Post by TheShadow on Apr 22, 2006 17:04:36 GMT -5
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John Czarnecki / FOXSports.com
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.
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.