Group Vows to Escalate Fight for Rams : Pro football: Save the Rams, saying team never negotiated in good faith, will take case to NFL and to court if decision to move is made.
As they say in a hockey brawl, there go the gloves.
They came flying off the hands of Save the Rams task force members, who Thursday abandoned their six-month course of diplomacy toward the NFL team they’re trying to keep in Orange County and instead declared war.
Save the Rams called a news conference to say it’s convinced the Rams will strike a deal to move to St. Louis “within 10 days,” according to agent Leigh Steinberg, co-chairman of the group.
Committee members, who spent months trying to sell the Rams on a proposal that includes a new or renovated stadium, season-ticket and luxury suite guarantees and an offer to purchase a share of the team, also said they’ll launch a lobbying assault on NFL owners in an attempt to secure the eight votes required to block a move.
But a good portion of the 1 1/2-hour gathering outside Anaheim Stadium was spent criticizing the team for a failure to negotiate in good faith, questioning its commitment to Southern California fans and accusing Ram President John Shaw of ignoring efforts to keep the team in Orange County.
Frank Bryant, president of the Rams booster club, fired the first salvo when he revealed an excerpt from a two-hour meeting with Ram owner Georgia Frontiere and Shaw on Dec. 8.
“When we talked to Mrs. Frontiere about our proposal and mentioned guarantees, she expressed a great deal of surprise, turned to Shaw and said, ‘John, you mean there are guarantees in this proposal?’ ” Bryant said. “It was as if she’d never heard of them before.
“Then when I told her the proposal included an offer to purchase a minority share of the team, she again expressed surprise and asked John the same question, because she was not aware someone in Orange County wanted to buy a share of the team.”
Has Shaw withheld information about the local offer in an attempt to undermine Save the Rams?
“I don’t know, but it’s certainly not helping us,” Bryant said. “I don’t know if you can categorize it as undermining. I would categorize it as selective information giving.”
Several attempts to reach Shaw Thursday were unsuccessful.
Next on the firing range was Save the Rams co-chairman Jack Lindquist, a jovial sort who spent 40 years in management at Disneyland, a.k.a. the Happiest Place on Earth. But Thursday, it was No More Mr. Nice Guy.
“The American public demands value for money paid, and one of the problems is they have not received that from the Rams,” Lindquist said. “With their attitude and the way they’ve operated here, the Rams aren’t going to be successful in Anaheim, St. Louis or anywhere else.
“What this franchise needs is a local infusion of ownership, because going to a Ram game has to be an event, a happening, not only with the product on the field but with an attitude in the marketplace. The Rams have done nothing to generate fan support here . . . and over a period of years, they’ve appeared to go out of their way to destroy whatever fan support that existed.”
Steinberg, whose Newport Beach firm represents 19 NFL quarterbacks, has been careful not to publicly criticize Frontiere or Shaw during the past six months, but he could no longer hide the frustration of being stonewalled in his attempts to deal with the Rams.
“We’ve told the Rams for months that we have investor groups ready to go, willing to meet with them, and their response has been negative,” said Steinberg, who declined to name the individuals or corporations interested in investing in the team or a stadium project. “There has been no negotiation with the Rams.”
So Save the Rams will take it to the other 29 NFL owners and Commissioner Paul Tagliabue during Phase 2--Eight Votes or Bust might be a better title--of the fight.
“It is abundantly clear that it is not in the best interest of the NFL to allow the Rams to leave Southern California,” Steinberg said. “We’re going to forcefully bring that message to the commissioner, and we will strenuously lobby this issue with the owners.”
They hope to back the message with the political clout of Gov. Pete Wilson and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, California’s U.S. senators. And Peter Ueberroth, former baseball commissioner, might be enlisted to convince owners that this area can support the Rams.
If they are to move to St. Louis, the Rams must submit a proposal for transfer to the league 30 days before the March 12-17 NFL meetings in Phoenix.
They essentially must prove that they can’t survive in Anaheim and that the deal in St. Louis, which includes virtually all revenue from a new 70,000-seat domed stadium, is far superior than the Orange County offer.
The Rams, who close their 49th season in Southern California on Saturday against the Washington Redskins, will need approval from three-fourths of owners (23 of 30) at the league meeting to move. Save the Rams will need eight votes to block them.
If owners don’t approve, the Rams would have to file an antitrust suit against the NFL, as the Raiders did before moving from Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982, to play next season in St. Louis, which lost the Cardinals to Phoenix in 1988 and failed in a 1993 bid to land an expansion team.
“We can get eight votes, and what could stop the Rams is Mrs. Frontiere’s lack of desire to go through litigation,” Steinberg said. Save the Rams will likely have at least one vote. In a recent confidential Times survey, in which NFL owners were asked whether they’d approve a Ram move to St. Louis, one of the 14 respondents said he would not approve. Three said they would approve the move, and 10 were undecided.
“I know the league wants to continue to have representation in Los Angeles, but I don’t have a feel for how the league will vote,” Kansas City Chief owner Lamar Hunt said. “I personally favor stability in franchise location, but I don’t know enough about the facts of this case right now.”
Save the Rams is also considering legal action and has been discussing an eminent domain suit, in which it would attempt to declare the Rams a county asset, condemn the team and make Frontiere sell it.
Precedence wouldn’t favor Orange County, though. In Oakland’s suit involving the Raiders, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities can’t use eminent domain to condemn a sports franchise because it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause, which states that states can’t interfere with interstate commerce.
“That suit, I think, is a dead loser,” said Gary Roberts, vice dean of the Tulane Law School who represented the NFL in the Raiders’ antitrust case.
Roberts said Save the Rams might have a little more luck with an antitrust suit, but only because antitrust laws pertaining to professional sports leagues are so numerous and confusing that a jury or a judge--especially in Orange County--might find merit in such a suit.
“My sense is that any suit they might bring to keep the Rams, if the team is determined to go, is probably grasping at straws,” Roberts said. “But if you can get a local court that is highly political, and a judge who will do anything to keep the Rams, they have a tremendous amount of control over how these things play out.”
But the bottom line is if the Rams are willing to go to any lengths to move, the NFL will have trouble stopping them.
“There are no rules in the NFL when teams want to do something,” said Joseph Alioto, the former San Francisco mayor who represented the Raiders in their NFL suit. “And I would think the NFL would not oppose a move to St. Louis, because there’s no team there and they were one of the finalists for an expansion team.”
If the NFL blocks the move, Alioto said, “All Georgia would have to do is file suit the way the Raiders did, and they’ll win it. I think she could get a fast preliminary injunction, and it wouldn’t be a long, drawn-out ordeal.”
But Steinberg believes the Rams would comply with a losing vote and stay in Orange County.
“The only way we’ll make this work is presenting the league with our offer, which is very good,” Steinberg said. “An announcement (to move) will come soon, but we’ll keep fighting in every possible way, and we will keep this team in Southern California.”
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NFL Procedures for Proposed Franchise Relocation
* A club proposing a transfer outside its home territory must give written notice to the commissioner no later than 30 days before the league’s annual meeting in the year in which the club proposes to start play in a new location. The notice is to be accompanied by a “statement of reasons” in support of the transfer.
* The commissioner will, with the assistance of appropriate league committees, evaluate the proposed transfer and report to league owners; if possible, he will do so within 20 days of his receipt of the notice and statement of reasons. The commissioner may also convene a special committee to perform fact-finding or other functions,
* Following the commissioner’s report, it will be presented to owners for action, either at a special meeting or the annual meeting. Three-fourths of the owners must approve the transfer for the team to move.
Statement of reasons for the proposed transfer must include:
* A copy of the club’s existing stadium lease and any other agreements relating to the club’s use of its current stadium.
* Audited financial statements for the club for the fiscal years covering the preceding four seasons.
* An assessment of the suitability of the club’s existing stadium, costs of and prospects for making any desired improvements to the stadium, and the status of efforts to negotiate such improvements with the stadium authority.
* A description and financial analysis of the stadium lease and operating terms available to the club in its existing home territory, on a basis that permits comparison with the projected arrangements in the proposed new location.
* A budget projection, using accepted league charts of account, showing a projected profit and loss statement for the fiscal years covering the first three seasons in the proposed new location.
Factors to be considered in evaluating the proposed transfer:
* The adequacy of the stadium in which the team played its home games in the previous season, and the willingness of the stadium authority to remedy deficiencies.
* The extent to which fan loyalty to and support for the team has been demonstrated during the team’s tenure in the existing community.
* The extent to which the team, directly or indirectly, received public financial support by means of any publicly financed playing facility, special tax treatment and any other form of public financial support.
* The degree to which the ownership or management of the team has contributed to any circumstance which might otherwise demonstrate the need for such relocation.
* Whether the team has incurred net operating losses, exclusive of depreciation and amortization, sufficient to threaten the continued financial viability of the team.
* The degree to which the team has engaged in good faith negotiations with appropriate persons concerning terms and conditions under which the team would continue to play its games in such community.
* Whether any other team in the league is located in the community in which the team is currently located.
* Whether the team proposes to relocate to a community in which no other team is located.
* Whether the stadium authority, if public, is not opposed to such relocation.
Source: NFL bylaws
