Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, was dropped Wednesday as a limited partner from a group led by Dave Checketts in a bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams football team.

Checketts, the owner of the St. Louis Blues hockey team, said that Limbaugh had "become a complication and a distraction" in the group's pursuit of the Rams.

Limbaugh's history of controversial comments drew the concern of NFL players, owners and the commissioner in the week since his participation in the bid became known.

Without Limbaugh, the Checketts' group enhanced its status, NFL sources said Wednesday. "Now Checketts can have a restart on this thing and he can clean it up," said a league source familiar with the potential sale of the team. "This makes the Checketts group more competitive … it probably puts them in the top three (bidders)."

The Checketts group is the only bidder to have been publicly identified so far. As many as six groups have placed bids.

"Rush was to be a limited partner — as such, he would have had no say in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or operations," Checketts said in a statement. "This was a role he enthusiastically embraced. However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions, endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him."

The exact makeup and breakdown of Checketts' ownership group remains unknown, not just to the public but to the NFL and the Rams. But sources familiar with the group said they did not anticipate any problems replacing Limbaugh's potential investment in the team.

Limbaugh has been aligned with the Checketts bid for a couple of months, league sources said, but it didn't become public knowledge until last week. The reaction was quick and heated, jump-started by NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, who urged players throughout the league to speak out against the inclusion of Limbaugh in the potential Rams ownership group.

Privately, several Rams players also complained about Limbaugh as a potential team owner. On Wednesday, hours before the decision to drop Limbaugh was announced, Rams cornerback Ron Bartell spoke out publicly.

"It's a free country," Bartell said. "When you come out and make statements like he's made in the past, it's definitely ruffled some feathers."

In 2003, Limbaugh was dropped from ESPN after he said in reference to Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."

In 2007, according to transcripts on his website, Limbaugh said, "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips, without any weapons. There, I said it."

In a league where about two-thirds of the players are black, such comments didn't play well.

On Tuesday, when Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said he would vote against any ownership group that included Limbaugh, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke critically of what he called Limbaugh's divisive comments of the past, the talk show host's future as an NFL owner appeared doomed.

Nonetheless, Limbaugh was defiant Wednesday on his radio show. "This is not about the National Football League," he said. "It's not about the St. Louis Rams. … This is the latest in a long line of attempts by the left to discredit any of us who believe what we believe. I'm not even thinking of exiting (the Rams group). I'm not even thinking of caving. I am not a caver."

A league source said Limbaugh was "very unhappy" when informed he was being dropped from the bid. Neither Limbaugh nor Rams owner Chip Rosenbloom could be reached for comment.

The prospect of Limbaugh owning a slice of the Rams ignited a debate at St. Louis City Hall, where many of the elected officials hold views opposite to the radio host — but also don't want to see the team leave.

Alderman Antonio French, a Democrat, authored a resolution urging the Rams to reject any bid with Limbaugh as an investor. But another alderman, Matt Villa, said "if he's willing to be a minority owner and invest some money to keep the team here, it's not going to bother me."

Controversy this week also has stemmed from a quote attributed to Limbaugh about the merits of slavery in the 2006 book "101 People Who are Really Screwing America" by Jack Huberman. The book did not give details about the origin of the quote. Limbaugh says he did not make that statement, which was cited in a Bryan Burwell column in the Post-Dispatch and other media outlets. Huberman said Wednesday that he had a source for the quote but declined to reveal it on advice of counsel.

Jake Wagman of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.