Leaving St Louis, and the Rams (MO)

A final piece from St Louis.

I remember as a kid in the mid-1980s, Channel 4 showed American Football in the UK for the first time. And they did it well, introducing Brits to stars like Dan Marino, William ‘The Fridge’ Perry and Joe Montana and to (then) iconic NFL teams like the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins.  My favourite was Marcus Allen, who was at his peak in 1984, winning Super Bowl XVIII for the Los Angeles Raiders against the Washington Redskins.

The LA Raiders became my NFL team largely because of Allen, and I followed them as much as that was possible in those pre-internet days, made much more difficult when Channel 4 stopped showing NFL later that decade.

What I do remember though was how perplexed I was when I did get access to the new World Wide Web in 1995 and reading that the LA Raiders had become (in fact, had reverted to) the Oakland Raiders.

While I was confused by the franchise system in US sport 21 years ago, the good folk of St Louis appeared to have benefited from it that same year. In 1995, the Los Angeles Rams moved to St Louis and initially did very well: a win in Super Bowl XXXIV and another appearance two years later in 2001, but thin times followed in the years since.

Things got considerably grimmer in for the St Louis Rams in 2016 though, when owner Stan Kroenke (also de facto owner of Arsenal FC) filed for relocation to the Los Angeles area for the 2016 NFL season. Although citing considerable frustrations with St Louis City authorities on redevelopment of the stadium, the reality is that the media and commercial rights available in LA and the wider California far outstripped that of St Louis and Missouri.

None of this is particularly new. But having wandered round a bit of St Louis and seen the former stadium, it’s not difficult to put yourself in the shoes of the erstwhile St Louis Rams fans: “What do you do when your team just disappears?”

There will be people in St Louis who have followed that team since 1995; some of them in their mid to late 20s and others who are just kids – all of them are now without a team they can identify with or watch in person or on local TV. Many of them will have coughed up thousands of dollars in that period; some of them experienced real joy at their Super Bowl appearances, more of them will have shed tears of frustration at their lack of success in the subsequent years. They – and a wider community in St Louis and Missouri – now have nothing.

They certainly won’t support the new franchise, the LA Rams. It’s unlikely they’ll opt for the nearest neighbours the Kansas City Chiefs (despite their recent success) or the Chicago Bears. They may instead give up football, American style, period.