ANALYSIS : THE ST. LOUIS RAMS : Rams Didn’t Have the Luxury of Staying in L.A. Market

So the Rams are saying goodby. And there are rumors that if the Rams are gone, the Raiders can’t be far behind, leaving Los Angeles lacking in NFL football, perhaps, some day soon.

Can that be possible? What is this? Has Los Angeles degenerated as a sports town?

No. It’s nothing like that.

“The L.A. sports market is No. 1 in the nation,” says a USC authority on the subject, David Carter, a Graduate School of Business professor.

Says Dodger President Peter O’Malley, “This is a world-class sports community.”

Among others, Carter and O’Malley recognize that the Rams aren’t walking away from something bad.

They’re heading for something better--millions of dollars in luxury-box revenues.

That’s the lure.

According to terms of the agreement taking the Rams from Anaheim to St. Louis, the team is guaranteed that at least 85% of the luxury boxes and club seats will be sold for the next 15 seasons. That translates to at least $10 million a year for the Rams.

As a U.S. sports market--in the traditional sense--Los Angeles remains “at or near the top,” in the view of David Simon, president of the Los Angeles Sports Council.

But in the luxury-box market--which is misunderstood here, and also undervalued--Los Angeles has sunk to the bottom.

“The Raiders and Washington Redskins are the only two NFL teams left without luxury boxes,” Simon notes.

As for the Raiders, it is clear that, although they still prefer Los Angeles, they can’t afford to stay here much longer without a row or two of classy Coliseum boxes.

So that’s one problem.

In Anaheim, another was the way Ram owner Georgia Frontiere ran her club.

Although, personally, Frontiere aspired to win here, there was a gulf between her aspirations and her results.

“The thing that hurts the Rams the most is that they haven’t made a commitment to best-possible management,” says Carter, a business consultant who teaches sports management at USC.

“The public senses their lack of commitment, which hurt Ram ticket sales. And the players sense it--which hurt the Rams on the field.”

And Ram fans are paying for that.

“The pro clubs that do best both on the field and financially have executives on board who know football,” Carter says. “If the Rams have one, he is Jay Zygmunt--but (on player deals), Zygmunt obviously isn’t allowed to pull the trigger.”

Nobody knows if the Rams would be staying if they had made better football decisions--and if, in addition, they had a set of modern luxury boxes in a modern stadium--but, no doubt, they would be feeling more like it.

The rationale for such seating may be misunderstood by many in Los Angeles in the following respects:

--Luxury boxes encourage corporate participation in home-team affairs. A chief executive with a stadium box is more likely to sponsor team promotions, such as game broadcasts. To involve the corporate community is to enjoy good financial health in pro sports.

--Private boxes attract the rich and famous who are loath to sit in the stands--not from strands of elitism, necessarily, but because neither they nor the fans around them enjoy the commotion they cause. Here particularly, Raider boxes would entice more stars from the entertainment industry. And if you’re in business in Los Angeles, it can’t hurt to involve those people.

--Teams lacking luxury boxes are at an economic disadvantage to the rest of the league. Most NFL game receipts are shared by visiting teams--but not luxury-box receipts, which go to the home team.

Hence the Raiders, when they play in, say, Kansas City, take 40% of the cost of each ticket--except in the luxury boxes. That shuts them out of that market both on the road and at home.

The NFL’s club owners long ago erred disastrously in failing to approve recommendations by their commissioners, Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue, that box receipts be divided among the 28 franchises--using the same revenue-sharing formula adopted for other receipts. For, plainly, the present system is unfair to teams with comparatively few luxury boxes, not to mention teams like the Raiders with none.

Luxury boxes may seem the epitome of elitism, but to Los Angeles sports fans--and to the Coliseum Commission in particular--that thought is beside the point. If Raider opponents are wallowing in luxury-box receipts, the Raiders had better get some of that action, along with more Coliseum parking lots, if they intend to remain competitive here. There’s a cap on player salaries in this league, but not on scouts’ salaries or the coaching budget or parking, or anything else.

In the NFL, in short, it is becoming irrelevant whether Los Angeles or anyplace else is a good sports town. Other considerations have simply become more vital. Pro football is so big now that a competitive team, properly operated, could be expected to sell out every Sunday in a big stadium in Yankton, S.D.

But for the record, Los Angeles remains a remarkable sports town.

“This is one of the major sports markets of the world,” O’Malley says. “Our climate, our population--and in our case our stadium--make Los Angeles unique.”

Simon adds, “The fact that Los Angeles is a hot sports town is both a plus and minus to a sports team. It means you have plenty of fans if you’re competitive. But if you’re not, they have plenty of other entertainment options.”

At USC, Carter says, “I suspect it’s true almost everywhere that football teams have to be competitive to do well. You don’t have to win every year, but you have to be competitive most years.”

The Rams couldn’t do that. And that’s what led to their eventual demise here.