It's 4th and long for St. Louis as Los Angeles wins the Rams. After many years of hopes and unconfirmed rumors, Angelenos score a NFL team. Inclusive is economic gain, newly created jobs, and another reason to make Los Angeles an exciting destination. This international hub of media, fashion, entertainment, the Dodgers, the Lakers, the Clippers and more will soon add to its hospitable attractions, the culture of a hometown NFL team. The Rams played in Southern California from 1946-1994.
The welcoming of the team back to Los Angeles is the buzz throughout the city since the relocation was announced by the NFL on January 12, 2016. The then known as the Los Angeles Rams was relocated from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to Anaheim in 1980 and to St. Louis, Missouri in 1995 under the leadership of Georgia Frontiere.
The plays of events over the past few years resulted in the game changing, from St. Louis to Los Angeles. "Now St. Louis, Missouri will take a big economic loss", says Adrian Taylor, Entertainment Executive and native of St. Louis currently based on the West Coast. He is concerned that it is unlikely that the convention business will take the place of the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis will suffer economic demise. Taylor has ties to St. Louis, a graduate of South East Missouri State University and graduate of Antioch Law School.
Georgia Frontiere, the first female owner of a NFL Team, nicknamed Madam Ram for her dedicated love and support of the team was a majority owner and Chairman of the Los Angeles Rams 1979 - 2008, during the Super Bowl championship game won by the team in 2000. She inherited the Los Angeles Rams after the fatal drowning of her husband and owner of the team, Carroll Rosenbloom in 1979. Frontiere was born in St. Louis and moved the Rams there in 1995. She became a hometown hero. She owned 60% of the team. The remaining interest was controlled by Stan Kroenke, Vice Chairman who owned 40%. Adrian Taylor recalls that when Frontiere died in 2008 her children decided to sell the team. At this change in the game, Stan Kroenke took a controlling interest. Kroenke is a successful businessman and entrepreneur from Mora, Missouri also known for his inherited stake in Wal-Mart in 2015 valued at $4.8 billion, along with his wife Ann Walton Kroenke.
With a Law Degree and personal connections in financing,Taylor represented Attorney Donald Watkins' bid to purchase the 60% controlling interest in the team from the heirs of Georgia Frontiere, for $435 million cash. The enterprise value of the team was between 800 million - 900 million in 2009. It was a gallant move by Watkins to keep the team in St. Louis but it failed. This offer did not close in part because Stan Kroenke refused to meet with Watkins, according to Taylor. He says, "Kroenke would have to agree to tag along with Watkins with a 40% ownership share."
There was an additional issue that would have to be resolved to keep the team in St. Louis. According to Taylor, under the terms of the lease that the Rams signed, the Edward Jones Dome was required to be ranked in the top 8 tier of NFL stadiums through the 2015 season, but It was not. According to Time Magazine in May 2012 the Dome was ranked the 7th worst major sports stadium in the United States.
The future of the Rams is in motion to relocate to a proposed new $3 billion stadium and entertainment complex to be built in Inglewood, California approximately 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Sunny Los Angeles has won the game.