Gateway to west: St. Louis loses again

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

Now St. Louis is a two-time NFL loser. Both times, it was about a stadium.

In 1988, the city lost the Cardinals to Phoenix over dithering about a new facility that team owner Bill Bidwill eventually got built in the desert.

This time, it can be blamed on a no-win lease that gave the Rams an out if the Edward Jones Dome wasn’t deemed in the top one-quarter of the facilities in the league.

While Stan Kroenke relocates the franchise to Inglewood, Calif., with plans for a lavish stadium, it’s back to the bricks for the task force — which has a $1 billion plan and fancy artists renderings for a riverfront stadium that could also house an MLS franchise, but no prospective tenants.

The task force said it planned no “news events” the rest of the week.

For now, the city that Kroenke harshly criticized for a lagging economy and has long been dissed as a “baseball town” is left with two professional teams.

“I thought the crowds were very good when I was here,” said Dick Vermeil, who coached the Greatest Show on Turf team to the franchise’s lone Super Bowl title in the 1999 season. “They were unbelievable when we turned the team around, and they were good when we were not going good.”

State and civic leaders who banded together in an effort to keep the Rams in town are feeling jilted.

“The NFL and Stan Kroenke have displayed a callous disregard for the St. Louis area and its loyal football fans,” St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger said in a statement.

Mayor Francis Slay said “the NFL ignored the facts” and fans “who supported the team through far more downs than ups.”

Gov. Jay Nixon called the vote to approve the move “a clear deviation from the NFL’s guidelines.”

Dwindling attendance was cited on the Rams’ relocation application. It didn’t note there had been just four winning seasons out of 21 — all of them coming in a five-year stretch that former coach Mike Martz often referred to as a “special place in time” and featured high-powered offensive juggernauts led by Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk.