Ram Sticker Shock Hits St. Louis : Pro football: Moving costs are high, some say too high. Others wonder if guarantees can be met.

Not everyone in St. Louis is inflating blue and gold balloons and rolling out the red carpet in anticipation of the Rams’ arrival.

As more details surface about the incredibly lucrative deal to move one of the NFL’s least successful teams from Southern California to Missouri, some in St. Louis are wondering if the city has gone too far in its enticement of Ram owner Georgia Frontiere and President John Shaw.

The package: A new, 70,000-seat domed stadium financed by taxpayers. A guarantee that 85% of luxury boxes and club seats will be sold for the next 15 years, with all home-team proceeds going to the Rams. A $30-million payoff to the city of Anaheim. A new practice facility at a cost of $12 million to $15 million. An estimated $6 million to cover losses the Rams incurred in 1994. All moving costs and any legal expenses related to the move paid for.

“Geez, that’s a lot,” said Kevin Slaten, host of an afternoon show on KFNS-AM, St. Louis’ all-sports radio station. “I’d love to see NFL football here, but not at any cost, and I think the cost in this deal is outrageous.

“Everyone talks about John Shaw being a shrewd negotiator, but he hasn’t negotiated anything. He’s just told Tom Eagleton (the former U.S. senator who heads the city’s football effort) to get on his knees, this is what I want, and give me more.”

The luxury box and club seat pledge, which will account for at least $10 million in annual revenue for the Rams, will be backed by Civic Progress, a coalition of the 28 largest businesses in St. Louis.

But some are perturbed that fans will be forced to pick up at least $60 million of the relocation tab through a personal seat licensing (PSL) campaign, in which they will be asked to pay a one-time fee of $250 to $4,500 for the right to purchase season tickets.

What’s more, if some 45,000 seat licenses aren’t sold by mid-March, when the NFL probably will vote on the Rams’ proposal to move, the team will have the option to void the deal.

“I don’t think that’s a great public-relations move on their part, and it kind of puts a negative slant on this thing,” said Chad Everett, a 32-year-old member of the St. Louis Rams Fan Club who plans to purchase four club seats. “They should come in and say, ‘We’re here, we want to be here, you’re going to have to pay for some PSLs, but we’ll do our best.’

“But they’re saying, ‘Well, if you guys don’t buck up, we have the option to go back to Anaheim.’ My question is, what would they move back to? I don’t think anyone would go to games out there except the melonheads.”

Tom Sullivan, a St. Louis political activist who heads a group called The Campaign for Better Government, plans to survey area residents about the stadium lease being offered to the Rams, who would receive virtually all revenues from the $258-million facility and more than $20-million in pretax profits a year.

If he finds little support for the lease, which he says could cost taxpayers $30 million a year for the next 30 years, Sullivan said he might launch an advertising campaign telling residents not to buy seat licenses.

Slaten doesn’t think the campaign will be necessary.

“I don’t see any way people are going to ante up that much for PSLs,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll sell enough in eight weeks. Think about it--$9,000 for two tickets before you even buy them. The average working guy making $30,000 to $40,000 a year is not going to pay that much for two seats. He’ll have to sit in the nose-bleed section or in the end zones.”

But St. Louis civic and political leaders believe the city will have no problem selling enough seat licenses to satisfy the Rams, and they dismiss criticism of the campaign. Charlotte, N.C., conducted a similar effort to raise $150 million for construction of the expansion Carolina Panthers’ stadium.

“We’re not forcing anyone to buy PSLs--this is the price you have to pay to get a football team,” said Mac Scott, director of communications for the office of St. Louis County Executive George (Buzz) Westfall. “Opponents say it’s tough for Joe Six-Pack to get a seat--hey, it’s tough for him to get a seat in any NFL stadium.”

As for the lengths St. Louis has gone to lure the Rams, Westfall said: “The bottom line is the Rams have something we want. If you have the only loaf of bread in town, you can charge a lot for that loaf. We have a football stadium, and we need a team to play in it.”

Perhaps no other city has made more of a financial commitment to a professional sports franchise, not to mention one that is 23-57 in the last five seasons.

Paul Much, a Chicago-based financial adviser who does extensive work for pro teams, was aware of many details of the St. Louis offer, but Saturday was the first he had heard of the 15-year guarantee for luxury box and club seats.

“Oooh, that’s something,” said Much, senior managing director of the specialty investment banking firm of Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. “That’s an unprecedented concession to a team, and a significant investment in the team and city of St. Louis. But one of the morals of the story is the city wouldn’t be doing this if it felt it wasn’t getting something out of it.”

Citing studies that show that roughly 20% of NFL crowds come from out of town and spend an average of $250 per visit, Much firmly believes the Rams will have a significant economic impact on St. Louis.

“There’s a multiplier effect--for every dollar fans spend in restaurants, those restaurants will in turn hire employees, and those employees will spend money in town,” Much said. “You’ll find St. Louis will get a benefit of tens of millions of dollars annually for the life of the lease. That’s why St. Louis is doing this.”

There’s also the fact that it could be years before the NFL expands again, and St. Louis, which lost to Charlotte and Jacksonville, Fla., in the 1993 expansion race, doesn’t want to go through that again.

“It’s a lot (to offer), but with the Rams, it’s our one really good shot to get a team over the next several years,” Everett said. “I think the civic leaders believe they have to go the extra mile, more than the extra mile, to get the team.”

Save the Rams, the group working to keep the team in Orange County, believes it has gone the extra mile with an offer that includes a new stadium, a new practice facility and guarantees on the sale of luxury boxes and season tickets.

Having failed to persuade the Rams to accept, the group will take its case to league owners in hopes of securing enough votes to have the NFL block the move.

“We think we can compete with the St. Louis offer,” said Wayne Wedin, chairman of the county’s economic development consortium. “I think the Rams have substantially underplayed the value of our offer.”

Wedin was glad to learn the St. Louis deal will be contingent on the sale of a majority of the seat licenses by March.

“That helps us,” he said. “There’s a performance level--they have to sell 45,000 seat licenses--and that’s a lot to do. You’re telling the population you not only have to buy tickets, you have to pay a premium to do it. You have to pay for the team’s 1994 losses, Anaheim Stadium bonds, potential litigation . . . the list goes on.”

The list is way too long for Slaten, a longtime St. Louis resident who saw the city do little to prevent Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill from moving his football team to Tempe, Ariz., in 1988 but everything to attract the Rams.

“Why are we embracing the Rams when we practically kicked Bidwill out of town?” Slaten said. “These aren’t the Cowboys or 49ers coming to town. These are the Rams . Hey, at least the Cardinals usually went 8-8.”