1. They weren’t “run off,” and the fans didn’t stop going simply because the team was not playing well. We stopped going because the ownership ran the team into the ground by siphoning off money that should have been put back into the team, and repeatedly refused to make moves that would have kept them at least competitive. She then turned around and claimed lack of fan support as a justification for taking the team to her home town.

2. I don’t think the Rams are selling as many tickets as you think they’re selling these days. Are the St. Louis fans trying to “run them off?”

3. We don’t get many Rams games here, since they’re not in our market. On the rare occasion that they play an opponent that the NFL thinks might appeal to us in the Los Angeles area, I usually tune in; the past couple of years have been very enjoyable — particularly the 1-15 season.

Cleveland Rams: 1937-1945, with a 1-year hiatus due to the war. 7 years.

Los Angeles Rams: 1946 – 1994. That’s 48 years. Even if you want to exclude the “Anaheim Rams”, say 1946 -1979. That’s still 33 years.

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I’m going to have to disagree with you, there, Jimbo. I addressed this at the tale end of a Vikings thread, but I believe it bears addressing again. It’s not in the best interests of the League to expand. There are two issues in play:

The first is Conference and Divisional Alignment. The current set-up – 4 teams per Division, 4 Divisions per Conference – is nearly ideal for the NFL. It makes scheduling significantly easier, and makes for what has proven to be a very successful postseason /playoff structure (individual team results notwithstanding). Expansion would almost certainly mean Realignment, which I believe is something a League which trades heavily on tradition and rivalry would very much like to avoid. To prevent creating an unbalanced structure, the NFL would have to revert to 3 Divisions per conference, with each Division consisting of 6 teams . That’s 36 teams in the League; even if the NFL preferred and expansion franchise in Los Angeles, where would the other 3 teams be placed? Are there three other cities that could support an NFL team?

The second matter is money. You make a valid point regarding the expansion fee; I will absolutely grant you that an expansion fee could easily push the $1B mark. On the surface, it seems like this is something that “Greedy NFL Owners” would jump at. Here’s the thing, though: In the long run, adding an additional team would cost the existing owners money. The NFL’s primary source of revenue is and will continue to be broadcast TV contracts. It’s tempting to think that he contracts will continue to grow with each renewal, but at some point, there will be a limit to what the networks will pay. The pie simply won’t get any bigger. An expansion fee would certainly be a nice one-time windfall for the 31 owners, but it would mean that each ensuing year they receive a smaller portion of the League’s revenue. There would need to be something in place to replace that “lost” share, and I’m not clear what that might be.

The sentiment out here is that of all the teams out there in the league, we would most welcome back the Rams to LA over any other franchise.

We’ll settle for Minnesota, but would prefer our Rams come back home.
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Face it-in the end the NFL wants an expansion team in LA much more than they want a relocation. Why? The expansion/franchise fee that is going to be in the high hundreds of millions or possibly even a billion by this point. If Minn or StL do transfer Ziggy or Kroenke are still going to get hit with a relocation fee that is gonna be pretty staggering considering the size of the market in LA.

We’ll settle for Minnesota, but would prefer our Rams come back home.