Money (and Tradition) Worked Against Rams : Analysis: League voted against move to St. Louis because Fox wanted a rebate. And when Rooney and Mara spoke, other owners listened.

The two biggest reasons the NFL denied the Rams permission to move from Southern California to St. Louis on Wednesday are the two things the NFL is most about--money and tradition.

Money?

The NFL wanted the Rams to cover any rebate from Fox Television to move from the nation’s No. 2 market to No. 18.

The NFL thinks the difference is somewhere around $30 million, the Rams reportedly were willing to ante up about half that.

“We made them a very good offer,” Ram owner Georgia Frontiere said.

But a highly placed NFL source said Frontiere and Ram President John Shaw would not agree to make up what the league might have to pay Fox in a rebate.

Tradition?

“I don’t think you can ignore 50 years of the Rams in Los Angeles,” Dan Rooney, president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, said early in the week.

“I agree wholeheartedly,” said New York Giant President Wellington Mara.

When Rooney and Mara speak, other owners tend to listen. Even in this era of big bucks and big marketing, the sons of the NFL’s founding fathers still have a major say in what happens and what doesn’t.

Cleveland’s Art Modell, another member of the “old guard,” was also strongly against the move even though he has his own stadium problems.

Remember: The three votes for the move were the Rams, Tampa Bay and Cincinnati.

The Bucs and the Bengals are decided have-nots, both on the field and off it, and both want to use the right to move as leverage to get new stadiums in their areas.

The six abstentions were the Raiders, Seattle, San Diego, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Atlanta, all but new Orleans teams whose owners are out of the NFL’s mainstream.

Shaw suggested after 21 teams voted against the move, that the “no” vote had been orchestrated beforehand, that the NFL had given Fox Television the idea of objecting to the move.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue certainly emphasized the difference Monday--that Fox’ share of the NFL’s TV universe would drop from 58% of the nation’s homes to 52.5% if the Rams left Anaheim.

“We could not, and I emphasize not, leave the L.A. market without an NFC team,” Modell said.

There is also the matter of the NFL’s entry into the stadium business, both in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

One idea being tossed around, ironically, is permanent seating licenses, or PSLs in the latest finance jargon. They were what were being used in St. Louis and they are now being considered by the NFL for, of all things, the Super Bowl.

Under one proposal, the NFL would charge $10,000 for the right to buy tickets to four Super Bowls. Originally, under this concept, about 5,000 would be sold with the revenue used to help finance stadium construction around the NFL.

It is, of course, one more step toward pricing the average fan out of the stadium.

On the other hand, it’s what the NFL is all about and why the Rams’ move was turned down.

Money.