JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The owner of the St. Louis Rams should not expect more help from Missouri taxpayers if he wants to keep his team in the state.
“I doubt if there’s an appetite to do public money for that, when we have education issues, highway issues and infrastructure issues,” state Sen. Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said Wednesday, as the 2015 legislative session began. Richard also is the Senate Majority Leader.
House Speaker John Diehl, R-St. Louis, said he has not been in discussions with anyone at the Rams and said he does not believe there is much of a chance the General Assembly would pass any sort of financial incentive package in an effort to keep the team in St. Louis.
“I haven’t seen anything from the governor. The governor has indicated that he believes St. Louis is an NFL city,” Diehl said. “Under the laws of the city and county of St. Louis, they’re required — any type of assistance is required to go to a vote of the people. It’d be extraordinary difficult to get a stadium package through the General Assembly.”
Billionaire team owner Stan Kroenke is part of a joint venture that announced plans Monday for an 80,000-seat stadium in the Los Angeles suburbs, a move that could return the team to the nation’s second-largest market and the home of the Rams from 1946 until they moved to St. Louis in 1995. The move would have to wait at least a year — the NFL has said no team moves would be allowed in 2015.
Kroenke has acquired land in Los Angeles suitable for a new stadium. The deal between Kroenke and the Stockbridge Capital Group comes as the Rams’ 30-year lease on the state-financed Edward Jones Dome is about to be open for negotiation, and legislators are wary that it could lead to a request for perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid. The dome was built 20 years ago with 30-year bonds. The state of Missouri pays $12 million annually toward the debt; the city and St. Louis County pay $6 million each.
In November, Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, asked the former president of Anheuser-Busch, David Peacock, and St. Louis attorney Robert Blitz to analyze what it would take to keep the National Football League in St. Louis. The two are expected to provide Nixon with the report on Friday.
“We’ve laid out clear principles — protecting taxpayers, creating jobs and using significant private investment,” Nixon said after his prayer breakfast on Wednesday. “This is a long and interesting process. St. Louis is an NFL city. We’re going to protect taxpayers, but we’re going to do what we can to keep two NFL teams in the Show Me State.”
That same day, St. Louis city officials said that the owner of the Rams isn’t returning their calls, so they plan to work directly with the NFL on efforts to keep a team — any team — in St. Louis.
In the Rams’ contract with Missouri, the state agreed to maintain the stadium as a top tier stadium. But as stadiums are opening up with costly retractable roofs and large television screens, it is unclear how much money it will take for the state to keep that promise. Nixon has said it is important for the public to maintain the stadium, pointing to a similar arrangement with the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
But Nixon also said the goal of maintaining an NFL presence in St. Louis shouldn’t detract from other priorities. ‘It isn’t going to force a false choice of a preschool or an end zone, Nixon said.
Messages left Wednesday at Kroenke’s office were not returned.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ownership change
St. Louis missed out on an expansion team in 1993 when the National Football League awarded franchises to Jacksonville, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina. But in 1995, Rams owner Georgia Frontiere took the Rams from Los Angeles back to her hometown in St. Louis. Kroenke bought in as minority owner. Frontiere died and, in 2010, Kroenke bought the team.