The city of St. Louis is pushing hard to keep the Rams in town despite owner Stan Kroenke’s desire to move them to Southern California.
Ahead of a possibly pivotal league meeting on the subject on Wednesday, the city of St. Louis has added a new wrinkle in their push to keep the Rams playing under the shadow of the Gateway Arch.
According to Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, National Car Rental has agreed to a naming rights deal for the proposed stadium that would replace the Edward Jones Dome as home of the Rams.
The deal is worth $158 million over 20 years.
The agreement was reached with the St. Louis Regional Sports Authority, the entity that would own the stadium. Unsurprisingly, the Rams were not involved as Kroenke wants the team Inglewood, Calif. instead.
The St. Louis stadium task force helped broker the deal.
St. Louis certainly seems to have the best plan in place for a new stadium of any of the three cities with teams chasing Los Angeles. It would seem to reason that having a realistic stadium plan in place could help convince the league to deny a move of the Rams out of St. Louis. Having a naming sponsor already lined up certainly can’t hurt in that endeavor.