Cardinals Cite Raiders, Reserve Right to Move

Citing a court decision involving the Raiders, the St. Louis Cardinals notified the National Football League Tuesday they are reserving the right to transfer the NFL’s oldest continuous franchise.

Notification of the club’s posture was delivered in a letter to NFL headquarters in New York. The receipt of the letter was confirmed by Joe Browne, the NFL’s director of information. Another league spokesman, Roger Goodell, had said previously the Cardinals had not met a 5 p.m. deadline.

Browne said the letter did not indicate that the Cardinals planned to move, but instead said “that it was their position that they have the right to move out of their home territory because of the decision in the Raiders’ case.”

“We’ll address the problem if--and when--the problem arises,” Browne said. Browne said there were no specifics in the letter, just the position of the team.

In St. Louis, team public relations director Michael Menchel confirmed Browne’s interpretation of the letter’s content, labeling it “exactly right.”

“There’s not going to be any comment from anybody in the organization--not Mr. (owner Bill) Bidwill, not Bing Devine, not Curt Mosher. If you met him on the street, I don’t think Mr. Bidwill would say anything,” said Menchel. “I’m sorry to be so vague, but when you have a right (as in the letter), it doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”

A story Jan. 6 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted a club official as saying franchise inquiries were received from at least two cities, one of them Phoenix. But Bidwill, in the same story, said he did not plan to move the team.

Last month, shortly after an attempt by a Phoenix group to buy the Philadelphia Eagles failed, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle distributed a memorandum to league club owners outlining guidelines and requirements for transferring a team.

Included would be data detailing franchise revenues, ticket sales and lease arrangements by Jan. 15 of the year movement of a franchise is proposed. Also spurring Rozelle’s action was a court case the NFL lost in 1982 while attempting to block movement of the Raiders from Oakland.

The Post-Dispatch, quoting a team official who asked not to be identified, said Busch Stadium’s ranking as the NFL’s second-smallest playing facility was one reason for exploratory relocation talks. Also cited by the official were escalating player salaries and proposed congressional legislation restricting the movement of teams.

Last week, Cardinals lawyer Thomas J. Guilfoil talked in Washington with Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., to “discuss football,” an aide to the senator said. The aide declined to be more specific.

In 1966, six years after moving to St. Louis from Chicago, the Cardinals signed a 30-year lease to play in Busch Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 51,391.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., owner of the St. Louis baseball Cardinals, purchased the stadium in 1981 for operation by Civic Center Redevelopment Corp., a subsidiary. Under terms of its contract, the football team receives no concessions or parking-garage revenues.

Although Bidwill has maintained a low profile, civic leaders have in the past week met with Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. and those at Civic Center to discuss the football Cardinals’ stadium lease.

Bidwill acknowledged talking to a representative of one city interested in his team, labeling the conversation “very pleasant,” but the club official quoted by the Post-Dispatch said talks were not definitive.

“To say that we have begun preliminary discussions would be to use words that might be misleading,” the official said. “We have received expressions of interest, but that is as far as it has gone so far.”