ANAHEIM : Council to Discuss Possible Rams Move

The City Council has scheduled a discussion Tuesday regarding published reports that the Los Angeles Rams are considering leaving Anaheim Stadium and moving to Baltimore.

The council has asked its staff to prepare a report on negotiations with the National Football League team and what the chances are it will exercise an escape clause that would allow it to move as early as 1995. The Rams lease with the city for the use of Anaheim Stadium expires in 2015.

The Rams have been losing both games and fans during the 1990s, with attendance often failing to reach 50,000. The team has one of the NFL’s lowest attendance averages.

“I want the (council) to get all the facts about the current agreement,” Mayor Tom Daly said in calling for the discussion. “The Rams are not denying they are getting offers from other cities.”

The Rams moved to Anaheim from the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1980, signing a 35-year lease.

But in 1990, the city allowed the Rams to insert an escape clause in the lease as a concession for the team not objecting to the construction of the Anaheim Arena.

The clause allows the Rams to move if they give 15 months’ notice and agree to pay off the remaining $30 million owed on bonds issued to expand the stadium for the Rams when they moved here.

Reports of a possible Rams move to Baltimore began circulating last October. Baltimore officials had reportedly contacted the team to inquire whether the Rams would be interested in relocating there if the Maryland city was not awarded one of two NFL expansion teams.

The new franchises were awarded recently to Charlotte, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla. As a result, speculation has mounted that a Rams move to Baltimore is a strong possibility.

Baltimore--which was home to the Colts until that team moved to Indianapolis in 1983--has reportedly offered any team willing to move there a new $165-million stadium with extremely attractive lease terms.

Baltimore has reportedly offered to lease the stadium for $1 per game and would allow the team to keep all ticket, luxury box, concession and parking revenue.

The Rams pay Anaheim rent of up to $400,000 per year, and the city gets 7.5% of ticket revenue, 20% of luxury box revenue and about half of the parking and concession revenue.

Anaheim officials have said they want to keep the Rams and are willing to negotiate, but they will not match Baltimore’s offer.

“I want the Rams here, but I’ll be damned if I’ll vote to give them half the city and I won’t beg them to stay,” Councilman Irv Pickler said.

The council meeting begins at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.