Reports: St. Louis Rams Owner Stan Kroenke has Deal to Build Los Angeles Stadium

While we may have received assurances from commissioner Roger Goodell that the Rams will remain in St. Louis for the 2015 season, the long-term future of the team in the city is still apparently very much in doubt. A Monday morning report from the Los Angeles Times‘s Sam Farmer and Roger Vincent indicates that Rams owner Stan Kroenke plans to build an NFL stadium in Inglewood, California, a city in the South Bay region of the greater Los Angeles area.

Kroenke purchased the land where the stadium reportedly will be built a year ago. With controversy over the Rams’ status in St. Louis which has existed to an extent since the team was moved from LA in 1995 and has increased with the expiration of the Rams’ lease on the Edward Jones Dome, there was great suspicion when Kroenke bought the land. Some optimists tried to pass it off as a routine business move by a man who has made his wealth in real estate, but doubters (apparently correctly) guessed that Kroenke made the purchase of the massive plot of land with the idea of building a stadium.

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The proposed facility will be built in conjunction with Stockbridge Capital Group, a real estate investment management firm which does the bulk of its work in California and owns land adjacent to the plot that Kroenke has already purchased. It’s scheduled to seat 80,000 and will be accompanied by a 6,000 seat performance venue, and it will be built on a development that already includes plenty of residential and retail space. According to Farmer and Vincent’s report, “Kroenke’s move marks the first time an existing team owner has controlled a local site large enough for a stadium and parking”.

If Goodell’s previous vow to reject any relocation applications for the 2015 season holds true, the earliest the Rams could move would be 2016, and if FOX Sports’s Jay Glazer’s recent report holds true, it would seem to be a likely possibility that the Rams would apply for relocation at that point. Though a St. Louis group led by local businessman Dave Peacock is expected to provide the Rams with a stadium proposal later this month, the odds of that plan coming to fruition may be rather low if Kroenke already has a plan put together in Southern California.

Of course, the Rams’ move would still have to be approved by three-fourths of NFL owners, which may be an obstacle in and of itself considering the tension surrounding the rights to the Los Angeles market.

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