The Rams: Going, Going . . . : Team invokes contract escape clause in preparing to leave Anaheim

Some off-season football news: Today the Rams formally put their host city on notice that they will invoke an escape clause in the Anaheim Stadium lease that allows them to leave in 15 months. It now appears the team will go elsewhere, although it is not known yet just where.

Maybe there will be a tear or two shed if and when the Rams quit Anaheim, but the cold economic realities must be faced. It would be great if the team stayed beyond the coming season, but the powerful financing mechanisms of modern pro football argue against that. Of course, the game is ultimately about its economics. Sentiment alone cannot dictate where to put or keep a team.

Even as the Rams seem on their way out the door in Anaheim, CBS, which lost the television rights to the National Football Conference to the Fox network, has acknowledged having had some early discussion with a group of corporations about forming a new rival Sunday afternoon league.

The sad thing is that the Rams have a fine tradition in Southern California. But in Anaheim, the important intangibles of civic pride and winning ways never caught fire sufficiently, or for long enough, after the team’s arrival from the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1980.

However, more to the point, Anaheim was not able to offer anything like what cities such as Baltimore, St. Louis or Memphis might eventually put on the table. Anaheim’s negotiators did make a mistake in allowing a contractual escape clause for the Rams, but that simply may have pushed the inevitable up on the calendar.

Today, incentives being offered around the country put teams with wanderlust in the driver’s seat. Yet at the same time, we should hope that all those unsentimental, bottom-line considerations also serve as a reminder that Southern California remains a very attractive sports market.

Finally, a city like Anaheim cannot be held responsible for team performance. Wherever the team parlays its strong hand into a lucrative deal, it still will be accountable to its customers for what happens on Sunday afternoons.