The "Czar" Has Lost His Mind

[Hostile]

Link

NFL should bring Rams back to L.A.

John Czarnecki / FOXSports.com
Posted: 17 hours ago

If you are a wealthy fan, or more particularly an owner, the new football stadiums that dot the NFL landscape remain one of outgoing Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's shining stars to his legacy.

It remains an amazing accomplishment, 17 totally new stadiums in the last 11 seasons with five more on the way. The building boom is all the more remarkable considering NFL teams have only eight legitimate home games a season, while costs generally exceed those for the more economically-feasible baseball parks.

L.A. fans might not be wild about having a team ran by Georgia Frontiere, but the Rams' owner rarely attends games anymore. (Doug Benc / Getty Images)

These thoughts bring me to California, the NFL's most-embarrassing location. There is no team in Los Angeles and stadium woes in San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland.

People speculate all the time that the Chargers, the best team in California, could end up in Orange County if San Diego, more than a billion dollars in debt, can't help them build a new stadium. Over the last three seasons, the 49ers and the Raiders have an identical (and disturbing) 13-35 record with little personnel hope on the horizon. With so much else to do in California, who wants to pay $100 to see such a bunch of losers?

Tagliabue wants to put a team in Los Angeles, but many feel that after the league's $30 million charitable experiment ends in New Orleans, the Saints will be asked to relocate to sunny California.

We don't need a straw poll to tell the NFL that Los Angeles fans aren't clamoring for the Saints. Fans here love their doubleheaders on television or going to a sports bar to watch their favorite team. Funny, but California is full of fans from other parts of America.

You may laugh, but there are a couple solutions available for this mess, one that may actually help stadium construction in California and also upgrade the economic viability of franchises like the Raiders and Chargers. With a new stadium operational in Arizona, the Raiders will rank last in league revenue this season — despite the fact that they remain a top seller nationally of jerseys and T-shirts. We all know that much of the league likes keeping Davis in last place.

Tagliabue got himself in this California hazy mess by failing to read the relocation map more than a decade ago. Instead of dealing expansion franchises to viable cities like Baltimore and St. Louis, he opted for new locales like Carolina and Jacksonville. The latter has proven to be an economic bust despite producing a quality, competitive team.

In the league's revenue-sharing plan, the Jags could receive almost $10 million annually from the big boys in Boston, Dallas and Washington in order to compete and remain solvent under the new collective bargaining agreement. We have all heard Buffalo owner Ralph Wilson whine about this deal, which could hurt every small-city franchise in the NFL.

To fix this predicament, the NFL's first move should be to bring the Rams back to Los Angeles.

Rams president John Shaw prefers to work and live in Los Angeles; plus there are many in L.A. who still follow the Rams. There is a much bigger connection here with the Rams than with the Saints, Bills, Vikings or Jaguars, the teams most-mentioned of using Los Angeles as a means to improving their bottom lines.

The Rams first showed up in Los Angeles in 1946. Did Los Angeles love the Rams? Well, you can go to the Coliseum offices and see photographs of the facility with more than 100,000 fans packed into it watching a Rams game. Even charity preseason games drew large crowds. Such crowds routinely occurred for a couple of decades. There are even California fans who still fly to St. Louis on weekends to catch a Rams game.

With the Rams back in Los Angeles, the NFL would have a better chance of getting a stadium proposal more to their liking in the city. I know local fans aren't wild about Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, but she rarely attends games anymore while living in Sedona. It's the name and uniforms that matter.

Now, with the Rams back where they belong, what should the NFL do with St. Louis, whose fans deserve a team, considering they have sold out every Rams game for 11 seasons?

Well, move the Raiders there. You can bet Al Davis would make a bunch of money in St. Louis, besides leaving his franchise in fine fiscal shape for his son, Mark. Getting the Raiders out of the Bay Area would most-assuredly help 49ers owner John York's stadium plans. With only one NFL franchise in Northern California to support, the corporate manpower there should be able to figure out a viable plan for some interactive stadium to suit the internet junkies there.

Granted, people in St. Louis would be upset over losing the Rams, but they already lost the Cardinals; so the fan base is used to being, well, used by the NFL.

If they raise a stink, move the Cardinals back to St. Louis and the Raiders to Arizona. That may take some doing, but Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill and Davis could simply split their new local revenues 50-50. Both men would be better off than they are currently.

This plan makes more sense than bringing a fourth franchise to California, a state overwhelmed by fears of the Big One, and a state that can't find money for schools, colleges and new roads — let alone new football stadiums. The state also has a huge immigrant strain and levees in the Central Valley ready to crack and flood America's agricultural heaven.

Franchise relocation has worked well for the NFL in the past. Moving franchises around is better than adding a 33rd team, an expansion team in Los Angeles, while there are American cities like New Orleans, Oakland and Jacksonville who can't properly (by NFL standards) support their current franchise.

I know it doesn't sound fair. But since when has being fair been a priority in big-time sports.

 

[SupermanXx]

the "czar"? mike fratello? coach of the memphis grizzlies? the team that the Mavericks are going to beat today in Game 1 of the playoffs? the game that I'm going to?

or someone else?

 

[Hostile]

the "czar"? mike fratello? coach of the memphis grizzlies? the team that the Mavericks are going to beat today in Game 1 of the playoffs? the game that I'm going to?

or someone else?

Uh, look at the by line. That's who the article is written "by."

Most NFL fans know who the Czar is.

 

[Pokes28]

In every dumb article, there is a shred of the light on the real problem.

This plan makes more sense than bringing a fourth franchise to California, a state overwhelmed by fears of the Big One, and a state that can't find money for schools, colleges and new roads — let alone new football stadiums. The state also has a huge immigrant strain and levees in the Central Valley ready to crack and flood America's agricultural heaven.

This is something that I agree with. LA is a market that doesn't really care much about pro football and they haven't for the last 20 years. The issue is that new stadiums are coming with price tags over a billion and a half dollars. Consider that the self inflicted laws that the people of California live with costs them to a point that the entire state will most likely be bankrupt in a few years (much like they were pre-Regan). That is one screwed up state. There is a reason that the state is in a net loss for industry, doctors, etc. For all the benefits of living on the west coast, they've legislated themselves into a situation that will require a huge shift in politics to recover.

I can't see how the NFL will gain much benefit from having another team that doesn't sell out and causes blackouts in the 2nd largest market in the country.

David Harrell - Pokes
dwh

 

[SupermanXx]

Uh, look at the by line. That's who the article is written "by."

Most NFL fans know who the Czar is.

I was just kidding..

 

[Hostile]

I was just kidding..

Right...

:wink2:

 

[Concord]

The Rams should be in LA.

Just like The Oilers should still be in Houston not the Texans.

 

[Kangaroo]

I thought the guy lost his mind to :bang2: and CA is going to kil itself before all is said and done

 

[Bluefin]

Mayor says city can't afford Chargers stadium

LINK

NFL.com wire reports


SAN DIEGO (April 21, 2006) -- Cash-strapped San Diego doesn't have the money to help the Chargers build a new stadium, Mayor Jerry Sanders said, opening the door for Southern California's only NFL team to leave the city it has called home for 45 years.

Sanders said he plans to ask the City Council to amend the Chargers' lease to allow the team to begin looking at sites elsewhere in San Diego County before the end of the year. If the team fails to find a new home in the county before Jan. 1, the Chargers would be free to negotiate a deal anywhere in the country.

The Chargers can leave San Diego after the 2008 season if they pay off the approximately $60 million in bonds the city issued in 1997 to expanded Qualcomm Stadium.

"I do not think it would be prudent or honest for me to say to taxpayers 'We can't resurface our roadways, but we can finance a stadium,"' the mayor said.

The Chargers' negotiator, Mark Fabiani, said the smaller cities of Oceanside, Chula Vista, and National City to the north and south of San Diego have approached the team, along with a private investor whose identity Fabiani wouldn't disclose.

"It's tough to make a deal like this in seven months, but it's enough time to get a sense of whether something can get done or not," Fabiani said. "This does give us an opportunity to really figure out whether there's anything promising out there."

San Diego is facing what the mayor called a financial and a managerial crisis, which includes a $1.4 billion city employee pension fund deficit and federal investigations into city finances.

The Chargers have been in San Diego since 1961, the year after they started playing in Los Angeles under the ownership of hotel magnate Barron Hilton.

Last year, the team proposed building a $450 million stadium as part of a commercial development the Qualcomm site, but dropped the plan because it could not find developers to share the estimated $800 million upfront costs. The team offered to pay for the stadium and traffic improvements, but wanted the city to give it 60 acres for development to recoup its costs.

Earlier this year, the mayor of San Antonio signaled that his city would welcome the Chargers to fill the Alamodome, where the displaced New Orleans Saints played three games last season.

 

[Tristan]

Moving the Rams back to LA is a great idea in my opinion, although the rest of the article is idiotic. I was born in LA, and lived in Venice beach for quite a few years. I think the reason people generalize LA by saying they don't care about football is because LA itself isn't really one city. What I mean is LA is pretty much a bunch of towns spread out across a hundred miles, or so it seems. While most cities have a very central community with smaller suburbs, LA never seems to end. The down town area of LA is dull, rundown and crime infested, it's not the kind of down town you want to hang out for a day and do some shopping. The other areas go from shady to, heavenly over and over. The nicest areas around town are really the beach areas of Marina Del Rey, Venice and Santa Monica and Malibu. If you go inland from Santa monica you have really nice areas sprinkled around like, Westwood (UCLA) area, Beverly Hills, Century City etc. I think if you built a stadium in the UCLA/Century city area then you would have great support. It would be easy for people to get to, and surrounded by great shopping,restaurants and cultural atractions not to mention quick access to the beach communities, which all would make it a great visitors destination. No one wants to get on those freeways to save their life, let alone to get to a football game.

 

[NorTex]

Moving the Rams back to LA is a great idea in my opinion, although the rest of the article is idiotic. I was born in LA, and lived in Venice beach for quite a few years. I think the reason people generalize LA by saying they don't care about football is because LA itself isn't really one city. What I mean is LA is pretty much a bunch of towns spread out across a hundred miles, or so it seems. While most cities have a very central community with smaller suburbs, LA never seems to end. The down town area of LA is dull, rundown and crime infested, it's not the kind of down town you want to hang out for a day and do some shopping. The other areas go from shady to, heavenly over and over. The nicest areas around town are really the beach areas of Marina Del Rey, Venice and Santa Monica and Malibu. If you go inland from Santa monica you have really nice areas sprinkled around like, Westwood (UCLA) area, Beverly Hills, Century City etc. I think if you built a stadium in the UCLA/Century city area then you would have great support. It would be easy for people to get to, and surrounded by great shopping,restaurants and cultural atractions not to mention quick access to the beach communities, which all would make it a great visitors destination. No one wants to get on those freeways to save their life, let alone to get to a football game.

Totally agree...I drove thru LA this summer to get to Oxnard and back to SD. Don't know if I'd ever do that again...pure torture!

 

[ghst187]

Once Houston lost their team, they shouldn't have gotten a new one. It's diluting the talent...did you see the last super bowl (toilet)?
Why should Baltimore and DC both have teams? They're like 10 minutes apart.
Someone should end the Arizona failure. Whenever Dallas plays there its like a home game. It will always be a toilet organization because it has very little fanbase. Same for the Aints. Someone end their misery please. Players that play there usually want out. The only players that go there do so because they get overpaid.
Regading St Louis..I find it a bit ironic. I think they have a pretty good fanbase and support there.
If the league is bent on moving a team to LA then here's my suggestions on how to do it and improve the league at the same time:
Move the Cardinals or Aints there and disband the other. Get rid of the Texans, they are a waste of a franchise. Everyone knows that Texas is only big enough for the Cowboys, biased or not that's just the way it'll always be. The league needs to get rid of the talent dilution.
The league also needs to address the Free Agency and contracts which are getting out of hand, no thanks to the foreskins. Put truth in contracts. Make teams and players both more accountable to the contracts they sign. I do understand players sometimes when they demand more money despite their contracts because teams like the foreskins sign them to ridiculous contracts and everyone knows that the player will be cut long before he sniffs that kind of money. Locking players into longer stints with the same team will also build better fanbases also IMO.
Anyway, if the league wants to put out a better product those are some of my general suggestions.