was too small to support both the Browns and Cardinals.
@MetalGod999 Also, I don't know if you know this, but the Blues almost went to freakin' Saskatchewan in 1983. It looked like a done deal. However the NHL owners didn't want a market that small getting a team, and they voted it down (look up The Saskatoon Blues: The Story on a search engine for the full story).
Yes, @@billsherwin1705, this is true. But what also factored in the Browns moving from St. Louis to Baltimore was that unlike the Cardinals, who grew into an MLB powerhouse, the Browns almost always fielded bad teams. The only time the Browns reached the World Series was in 1944. But the sad irony is that the St. Louis Browns lost the ‘44 Fall Classic to…yes, you guessed it…the St. Louis Cardinals.
What happend to the storm???
@@descolabandz8855, are you talking about the St. Louis Storm of the Major Indoor Soccer League? They were in existence from 1989-1992.
Those last years in STL Kroenke (sucks) was tanking them on purpose - He had that greed-driven move planned for several years.
I knew that when Kroenke exercised his purchase option that the Rams were gone. Jeff Fisher is an awful coach used to tank the team.
@@DavidC-pr4wn yep... for sure..
No different than skanky Georgia.
They (rams) were bad and boring the last decade in St. Louis
Georgia and Kroenke did the same thing when they wanted to move the Rams from LA to St Louis. He was a hero and a zero in both cities lol
We need National Car Rental Field for the UFL’s Battlehawks 🏈 , a new St Louis NFL Team 🏈 , and a New Saint Louis Major League Rugby Team🏉
The XFL in St. Louis drew an average around 27000 fans per game so bringing an NFL team back to St. Louis would be a success
Well they can have their UFL team ( no longer XFL) because as of 2024 that's all they're going to get
St. Louis only lost the Cardinals in 1988 because the separate governments of St. Louis city and County could not agree on a location for a new stadium. Owner Bill Bidwell thought Phoenix would right away build a new stadium for the Cardinals but it took 18 years for funding so they played 18 years at Arizona State. Attendance was never an issue. You made a good point about how terrible the Rams had been for years so there had been some slip in attendance. Even attendance for the baseball Cardinals will slip if they have a run of last place teams like this season. The great XFL BattleHawks attendance of close to 40,000 shows there is strong football interest still in STL. St. Louis when forced by Stan Kroenke was willing to abandon the 20 year old Dome to build another new downtown stadium but did need owner contribution. St. Louis did some amazing things never before seen here to be prepared so quickly to begin building the new stadium. If only other matters were given the same importance. Kroenke wanted the large TV market of L.A. and his building on his own the Taj Mahal of all NFL stadiums showed he was not a good ftr as an owner of a St. Louis franchise. Remember the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis based on its new stadium and as a result of the ST. Louis NFL lawsuit it was learned the NFL owners only swung their votes on a second vote once Stan Kroenke signed his indemnification agreement to protect NFL owners from any St. Louis lawsuits. I guess the owners realized their guilt and needed protection. The NFL should have let Stan Kroenke move the Rams to L.A. as he wanted but targeted St. Louis as an expansion team. A new owner woud have been found. St. Louis is an outstanding sports city as seen by its support of the Cardinals, Blues, and its new soccer team thanks to the owners of Enterprise and others privately building a new soccer stadium for the huge soccer support here. They are now called the best fans in the MLS. I agree totally St. Louis would have supported an NFL expansion team well. Even if the Rams had stayed in St. Louis, Stan Kroenke would have remained a problem for STL. The local media alerted STL when he had years prior already purchased the L.A. land for SOFI. The St. Louis Post Dispatch after the lawsuit settlement timelined the steps taken by Kroenke and Roger Goodell.
Or the NFL should have allocated for the Chargers to take the Rams place in St Louis when they couldn't get a stadium agreement in place in San Diego.
From reading the St. Louis Post Dispatch that came out with a really long detailed breakdown of all that took pllace behind the scenes uncovered from the St. Louis lawsuit settled out of court, Goodell did try some things. Problem is that Chargers owner Spanos is a California person with no interest in the Midwest. Also Kroenke had years prior bought the land for SOFI and his goal all along was that large L.A. TV market. I would not have trusted an owner like Spanos in St. Louis anyway expecting him to move eventually even with a new stadium anyway since an owner committed to a region is necessary. @@Gage_Brumley
I believe I read the Chargers owner Spanos though is a California person and wants no part of his team in the Midwest. @@Gage_Brumley
Ever been to a Battlehawks game? The atmosphere there is incredible. This city has a chip on its shoulder. Theres so much passion for football here. You hit the nail on the head!
@@iamjacksalias6071 I have not been to a game but tbut came close a couple times with a buddy and son backing out on me.I always drop hints but do enjoy watching the games on TV and the UFL/XFL TV coverage has been great for St. Louis. I like watching the fan support.
Kroenke wanted Los Angeles, he was on the LA Expansion Committee and knew what the league wanted and what it would take to move to Los Angeles. Similar to former Rams executive John Shaw being on the expansion committee back in the 90's and understanding what all the cities were offering, which made him convince Ram owner Georgia Frontiere to relocate. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Exactly kroenke cares about the Benjamin’s and that’s it
They would have an actual fan base and there would be no worries about other teams taking over their stadium during playoff games.
You clearly aren’t from LA so let me explain. Teams like San Fran, the Raiders are very popular in California. The Rams actually have a very deep fan base in South Central and throughout the South Bay region you don’t have to take my word for it just go see for yourself… it’s nothing more than a lot of people in the city are 9er fans. Truth is a lot of Rams fans stayed Rams fans when we left LA and moved to St.Louis. It’s like a lot of y’all forget the Rams are the original LA team
cope harder that the Rams are home.
STL didn’t care from 2008-2015
@@1999bill1999 Because the team went 42-101-1 during that period. Absolutely abysmal
@@1999bill1999Yea, and neither did Kroenke. Crazy the Rams became significantly better after moving to LA 🤔 lol
Love watching ya videos man kee up the good work
After 5 seasons of 2-14, 2-14, 1-15, 3-13, 2-14 And the Rams demanding a New Stadium, St. Louis was done with them!
Were they really?
That is simply not true. The city did absolutely everything it could to keep the team, including spending millions on the design plan for the new stadium. Nobody was done with the Rams until it became obvious that the NFL, Goodell, Kroenke, and Jerry Jones had no interest in staying and was prepared to scorch the earth on their way out.
Yes they wanted a Super Bowl team every year, they were spoiled by the early success the Rams had there in their first 5 -7 years there
This is one thing that really sucks about American sports. Teams are supposed to be part of a city and represent that area. They shouldn’t be able to just leave. This never happens in europe but it happens way too much in the US.
Then according to your own logic St. Louis never should have had an NFL team to begin with, correct? After all, they stole the Cardinals from Chicago and stole the Rams from LA. Those teams should have stayed and represented their original cities, correct? St. Louis fans were fine taking those teams when their owners jilted their original cities to get a better deal, but when they left again fro even better deal then St. Louis was done wrong somehow? Hypocrisy much?
@@MarkMay-cr6bv yeah correct… why is that so shocking to u ? Those teams shouldve stayed where they originally were and St Louis would’ve just had to make their own team… is that really that wild to u ? lmao
Should have never left St.Louis. bad owners cost everything
The Rams never should have left Los Angeles in the first place. The Edward Jones Dome was arguably the worst domed stadium ever.
The Cardinals in 1987
St. Louis really got a bad deal in this whole thing. They didn't even need a new stadium and even offered to do some minor renovations. The dome at America's center is still one of the best football stadiums in the NFL. It's so weird how people can subjectively rank stadiums. The Rams had a long sell out streak and the dome was rockin when they played good or okay. They should get a team, I think the Chargers should move to a reasonable renovated Dome.
It won't be the Chargers. The NFL wants two teams in SoCal. Plus, You do that, there's no AFC presence on the West Coast. That matters when it comes to TV contracts.
The frustrating part is it wouldn't have taken much to upgrade the Dome. The biggest issues were adding in natural lighting/skylights and expanding the jumbotrons/installing overhead displays (also making the seats match the team's freaking colors would have helped). There were plans for a radical renovation of the Dome but the city could never get on board with it unfortunately. I think even if that would have happened Kroenke still moves to LA, he had his sights on that city the second he purchased the team.
They agreed to the terms made a deal with the devil.
@@Gage_Brumley The dome in St. Louis is very similar to Ford field in Detroit (but StL is better) which is the most underrated stadium in the NFL and I think is way better than Dallas, LA, Minnesota, Arizona, Las Vegas and any stadium without a dome. The city was willing to do more than $100 million in renovations to get a center hung scoreboard and remove some panels to get some natural light (which is way over rated) it causes really bad shadows and sometimes you can't even follow the plays because of it. Go to a Minnesota Vikings day game, I couldn't see what was happening on the field.
The Dome in St. Louis is more like the Georgia dome, RCA dome, the Metrodome. Those stadiums were better for football than these newer ones. Football is a lot different than baseball, I think football is trying to copy baseball in their stadiums and style but can't because they are more about capacity. The Dome in St. Louis is a masterpiece, like Busch stadium, the enterprise center and the new StL soccer stadium. Downtown St. Louis has the best venues for sports and some of the best fans. They got hosed.
St. Louis didn’t keep its promise with the EJD
Man I was at the Arch with my family and some LA folks were there complaining that they didn't want the team. I wish they would've stayed. Not having NFL representation is not okay in my opinion. LOL 😆
Wow the city of St. Louis and their fans got a raw deal.
Very much so. Thank goodness they won the lawsuit and hit the NFL where it hurts the most -- their wallet.
Jacksonville should move to St Louis, waive the relocation fee. They would play the Colts, Titans and Oilers/Texans. Florida doesn’t need three teams and they would be right in the middle of their conference geographically plus the owner wouldn’t from St Louis. Right the wrong of the Cardinals and Rams and they would be supported, but change the name to something with a Mississippi River based theme and build a new stadium on the river, with a translucent dome.
They'd actually have a legitimate fanbase and wouldn't be the 3rd or 4th most popular team in their own state.
Lol STL had zero fan support in 2014/2015
LA has welcomed them back
Yea they did st.louis was does wrong
@@maddrone7814y do u think they didn’t wanna show up for them those years. Historically I mean historically bad for 10 years or so then to find out your owner is stabbing u in the back
@@kylecusac ok so first it was STL would’ve supported them and now it’s “well why would they support them” can you not change the argument first?
@dbzgtsuper999 I know. The LA market is huge and it basically tripled their market size. I’m glad to have my SoCal team back
As a football fan who grew up in the 2000’s, I was disappointed at first when the Rams moved out of St. Louis, as that’s how I always knew them. It took a few years, but the LA Rams name eventually grew on me.
However, I still think LA’s team is the Raiders. Las Vegas has fully embraced them at least, but if the Black Hole was in LA again- it would make it a tough place to play.
🐏 were originally in LA until 95 when they moved to St. Louis … So natural order was put back in place 🤷🏿♂️
@@kappaman1994 I’m aware of their previous history in LA. I also think the Chargers should still be in San Diego as well.
The Rams at one time were great when they were in Saint Louis. That was during the late 90s, and kurt warner was playing for that team during that time.
@@nortonhatfield7312thank you
@@nortonhatfield7312and they sucked the majority of the time in Stl.
Face it. Kroenke used the script from Major League to move the Rams out of STL. Unlike the movie, the team actually left.
No joke , Kronke has to be top 3 greediest human beings on earth trust me I know…
Stl Rams had five winning seasons under Georgia Frontier as majority owner. Kroenke was minority shareholder during that time. The Rams moving back to LA was the best thing to happen for the franchise.
Not all the way.
He didn’t totally tank he just kept them mediocre. Major League the Franchise is a certain other MLB we know…
@@sawyertuide7636
Kronke simply took advantage of the St.Louis Rams lease which called for Edward Jones to remain in the top quarter of NFL venues.
With the onset of the billion dollar plus stadium era with Dallas in 2009, followed by New York (2010) and San Francisco (2014)
with Minnesota (2016) and Atlanta (2017) on deck, it was obvious that Edward Jones could not be brought up to standard.
St.Louis authorities thought the length of the lease would keep the team.
@@TheLAGopher what makes any of those stadiums better than the Dome in St. Louis? St. Louis has a nice convention center attached, is in a downtown, has it's own train station, is fully climate controlled, right next to a national park. Doesn't have the shadows of some of the stadiums you mentioned. It definitely was and still is one of the best. Because I said so is not a logical reason.
If the Rams were still here, I'd be a much bigger football fan than I am now. It's just not the same since they left STL.
I miss my stl.
Why did they change there logo tho, I really loved the Saint Louis rams logo
The desired name change from National Car Rental Stadium to Enterprise Field is became Enterprise is headquartered in St. Louis, and Enterprise owns National.
Enterprise Center of the NHL Saint Louis Blues
Enterprise owns them, that's why they used that brand.
Just an FYI that it is the owers of local Enterprise car rental that just built the outstanding new soccer stadium in St. Louis now being raved as the best in the MLS. St. Louis always has had a great soccer fan base but it took the private building of a new soccer stadium to bring a team to St. Louis especially after the mess with Stan Kroenke and the Rams.
I have somewhat to say about the Rams and the dome that they abandoned. The facility opened in 1995 to rave revues. It was the pride of St Louis and the NFL. It cost 280 million to build and finance. By the way, St Louis city, St Louis County and the state of Missouri still owe $100 million. St Louis was gang raped by the Rams owner and the NFL. So the dome was badly out dated in 21 years? All I have to say is Jesse James is still alive and doing well in L.A. I seriously doubt if St Louis ever gets another team. By the way, that Dome is still beautiful. Later. Vaughn
I agree. Take the red seats out, it will look nice
I think the problem with the America Center Dome is it was built a few years too early. I should have been built more like Ford Field but is instead more comparable to the Alamodome and RCA Dome. It's kinda like an oversized NBA arena, which worked when the team was successful and the fan base was strong, but it became a drab place to watch a game when the Rams began their decline. I think they should have played a few years in Busch Memorial Stadium and not rushed to get a stadium built.
Well said. It was only the big ideals of Kroenke that forced STL in to a corner to build another outdoor stadium after 20 years. That being said, it sure made for excitement to have it built. St. Louis fans I know all liked the Dome. All they needed was a better team. It's like Baseball Cardinals fans wanting a good baseball team over any more Ballpark Village expansion. Seeing the Taj Mahal of all NFL stadiums built by Kroenke shows he was not a fit for St. Louis. I see the problems with other old stadiums in the NFL and see it all comes down to having a good ownership fitr for your city like the owners of Enterprise that just privately built the new soccer stadium.
You sound like LA Rams fans like my uncle when they left LA. lol
I understand. @@FEARNoMore
Rams should’ve stayed in St. Louis, if you put the current product in STL both die hards and the casual fan would absolutely support the team. As a Rams fan it pisses me off that this team has been amazing since moving and even won a Super Bowl but yet still has to play with a silent count IN THEIR OWN STADIUM! In a perfect world Rams stay in STL, Raiders go to LA and Chargers stay in SD and Vegas gets an expansion team.
We have been lucky in St louis to see the Greatest Show on Turf. 4 HOF players + Vermeil & Holt should get in soon. Add those 4 years as the Best in the NFL. Great Times
They never should have left LA in 1995
Agreed. That’s LA’s true team.
Exactly
@@2Addictive The Chargers started in LA the Rams did not.
@@dvferyance that is true but screw you. Sounds like something a Chargers fan would say😂
@@dvferyance For like a year in 1961. Then moved straight to San Diego for 55 years. Chargers were NEVER a true LA team. They will always be the San Diego Chargers.
We're proud of our local companies and yeah we'd prefer it be called Enterprise (even though in this case, I think it was Enterprise that wanted to publicize the National branding on an NFL level) just like how it's St. Louis Bread Co, not Panera.
I just think St Louis Rams sounds better than Los Angeles Rams mostly because it was all i ever knew
And they had a better logo now it’s just a animated ram 😂
KAWKA!! The Battlehawks can fill the dome!
St. Louis will be Cardinals Baseball #1 meta forever and everybody knows that.
Even since the Rams left for LA and just a few last later in St. Louis the Blues won the Stanley Cup.
The Rams would have had a generational fanbase, kind of like how the Twins, Lakers, Flames,, and Ravens have generational fanbases, despite being relocated teams.
Once you've hit that generational threshold, you're not going to relocate.
Furthermore, this is what would have happened.
The Bills stay home. They're too iconic. (Generational fanbase)
The Raiders move to Los Angeles. (Non-generational fanbase, but nationally popular)
The Chargers follow suit, and move to the NFC. West, swapping positions with the Saint Louis Rams, who move to the AFC West.
The Rams, needing money for a stadium, sell the rights to the Rams name to the Chargers in exchange for the Chargers brand name. The Rams then go on to sell the rights of the Chargers name and history to the city of San Diego. The Rams then rebrand themselves as the Saint Louis Wildcats. A reference to the aviation industry in Saint Louis.
The I-70 Showdown becomes the hottest rivalry in the NFL.
The Jaguars Eventually move to Las Vegas.
The NFL Los Angeles Rams and UFL’s Los Angeles Wildcats should remain at the LA Coliseum
You could argue when the Rams first came to STL that a move back to LA was always the long game due to the stadium lease language and that Kroenke's minority share meant he had the first crack at owning the entire team. NFL owners benefited greatly by having LA open as it was a real threat to move the team. Plus NFL owners love moves due to the relocation fee. Having the Rams leave LA may have been better in the long run for the NFL owners, even after the settlement with the city of St. Louis.
Absolutely there would have been fan support for the Rams if they stayed. St. Louis and the surrounding area supported the Rams right up to the point where it became obvious Kroenke had no interested in staying in St. Louis. Had there been a new stadium and Kroenke would have invested in the team, absolutely people would have supported them in St. Louis.
But instead, Kroenke, Goodell and Jerry Jones decided to go scorched earth while forcing St. Louis to spend millions to develop the stadium plan that had zero chance of ever happening. The NFL absolutely screwed St. Louis in that process and that's why they won the mega lawsuit a few years later.
What people don't understand understand about the Buffalo market and are constantly trying to move them is that it is part of a larger market called the golden triangle. Buffalo is in the middle of it. To the east in a 45 minute drive your in Rochester NY a market almost as big as Buffalo. To the west is Hamilton Ontario which is a market the same size of Buffalo. When you combine the 3 markets it has a market size of 3.4 Million people. Which is roughly the same size as the Metro of detroit, Seattle or San Francisco. That's why I the tv ratings there always very similar and why it's a very important market for the NFL. Now in 2008 Ralph Wilson the bills owner tried a bills in Toronto series to see if they would draw in Toronto and it was a huge disappointment with less than 30k in the stadium. The golden triangle as a market is bigger than Jacksonville and St. Louis combined. The NFL owners know this and that's why there's a 1.5 billion dollar stadium being built there. Just some knowledge and perspective that people don't commonly know.
I was born and raised in Erie, PA, which is only 90 miles southwest down the Lake Erie shore. However, Erie is almost the same distance from Cleveland and not much further from Pittsburgh. Many fans in this city support the Steelers or Browns, because they are in bigger media-markets and have more tradition because the Bills are a former AFL team. I can see why the Bills would draw many more fans from Hamilton than Toronto. Both cities have CFL teams.
What if the football Cardinals never left St. Louis?
Even you put the Raiders in L A the NFL and L A city leaders will still hate the Raiders because of Al Davis for suing the League and then leaving Los Angeles without a team after the Rams left
Rams ownership wanted to move to a larger city. The ownership never wanted the team to do well once the 'Greatest Show on Turf - area" ended. The ownership made their money from real estate. Building a new stadium in LA meant an instant increase in the value of the franchise. The issue STL fans have with the ownership and the NFL is how the move was made. STL supported the Rams, but the franchise refused to field a good team. The ownership and NFL settled a lawsuit with the City of St Louis, County of St Louis and State of Missouri for leaving under false pretenses. The NFL paid 900 million dollars, because they knew the NFL would loose if it went to trial. The Rams were never going to stay.
Correct. Nobody would have been happy with the Rams leaving, but if the NFL had just been honest that it had no interest in staying in St. Louis and not made them spend millions they didn't have to spend on the new stadium, and if they hadn't scorched the earth on the way out, I think people would have gotten over it eventually. But the way the NFL, Goodell, Kroenke, and Jerry Jones went about trying to eviscerate the city is what people got most upset about. There was no reason to do that considering how supportive the city had been of the team even when Kroenke was intentionally putting a terrible product on the field in those last few years.
If the Rams didn't move to L.A. the Rams wouldn't have been able to sell home nosebleed tickets for more than a Disneyland all day park hopper.
If the St. Louis Rams had stayed in St. Louis, we would have been spared having to watch a half full stadium in Los Angeles every weekend.
No one showed up in Stl. I just went to a preseason game and it was full of Rams fans.
@@Moreorlesss996they didn't show up because the team was godawful
@@Moreorlesss996 for the most part fans didn’t show up because the ownership intentionally made the team god awful while simultaneously making tickets more expensive than almost any other team in the league to make attendance look bad to justify the move to LA. And yes, the stadium in LA is usually full. At minimum 33% of the people there are always cheering for the other team, not the rams or chargers.
When Kroenke took over the team ownership instead of Shad Khan it was over.
Half full? Lol
If the Rams didn't move to LA, the Raiders and Chargers joint bid to move to LA would have been accepted. In that scenario, the Chargers might have switched to the NFC West with the Seahawks, Cardinals or Rams switching to the AFC West.
I read the AZ Cardinals were the primary candidate to switch conferences if the Charger-Raider deal would've been accepted. It would've been: AFC West - LA Raiders, KC, Denver, Arizona (PHX) NFC West - LA Chargers, Seattle, SF, St. Louis Rams. I also remember when the Raiders were considering sharing Levi in the South Bay with the 49ers.
I’M GLAD THE RAMS TO STAY IN LOS
ANGELES WITH BEAUTIFUL AND AWESOME STADIUM THE CHARGERS NEEDS TO BACK TO SAN DIEGO
INGLEWOOD IS A GHETTO🤣
The issue if the Rams stayed in St Louis is that Sofi wouldn't be built. Mark Davis took a leap of faith by moving the Raiders into the Las Vegas Valley because it wasn't an established market for major sports teams. The Chargers will still make the move to Los Angeles, but it wouldn't be in a Sofi mega stadium (the proposed stadium is likely to be 1/3 of the price of SoFi).
Few years back when I was watching a Lions vs Jaguars game on TV with the Jags as the home team, I saw the stadium stands with more Lions fans than Jags fans in Jacksonville.
During both team’s lean years Jacksonville constantly outdrew Detroit.
If the Rams had stayed in St.Louis, I think the more likely scenario would’ve been Raiders and Chargers to LA (with the Chargers building a new practice facility in Orange County to try to keep some “territorial rights” in San Diego as well as the OC and possibly the Inland Empire), and it would’ve been the Jaguars moving to Las Vegas.
Plan A was the Rams plus an expansion team. The owners were hoping the Chargers did not move and the Raiders would take Vegas
im glad the rams moved back to Los Angeles. St. Louis gave them a freaking buff when it came to my saints. even the jeff fisher rams beat us plenty. i dont remember the last time we beat em in St. Louis. 😭
2009-Saints 28 Rams 23..........Courtney Roby returns a kickoff for TD and Saints move to 9-0. Seems kinda ironic since the Rams moved back to L.A. we can't seem to beat them there either.
Had Shahid Kahn been allowed to purchase the St. Louis Rams, they would still be in St. Louis. I live in Jacksonville and am grateful they said no to him buying the Rams. He is surprisingly loyal to Jacksonville. He is from St. Louis and many thought he would take the Jags there. But again, he is more loyal than any ever thought. I agree London looms, but won’t happen unless they bring in a European division.
Correct, but Stan Kroenke spireheaded behind Shahid Khan's back upon his possible purchase to keep as STL Rams after ex-owner's death of Georgia Frontiere.
Do not doubt if NFL Jaguars might future relocate from J'ville to either a STL return or go up abroad TOR (Canada).
Highly doubt Jaguars will ever relocate from J'ville to London as an NFL franchise b/c of its major time travel across another ocean & continent.
Exactly. It was all Kroenke. @@cjhan9816
Won’t happen.@@cjhan9816
A better question is what if the Los Angeles Rams after almost 50 years in Los Angeles never left Los Angeles?
What if they never left Cleveland where they originally were?
Also, St. Louis would be half a billion dollars poorer due to not being able to sue the NFL. So there's that.
Even better…. What if the Rams stayed in Los Angeles? Never should’ve left in the first place. A wrong was righted.
To be fair in the Carolina/Jax expansion, they should have done 4 teams and included STL/Baltimore, and a lot of wrongs would have not happened.
The Rams had already moved out to Anaheim by the time they moved to St. Louis. The Raiders were L.A.'s favorite football team, and would have been again had they moved back.
What if they never left Cleveland where they originally were? LA is nothing but a city of sports thieves
Enterprise Field would’ve sounded okay, not the best but it would’ve been the equivalent of EverBank Field in Jacksonville, still was okay with that before the current TIAA Bank Field
Thats sounds so bad. 'following me on X"
The Cardinals never should have left St. Louis.
The Rams belong in LA. No other team was in LA longer than the Rams. I still supported when we moved to St.Louis but nah LA deserved a team and I’m glad it’s The Rams
The only teams LA cares about are the Lakers and Dodgers. Not one other team should even be in that city
I quit watching when the Rams left us. I was watching all their draft picks the years prior and was so excited and then they left. 😢 I’ve only watched the super bowls since that season and haven’t gotten excited about the Battlehawks
NFL should've been forced to replace the Rams.
The league wouldn't have rigged a Super Bowl win for them.
The Rams wouldn’t have the worst logo, uniforms, and wordmark in all of prosports.
The Rams w LA's team for 50 years. Everything that St. Louis was complaining about was exactly what happened when the Rams were stolen by St. Louis in 1995. St. Louis blew it when they failed to keep the Cardinals. At this point they need to get a small market team that can't make it where they're currently located, or they need to get an expansion team. LA's football team is the Rams. (Personally I think that the Chargers should go back to San Diego, but whatever. And I know that the entire league is glad that the Raiders didn't end up in LA.)
Both football teams that Saint Louis had [the Cardinals and the Rams] were relocation teams. Saint Louis should never get another relocated football team again. The only football team STL should get is a brand new team which is created due to an NFL expansion.
Except that LA never built a stadium for the Rams. St. Louis not only gave them the brand new Dome, but then passed legislation to acquire state and local funds to build a new one after only 20 years. Whereas, after 50 years in Los Angeles, they never once got public financing to build the Rams a stadium. Even today... SOFI was privately financed by the Rams and the NFL. Los Angeles still has not lifted a finger ever. St. Louis' problem is its declining population, crime and lack of corporate money that has all left the city over the past 50 years.
@@tonyc8752you’re right. LA doesn’t kowtow to teams. GF was a POS.
All the stupid city of LA cares about are the Dodgers and Lakers, no other team should even be there
For one thing, the NFL wouldn't of rigged the Superbowl the Rams won a few years back
If the Rams were to stay in St. Louis, MO then the Raiders & Jaguars would probably move to Los Angeles, CA.
St. Louis or LA, don’t care. Just wish they had an outdoor, open air stadium on grass. I loved seeing them at Busch Stadium in 95 and the LA Coliseum from 2016-19
Open air stadiums are over in the NFL
@@adanalyst6925 Except Buffalo and Green Bay of course.
@@dvferyance yeah, those hopefully stay
Can you do: If the Chargers stayed in San Diego?
I think he already did.
Had the Chargers stayed in San Diego (which would have required San Diego voters to approve a new billion dollar open air stadium on prime bay front property desired by hotel/condo developers) The Raiders would have gotten permission to relocate to Los Angeles and join the Rams as
cotenets at SOFI.
Unlike the Chargers who moved into a soccer stadium for 2 years, the Raiders would have likely shared the Coliseum with the Rams for 2 years.
@@TheLAGopher I don't think Mark Davis would have wanted to share a stadium with Kroenke.
The final nail in the Chargers coffin was in 2016 when that stadium vote was voted down
Love you’re channel Bro…
As a St Louis native, I was sad that the Rams left, but still being a Rams fan, we ABSOLUTELY would not have the ring that we have. Being in LA gave us a lot of talent and money opportunities
Baloney. Kroenke could easily have invested in the team in St. Louis and won here. He didn't need to be in LA. He wanted to be there. And he screwed St. Louis completely to get what he wanted.
@jasonkoch3182 I'm talking in terms of players wanting to play and stay there. But I get you brotha. I wish it would have been in STL. I just think that the LA market brought in more money. But the fact that we even kept playing in the Edward Jones Dome (which is one of the worst stadiums in America) shows me he didn't want to invest there
The fan base would have been off the hook. Now it just filled full of the other team.. lol
If St. Louis had stayed NFL would’ve made Oakland Raiders or San Diego Chargers Go to L.A.
It would have likely been both of the latter and a massive division reshuffle.
I remember when the Bills use to go to Toronto, a number of years back and playing at least one game a year at the Toronto skydome
Just like when the Green Bay Packers would play some regular season games in Milwaukee.
@@robertlindey2538 I remember that. My Saints got their butts kicked a few times in Milwaukee lol
Stl really is the potential man of the midwest😭
It's pathetic they demanded a new stadium when the one there was just 20 years old. As much I as wanted the Rams to stay in St Louis I got to admit SoFi was 100 times better than that proposed new stadium they wanted to build in St Louis.
As a Rams fan going back to Roman Gabriel, L.A. doesn't deserve 1 team, let alone 2! They don't support them.
Maybe Stan would be forced out, and St Louis would get a new owner who wants to be here. A brand new stadium that would have brought super bowls, bowl games, wrestling events, and no stupid chiefs every Sunday. It would have been perfect, but now, since the move, I have no reason to watch the NFL. Why would I want to watch teams like the stupid chiefs and packers who didn't care about St Louis fans. I'm a proud St Louis fan that was born in the 90s and focused on college football and the St Louis Battlehawks
Chargers/Raiders Carson stadium would have been made.
If the Rams stayed in St. Louis, they'd still be the St. Louis Rams 😮😮🤓🤓
They were gone either way. The nfl wanted the rams back in la (marketability purposes) or more to the point MONEY
As a Chargers fan can you please make one on what would have happened if they stayed in SD?
Nothing probably
@@alexrockas3704the raiders would’ve went to LA and Vegas would be an open market for a team
@@maddrone7814 would have been a better fit.
@@robertmartinjr.4537 depends who you ask. The raiders are poverty tbh. Outside of a 8 year run in LA before
As a 49er the NFL did St. Louis dirty.
But you got other 49ers fans happy that the Rams return to California because it weren't a great rivalry anymore when they move to Missouri
Well in Super Bowls its interesting anyways...
L.A. Rams are 1-2
St Louis Rams are forever 1-1
The chargers shouldve went to Vegas, the Raiders shouldve went to LA and the Rams should’ve stayed in STL
BARF.
If that happened, Raiders & Chargers would go to LA. Chargers would switch divisions with the Cardinals. NFC West would then be: Rams, Seahawks, Chargers and 49ers. AFC West would then be Raiders, Broncos, Chiefs and Cardinals.
As a diehard rams fan thank God it worked out the way it did
I like the old Logo tbh… Don’t like Letters for Logo 🤦🏻♂️ I’ll make an exception to Green bay/SF/Jets but Bengals and LA? nah change back smh
You should do a video if the Saints would have moved to San Antonio after Katrina.
The raiders would have probably moved to LA instead of vegas and build that stadium in carson city instead of sofi. The chargers would most likely stay in san diego, the reason they moved in real life is because the rams let them stay in sofi for free, its unlikely the raiders would do something similar. I think the jags would move to vegas and the bills stay in buffalo.
Had the Rams stayed in St. Louis, there is no way that the Chargers would be in LA by themselves, if I recall the Carson stadium project with the Raiders was a response to the Rams proposal in Inglewood, so if the Rams stay in St. Louis there's a chance that there is no Carson stadium proposal. Neither the Raiders or Chargers would be able to get their own stadiums by themselves and there is no way that in California they would get public funding either.
I will say this dude does have the sports analysts cadence down. Or should I say, “he.has.the cay-dence, dOOOwn”
I wonder if St. Louis will ever get another NFL franchise? They always supported the Cardinals back in the day?
St Louis has lost 2 NFL teams, it's not coming back anytime soon
It would take an exceptional owner like the owners of Enterprise and others that privately built the new soccer stadium. Kroenke was not a good fit for St. Louis. He wanted the big TV market of L.A.. His dreams were in California alongside the movie stars and wanted the big time. That being said, the NFL should have resolved the Kroenke issue by targeting St. Louis for an expansion team as a resolution. Remember the NFL Relocation committee recommended the Rams stay in St. Louis and only the Kroenke indemnifcation agreement allowed the team to move because owners realized their guilt but needed protection by Kroenke from STL lawsuits.
Maybe but not at least until Godell is no longer commissioner. Washington DC lost 2 baseball teams and got a 3rd one so it's not impossible. LA lost 2 teams and many like me never thought they would ever get a team again.
St. Louis should have already been awarded an expansion team as a result of the Kroenke mess. Like when the Senators became the Twins in 1961 and the expansion Senators now Rangers started.. The NFL Relocation committee even recomended the Rams stay in St. Louis based upon its new stadium plans. Only Kroenke's indemnification agreement it would be learned during the STL lawsuit he promised to protect owners from any STL lawsuits got him the owners to approve his move. Averaging close to 40,000 for the XFL Battle Hawks shows the fans are still there. It would sure take an extraordinary ownership group though given how St. Louis got burned by the NFL. Roger Gooddell owes it to St. Louis now that the Kroenke indemnification agreement has been exposed. @@dvferyance
@@matthewkester3677none of them were their own. The Rams should’ve never left LA to begin with, and the cardinals, well, they’re just weird
I think the Chargers should have stayed in San Diego and the raiders should have stayed in Oakland or else moved to Los Angeles. The Jacksonville jaguars should have been the team that have moved to Las vegas.
St.Louis lost the team because the owner was hell bent on moving the team to LA and make 5 times the money. Nothing less, nothing more. It was a money grab. It in no way means St.Louis cant support a NFL team. They have and did until over a decade long run of poor ownership and 6 of those years the majority knew they were leaving. St. Louis is one if not the best sports towns in America.
I could have lived with the river front stadium in St Louis, but that wasn't to be. Having said that, Stan Kroenke would have not built SoFi or any other stadium for another duo of teams if the Rams were not one of them. Dean Spanos or Mark Davis couldn't have self funded a stadium, between them. I believe Kroenke said that he would just develop into a new community, with or without SoFi.
They love there car rental names in STL. Enterprise center is we’re the blues play.
Had the Rams stayed in St. Louis, then it would have been the Raiders and Chargers moving to LA and SoFi obviously wouldn't have happened as that was Stan Kroenke's doing. Instead there would have been the Carson Stadium getting built with both the Raiders and Chargers each paying half the cost similar to the Giants and Jets with MetLife. I believe the Chargers would have then moved to the NFC West and the Seattle Seahawks would have moved back to the AFC West taking their place. I don't think in this scenario Vegas would have had a team unless the Chargers ended up moving there because something fell through with the Carson plan leaving the Raiders as the sole LA Team (which honestly would be the case in a perfect world). The problem with that though is Mark Davis isn't/wasn't one of the billionaire owners that could swing a stadium by himself hence why the Chargers were involved with that plan in the first place, and unlike with Nevada and Clark County there likely would not have been a massive public money handout in LA, this was why the NFL was absent from the LA Market for so long. Until Stan bought that land in Inglewood no NFL Owner would step up and privately finance a stadium and the city sure the hell wasn't going to do it esp without a guaranteed team.
They intentionally hired a coach with a losing record to sabotage and create an excuse to leave
Would they have fired fish?
Hired mcvay?
Traded for Stafford?
gone to 2 bowls?
🤔