Last week the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission presented the St. Louis Rams with its preliminary proposal for fixing up the Edward Jones Dome to make it a "first-tier" facility — that is, among the top 25 percent of the 31 National Football League playgrounds. The first-tier designation is critical to keeping the Rams here after 2014 under terms of the 1995 agreement that brought the Rams here from Los Angeles.
The Rams have until May 1 to respond to the proposal, but it probably won't take that long. If we were the Rams, we'd be hugely underwhelmed. The CVC proposes $124 million in improvements, many of which simply would upgrade or replace existing elements of the stadium.
Replacing the dome's fabric roof is one example. As any homeowner knows, a new roof is nice and adds value to the home, but, after all, it's just a roof. It's a necessity, not a luxury.
But under the CVC's narrow reading of Section 1.1.1 (m) of the infamous "Golden Lease" that lured the Rams to St. Louis, improving the "physical structure" of the stadium counts as a "first-tier" component.
To the Rams, perhaps the most underwhelming aspect of the CVC's proposal must be that the CVC wants the team to pay 52 percent of the $124 million tab. The CVC looked at all stadiums built around the league in recent years and estimated that the teams have paid an average of 52 percent of the cost. The CVC proposes to hold the Rams to the same 52-48 private-public split.
In all, the CVC came up with a hard-nosed, pragmatic proposal, long on nuts-and-bolts and short on razzmatazz. In the end, the fixed-up Edward Jones Dome (if that's still what it's called in 2014; the naming rights deal expires in March 2014) would be to, say, the $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium in Dallas what a nice used Cadillac is to a Lamborghini.
The lease says the dome, "taken as a whole," and each of 15 separate components, must be first-tier. If the 15 components are first-tier, does that mean the whole is first-tier? Or is the whole separate from the components? We suspect entire squadrons of lawyers will wind up arguing that issue.
Where was Kathleen "Kitty" Ratcliffe, the CVC's president and chief negotiator, in 1994 and 1995 when St. Louis was being fleeced by the Los Angeles Rams management?
Baltimore, she said, working for that city's convention bureau. Had she been here, St. Louis might not be in its current fix.
"We value the Rams and we want them to stay," she said. "The speculation has been that to keep them, we would have to build a $1.2-billion Jerry Jones (the Cowboys' owner)-type facility. We don't read it that way.
"Our goal is to ensure that we do everything we can that is reasonable to keep the Rams in the community. But 'reasonable' is going to have to be taken into account."
But, she added, "it's a very different time from when the lease was done."
That's for sure. Twenty years ago, when the state, city and county governments approved funding to build the dome, there was still a belief that stadiums somehow would pay for themselves by kick-starting ancillary business benefits. Study after study has shown that they don't even come close.
To a city, the value of professional sports teams is in civic identity and pride. To an owner, it's a license to print money, but some print more than others.
The community-owned Green Bay Packers are the only team that releases financial statements. The Packers are roughly at the median in terms of revenue-generation. In 2009, they took in $248 million, 60 percent of it from revenue shared league-wide and 40 percent from locally generated revenue.
For an owner, the key is to generate more local revenue, which doesn't have to be pooled. Most luxury suite and club seat revenue doesn't have to be shared, so the CVC proposes more of it for Rams' owner Stan Kroenke.
Thus, the CVC proposes a fancy new 50,000-square-foot club and suite entrance, offering exclusivity for the Rams' "highest-dollar customers." The CVC wants to turn the lower level of luxury suites into really luxurious suites and leave the upper level as not-quite-so-luxurious suites. The CVC wants to add fancy new concession and food offerings that can drive revenue that the Rams don't have to share.
Will it be enough? Perhaps for a few years it might, particularly if the CVC allows the team to break the lease and play one of its eight home games each year in London. Becoming Europe's unofficial home team would create all sorts of revenue streams for the Rams.
Order your StLondon Rams T-shirts now.
Ms. Ratcliffe insists there's no linkage between the first-tier negotiations and the London negotiations, but it raises the question: Is 7/8ths of a home season better than none? And if so, does the CVC still have to come up with $64.5 million for its share of first-tier improvements?
Those who haven't already tired of this soap opera soon will, but it threatens to go on indefinitely. In the meantime, take comfort: Pitchers and catchers report one week from tomorrow.
