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The city of St. Louis is apparently getting tired of getting dumped on by the National Football League and now they want the NFL to pay. A lot.
St. Louis has been the home of four different NFL franchises since 1923.
The city’s first NFL team was the St. Louis All-Stars. They only lasted one season, going 1-4-2.
Then came the St. Louis Gunners in 1934. They made it all the way to 1940, going 41-25-8 in seasons where records were actually kept.
Next up were the St. Louis Cardinals, who relocated there from Chicago, from 1960 to 1987 before moving to Phoenix. They went 186-202-14.
And finally, the St. Louis Rams, which came to the city from Los Angeles via Cleveland. From 1995 to 2015, the Rams went 142-193-1, winning Super Bowl XXXIV before moving back to L.A.
Now the city wants to get paid. Never mind the fact that both the Cardinals, as well as the Rams, were taken from other cities in the first place.
According to The Athletic…
St. Louis wants a slice of the value of Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s team, his real estate holdings, and oh, a part of the increase in price tags on the 31 other NFL teams over the last half-decade.
By now, nearly four years after the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority sued the league and its 32 teams over the 2016 relocation of the Rams to L.A., it had been reported the suit was seeking more than $1 billion.
Lawyers for the NFL, at a marathon three-hour-plus hearing Thursday, spoke of damages claims of billions of dollars, confirming the 10-figure demands of the lawsuit.
So how does the city of St. Louis think the NFL owes it at least a billion dollars?
“Our experts’ disclosures for damages are definitely forward-looking and not backward-looking,” Jim Bennett, a lawyer for the city St. Louis, said during the hearing. “Our damages relate to the violation of the relocation policy. The move, the relocation fee, the minimum increase in value to Mr. Kroenke, the minimum increase in value to all the other teams or defendants, the minimum increase in value to Mr. Kroenke’s real estate empire, expenses that we incur based on their representations that they might actually think about the new stadium.”
St. Louis also claims the Rams did not follow NFL protocol and “make a good faith effort to stay in their home market” and things are getting very testy with the city’s lawyers accusing the NFL of stalling tactics.
Don’t feel too bad for St. Louis though. They could have had the Patriots for the past two-and-a-half decades had they played their cards right.
So far, Chargers owner Dean Spanos has already given a deposition in the matter with the Patriots’ Bob Kraft, Kansas City’s Clark Hunt, and the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones all scheduled to do so in the coming weeks.
As of now, the case is set to begin the trial process on Jan. 10, 2022.