The NFL Rams could exercise an option in their lease to move (again) from St. Louis in 2015- unless the fairly-new Edward Jones Dome is made into a "first-tier" NFL stadium.
Only trouble is- that "first-tier" designation in the team's lease was and is undefined.
WHAT???!!!
The Edward Jones Dome opened in November 1995- built with taxpayer financing to lure the Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis after the football Cardinals moved to Arizona.
Each year- the State of Missouri pays $12-million on the revenue bonds that were used to finance the $256-million playpen for corporate sports with St. Louis County ponying up $6-million per year.
Total estimated payoff of those revenue bonds is said to be around $720-million.
The ST. LOUIS (MO) POST-DISPATCH story says the county portion of that payment is funded by "a 3.5 percent hotel tax approved by voters in 1990."
Now with the provisions that were written into the lease by parties who MUST have been under the influence of some (logic) mind-altering substance- St. Louis County could end up spending even more millions to bring The Dome up to the Rams' standards of "first-tier-" whatever that is.
If these so-called "first-tier" improvements are not made by St. Louis area taxpayers- the Rams would have several options- the underlying theme however is that the team could leave St. Louis at any time on or after 2015.
It will be interesting to watch this play-out- if American governments continue to subsidize professional corporate sports teams with hundreds of millions of scarce taxpayer dollars that could go to silly things like municipal infrastructure needs- or tell the greedy corporate bastards to take a long walk off of a short pier.
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