RAMS / ST. LOUIS NOTEBOOK : Many Contingencies Still Have to Be Met

There are more than 20 contingencies attached to the Rams’ proposed move here, and if they are not met, the team has the option of terminating the deal.

But then where do the Rams go? Back to Anaheim?

“I don’t think it’s a question of returning,” Ram President John Shaw said. “We still have a lease in Anaheim; it won’t be terminated until Aug. 4. So it’s simply a question of playing under the existing lease.

“I’m optimistic they will meet all the conditions. We studied the marketplace and spent a lot of time making this transaction.”

The Rams reserve the right under their present Anaheim Stadium lease to revoke the escape clause and remain in Anaheim until 2015. They are also free to revoke the clause, lose the $2 million they paid toward the renovation bond, and then pay $2 million again with 15 months notice and invoke the escape clause again.

“I think there is a great likelihood they will meet the conditions,” Shaw said.

The move to St. Louis is also subject to NFL approval and Shaw said the team will file an application with the league, including a statement of reasons for their departure from Anaheim, by Feb. 1.

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A camera-shy Shaw, who put the deal together with St. Louis, did not join team owner Georgia Frontiere and key St. Louis officials on stage at the press conference.

“I have a tremendous sense of satisfaction that we have completed, or have gotten close to completing, a business transaction dealing with the relocation,” Shaw said. “But my job was not to move the football team. It’s Georgia’s team, and she deserves all the credit of the move.”

In the past few days there have been reports that Save the Rams officials offered the Rams an opportunity to make more money than what they expect to earn in St. Louis.

“That’s entirely untrue,” Shaw said. “I was surprised they would make that comment. I think they know there was a tremendous amount of difference between their financial package and this one.

“I think Leigh Steinberg and people of Save the Rams tried their best to put together a proposal that makes sense, but there were quite a number of elements that they were never able to quantify or substantiate to us. The largest hurdle that they had to overcome was the fact we were seeking a new football-only facility, and although there was a contemplation of that late in the negotiations, once the Orange County bankruptcy became a reality, it virtually stopped that from happening.”

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Steve Rosenbloom, the 50-year-old son of the Rams’ late owner, Carroll Rosenbloom, said Tuesday his father would never have moved the team.

“I saw where Georgia (Frontiere) said if Carroll were alive he wouldn’t have waited so long (to move the team),” he said.

“That’s not true. My father made a commitment when we agreed to move the team to Anaheim. And he would have done something with that commitment. He would have made the grass greener there, not looked for greener grass elsewhere.

“We only moved from the Coliseum because we tried for five years to get the Coliseum Commission to give us the improvements in the stadium we wanted. When we moved to Anaheim, it was a good deal for both sides.”

Rosenbloom now lives in Covington, La., outside New Orleans, and is in the oil equipment business.

Rosenbloom was his father’s assistant with the Rams and, before that, with the Baltimore Colts. It was presumed that he would someday take over his father’s team.

But Carroll Rosenbloom gave controlling interest to his wife, Georgia, who fired her stepson when she took over after Carroll’s drowning in 1979.

Steve Rosenbloom spent two seasons as the general manager of the New Orleans Saints but has been out of football since 1981.

“If you had to write a paper on how to dismantle a successful sports franchise, and had the Rams write it for you, you’d have an A-plus paper,” Rosenbloom said.

Times staff writer Larry Stewart contributed to this story.