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How America’s Coastal Cities Left the Heartland Behind
The Atlantic ^ | 4-18-16 | Brian S. Feldman

Posted on 04/18/2016 6:39:36 PM PDT by TroutStalker

The people of St. Louis weren’t really surprised when, on January 12, the National Football League announced its decision to let E. Stanley Kroenke, the owner of the St. Louis Rams, move his team to Los Angeles. Kroenke had long signaled his intentions, and L.A.’s media market beckoned as the nation’s second largest. Moving the team meant more revenue for the league, and therefore more money in owners’ pockets. And that, as serious football fans know, is the point.

The NFL isn’t a charity. It’s a legally sanctioned cartel that strictly limits the number of franchises in order to maximize the value of each. St. Louis simply was losing another round in the NFL’s long-running game of profit-maximizing musical chairs. Indeed, the city originally had lured the Rams from Los Angeles in 1995 after losing a bidding war that sent the previous hometown football team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to Phoenix in 1988.

What was surprising, though, and hurtful, was the way Kroenke badmouthed the city. In a 26-page statement in support of the team’s relocation to Los Angeles, he noted, “Compared to all other cities, St. Louis is struggling,” adding that the city “lags, and will continue to lag, far behind in the economic drivers that are necessary for sustained success of an NFL franchise.”

St. Louisans were outraged. The well-known lawyer Terry Crouppen aired a 30-second ad that ran in St. Louis during Super Bowl 50 saying of Kroenke’s decision, “We cheered [the Rams] year after losing year. In return, they trashed, then left, us.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: larams; nfl; rams; stlouisrams
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1 posted on 04/18/2016 6:39:36 PM PDT by TroutStalker
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To: TroutStalker

So what? The Rams were in LA before they ever came to St Louis, anyway. Go after the Cardinals.


2 posted on 04/18/2016 6:41:28 PM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: sparklite2
The Rams were in LA before they ever came to St Louis, anyway.

And they were in Cleveland before that.

3 posted on 04/18/2016 6:43:32 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: sparklite2

Yes but they were the NFL champion Cleveland Rams before that...LOL


4 posted on 04/18/2016 6:44:38 PM PDT by nascarnation
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To: TroutStalker

Ahhhhhh.....The Atlantic.

The Atlantic is filled with crabs, sewage and old fish.

It’s also the name of an ocean.


5 posted on 04/18/2016 6:49:35 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: nascarnation

The sad thing about all this is LA seems to give itself a hernia trying to support an NFL team. Maybe it’s a little like how the SEC fills stadiums in the Southeast that would make the NFL drool. There’s a lot great college ball in SoCal competing with the pros for butts in seats.


6 posted on 04/18/2016 6:53:50 PM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: TroutStalker

Ping for later.


7 posted on 04/18/2016 6:59:46 PM PDT by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
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To: TroutStalker

NFL sucks. I’m done with football fricking Aaron Rodgers golfing with Obama.


8 posted on 04/18/2016 7:05:50 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Rafael Cruz: Canadian-born, Cuban ancestry, ineligible for POTUS)
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To: TroutStalker

“lags, and will continue to lag, far behind in the economic drivers that are necessary for sustained success of an NFL franchise.”

Translation : You weren’t going to blow taxpayer money totaling over $1B on a new playground for our thugs. Therefore, we are moving the team to a city that will give us free playgrounds for our thugs. Thug you! You can watch our 15 minute adventures surrounded by 2h 45m of commercials on your local broadcasting affiliate.


9 posted on 04/18/2016 7:06:01 PM PDT by edh (I need a better tagline)
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Why people give a f@&$&& about grown men running, kicking, and throwing while their organization espouses ever more non related leftist causes utterly staggers me. Pro ball is paint growing level boring, and least the fake college students (unlike the pros) have some level of passion.


10 posted on 04/18/2016 7:11:37 PM PDT by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: TroutStalker

If St. Louis really wants a team, PLEASE get the Steelers the hell out of Western PA ... they brainwash all of the locals into believing things like “the 70s Steelers weren’t among the first teams to juice up and steal at least 2 of the 4 Super ‘Bowels’ they won back then” and other laugh riots like “The Rooneys were/are good people”.

Moreover, I swear that team causes the rather high rates of alcoholism in this area. I have no scientific evidence, but I’d wager that if they’d move the Steelers, alcoholism would plummet and things might start improving around here. Only drawback is that I’d lose various Sundays to go out and get stuff in light traffic when those morons are playing.

I’d also suggest that you take the Pirates, but I wouldn’t want to pollute the St. Louis Cardinals with an owner like Bob Nutting. That filthy cheapskate has a core team capable of winning it all yet he won’t spend a couple million more on some glaring holes despite record attendance and 3 post season appearances the past 3 seasons.

I’d throw in the hockey team, but that garage league is pretty overrated.


11 posted on 04/18/2016 7:13:13 PM PDT by edh (I need a better tagline)
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To: TroutStalker
The thing that really shattered ST. Louis was the forced busing of the mid 1970’s which the Post Dispatch and all of the progressives were behind. They wanted to destroy White South ST. Louis and they succeeded. We moved away in January of 1976. I commuted over 50 miles one way to keep my kids out of the busing nonsense. Didn't move back in till 21 years later.
12 posted on 04/18/2016 7:16:12 PM PDT by MCF (If my home can't be my Castle, then it will be my Alamo.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
NFL sucks. I’m done with football fricking Aaron Rodgers golfing with Obama.

No!

I did not know this, but I just double-checked online.

Aaron Rodgers, sadly, went from my "good list" to the absolute bad list of "collaborator". What a fungus.

.

13 posted on 04/18/2016 7:28:39 PM PDT by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except for convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: TroutStalker

Leaving the heartland? Good, easier to push into the ocean and leaves more room for me in the middle.


14 posted on 04/18/2016 8:10:28 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: dsrtsage

“is paint growing”

Paint growing?


15 posted on 04/18/2016 8:22:20 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc OMorgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: steve86

“Paint growing?”

Kind of like watching grass dry


16 posted on 04/18/2016 9:07:07 PM PDT by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

“NFL sucks. I’m done with football fricking Aaron Rodgers golfing with Obama.”

Crap, I didn’t know that. As a Packers fan, that disappoints me greatly.

I shouldn’t be surprised though, after all, Rodgers did graduate from the Berkeley nuthouse. It figures that he’s a barking moonbat.


17 posted on 04/18/2016 9:37:42 PM PDT by CrimsonTidegirl (Proud Islamophobe.)
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To: TroutStalker

Payback is a bitch, and so was Georgia Frontiere. I don’t recall any NFL listening tour before Madame Ram bolted from playing in Anaheim to the warm embrace of the taxpayer funded stadium in St. Louis. On the other hand, I do recall her classy dig at the fans she left behind after Super Bowl XXXIV.


18 posted on 04/19/2016 6:53:28 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: nascarnation

They won as many NFL championships in LA as they did in Cleveland.


19 posted on 04/19/2016 6:54:18 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: edh

It helps to have some semblance of knowledge on a subject before posting. Kroenke is footing the bill for the new stadium, not the taxpayers of Los Angeles. It was the city fathers of St. Louis that wanted to shaft their taxpayers. Again.


20 posted on 04/19/2016 6:56:49 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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