Rams Announce Retention Of Goldman Sachs

The St. Louis Rams have announced that the firm of Goldman Sachs has been retained by the family of late Rams owner Georgia Frontiere to “assist in a strategic review of the assets of her estate, including the St. Louis Rams.” This move confirms the recent report from Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch regarding the retention of Goldman Sachs, but the characterization of the arrangement steers clear of any acknowledgment that Goldman Sachs has been hired to find potential buyers for the Rams. Meanwhile, Miklasz now explains that he believes minority owner Stan Kroenke will lobby the NFL to relax its cross-ownership rules to permit him to buy the team notwithstanding the fact that he owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. Before Wayne Huizenga bought the Dolphins, the NFL prohibited owners to hold major league teams in any other sport. The league relaxed that rule for Huizenga, but put in its place a rule requiring that all of an owner’s teams reside in the same market. The question, as Miklasz points out, becomes whether Broncos owner Pat Bowlen would attempt to block the move, given that he owns the football team that currently plays in the market where Kroenke owns a basketball team and a hockey team. And Bowlen might do it. As a practical matter, he would be competing on his home turf with two franchises owned by one of his supposed partners in the NFL. If Kroenke would obtain a waiver of the ownership rules, current majority owners Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez could sell their 60-percent stake to a smattering of investors, since Kroenke’s 40-percent interest in the team already gives him enough to act as the controlling partner. Finally, Miklasz mentions a fairly well-known (some would say notorious) Missouri native who possibly might be interested in buying the team -- radio host Rush Limbaugh, an ardent football fan who worked briefly for ESPN several years ago.