ST. LOUIS — For beleaguered Rams fans, it was the happiest of celebrations: Last month, the team that won the franchise’s only Super Bowl title gathered for a 15th-anniversary reunion. Marshall Faulk, Kurt Warner and four dozen other members of the Greatest Show on Turf were bathed in cheers from fans who have watched a lot of losing teams since that magical season.
But when their coach, Dick Vermeil, thanked the team’s owner, Stan Kroenke, for putting the party together, he was showered with boos. A multibillionaire with a flair for staying in the shadows, Kroenke has become a bogeyman to Rams fans who fear he will move the team back to Southern California.
There is no shortage of omens for those in search of them. When negotiations between Kroenke and the regional sports authority over renovations to the team’s stadium stalled, the team reverted to a year-to-year lease. Kroenke bought a big piece of property in Los Angeles, where two other real estate groups hope to build stadiums to lure a team. Kroenke rarely speaks to the news media, and his silence, some fans believe, means he has made up his mind to leave.
The reality is that no matter how much Kroenke may want to move to Los Angeles, he cannot leave St. Louis without the consent of the other 31 N.F.L. owners, who will weigh many factors, including whether the club has engaged in good-faith negotiations with the local community.
To that end, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri, who has insisted that St. Louis should remain an N.F.L. city, is expected this week to appoint a task force of local leaders whose charge will be to work with the Rams, government officials and business leaders on a plan for a new football stadium in St. Louis. By engaging the Rams in conversations about a stadium, the group hopes to prevent St. Louis from losing its second N.F.L. team in a quarter-century. (The Cardinals left for Arizona in 1988.)
While no formal proposal for a stadium is in place, civic leaders have been laying the groundwork, including looking for sites for an outdoor facility that could be located near the Edward Jones Dome, the team’s current home. Business leaders hope a new stadium will revitalize the Mississippi River waterfront and other parts of downtown, which has been significantly transformed in recent years.
“To be a competitive N.F.L. city, we’re going to have to work on a new stadium, and there’s no better place to do it than in the heart of our region, downtown,” said Doug Woodruff, chief executive of Downtown STL, an economic development group. “St. Louis works hard to be on the national scene, and having an N.F.L. team is one measure of that.”
Still, significant hurdles remain. Given the experience of N.F.L. teams in Atlanta, Minneapolis and elsewhere, a new stadium for the Rams could easily top $1 billion, and no financing has been identified. Like other N.F.L. owners, Kroenke, who through a spokesman declined to speak for this article, could demand revenue from parking, naming rights and nonfootball-related events that might otherwise be used to cover construction costs.
Against Public Financing
Politics in Missouri are thorny, too. Nixon is a Democrat in his final term, while the statehouse is dominated by Republicans, many of whom favor cuts in government spending. Cost-conscious conservatives and liberals who favored using public money on social causes joined hands to oppose public financing to help the far more popular Cardinals baseball team build a new stadium a decade ago.
Back then, the Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums successfully pushed for laws that would force politicians to hold public referendums before any tax money was spent on building a professional sports stadium.
“The one uniting factor was not wasting money that could otherwise be used for other public services and not wasting money on making rich people richer,” said Fred Lindecke, a leading member of the coalition.
The city, county and state now spend $24 million a year to pay off the bonds on the Edward Jones Dome, which was built two decades ago to attract an N.F.L. team to St. Louis. Politicians, Lindecke said, are wary of writing another blank check to a wealthy sports owner.
Kroenke is not just any owner. He grew up in Mora, Mo., a town about three hours west of St. Louis, and was named after two Cardinals Hall of Famers, Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial. He attended the University of Missouri, married Ann Walton, a Walmart heiress, and became a major real estate developer. According to Forbes, Kroenke and his wife are worth $10.7 billion.
Along the way, he built a sports empire that includes the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association, the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League, the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer, Arsenal of the Premier League and, of course, the Rams.
Despite owning such visible organizations, Kroenke has been labeled Silent Stanley. Kroenke is not even quoted in his own biography in the Rams Insider magazine. At a recent N.F.L. owners meeting, he turned and walked away from journalists who tried to introduce themselves.
“If the owner connects with the fans, it makes all the difference,” said Frank Viverito, the president of the St. Louis Sports Commission. “The relationship with the Rams isn’t bad now, but it isn’t warm.”
Two decades ago, though, civic leaders persuaded Kroenke to help attract an N.F.L. team to replace the Cardinals. After St. Louis failed to land an expansion franchise, Georgia Frontiere moved the Rams here from Anaheim, Calif., and Kroenke took a 40 percent stake in the club.
By most measures, the Rams got a good deal. The city, county and state built them a home, charged them a reasonable rent and agreed to maintain the building so it was competitive with the top quarter of N.F.L. stadiums.
Since the dome opened in 1995, though, nearly every other team has upgraded its stadium or moved into a new home. The dome has been improved over the years, but by N.F.L. standards it is an outdated building. There was hope the stadium would get a face-lift after Kroenke outmaneuvered Shahid Khan (who now owns the Jacksonville Jaguars) for the 60 percent of the team that was owned by Frontiere, who died in 2008.
“When he took over the 100 percent, we thought he was committed,” said Randy Karraker, a radio show host at 101 ESPN. “But it seems like he bought the Rams more as an investment than for a love of sports.”
Karraker said Kroenke’s silence has left fans uneasy, particularly because the Rams have not had a winning season since 2003 and just four since they arrived in St. Louis in 1995.
“It makes us nervous that we don’t hear anything from Stan,” said David Wahl, a season-ticket holder who attended a recent home game. “He wouldn’t have to do much to show he cares. There would be a scar on the city if we lost a team twice.”
No Decision on Move
While Kroenke rarely speaks, Kevin Demoff, the team’s chief operating officer, said in a recent radio interview that no decision has been made about whether to move the Rams. “I think our focus is on, you know, playing through the rest of the lease and seeing how things play out,” he said, adding that a “global solution for St. Louis on the stadium front” was needed to prevent the team from moving.
The governor’s task force and any stadium proposals that it produces could provide the global solution Demoff suggested.
“If they do it properly, it’s hard to see how the Rams would qualify to relocate under existing league rules,” Marc Ganis, a consultant to several N.F.L. teams, said of the governor’s task force.
The league’s relocation guidelines designed to prevent teams from moving willy-nilly are extensive. When other owners consider whether to let a team move, they look at whether a team is profitable, received public financing and made credible attempts to build or refurbish its stadium. According to Forbes, the Rams are worth $930 million, the least of any N.F.L. team, yet they generated $16.2 million in operating income last year. At least three-quarters of the owners must approve any relocation.
The owners will have to weigh many other factors, including whether a team in Los Angeles will hurt the Chargers in San Diego, and whether abandoning St. Louis, the country’s 21st-largest television market and home to several big sponsors, will hurt the league.
Commissioner Roger Goodell also said a credible long-term stadium deal was needed in Los Angeles before any team could move there, without specifying what that deal might look like. But given that the N.F.L. has grown steadily since the Rams and the Raiders left Southern California two decades ago, it is not clear the league is any rush to return, no matter how much Kroenke might want to.