New Stadiums Set High Bar for Rest of the NFL
The Business of Sport

By EVAN WEINER | June 26, 2008



If St. Louis loses its NFL team after the 2014 season, it can be pinned
on the new stadiums being built by the Cowboys and Jets/ Giants. Since
these facilities will utilize every sort of revenue-building device
available to them, cities such as St. Louis will either have to scramble
to find funding to upgrade its football facility or build a new stadium
entirely.

There are rumors that the owners of the St. Louis Rams are looking at
Los Angeles as a destination in about seven years, when an escape clause
in the Rams' current 30-year deal kicks in: The Rams have to be in the
upper 25% of stadium revenues; otherwise ownership is free to move,
despite having 10 years left on the lease. Rams owner Georgia Frontiere
moved her team from Anaheim to St. Louis after the 1994 season, because
the city offered her the keys to the city's new domed stadium, which was
built as part of a convention center. The stadium is just 13 years old,
but with new stadiums coming on board in East Rutherford, Indianapolis,
and Texas and the opening of big revenue-producing facilities in
Houston, Massachusetts, Detroit, and Arizona, the Rams' ownership will
surely no longer be in the top eight by 2015. That is how quickly the
economics of the NFL changes.

Frontiere was first approached by St. Louis officials after the NFL
awarded expansion teams to Charlotte, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., in
1993. The city was looking for an NFL franchise to replace Bill
Bidwill's Cardinals, a team that left town after the 1987 season.
Bidwill failed in his attempt to get a new football-only facility and
moved his operation to Glendale, Ariz. Bidwill was one of the first of
the NFL owners to start looking for a facility that had luxury boxes and
was one of the first to prove then-commissioner Pete Rozelle correct.

A few years earlier, Rozelle predicted that luxury boxes would be a
"bane to the league," and added that there would be franchise movement
if cities did not catch up with luxury boxes at the Meadowlands and at
Texas Stadium. A quarter of a century later, Rozelle's words still ring
true, as franchises will again have to play catch-up to the Meadowlands
and the Cowboys in terms of potential revenue.

Now it is atmosphere, restaurants, luxury boxes, and club seats. In
1995, when St. Louis opened its new football facility, it was a
state-of-the-art, 66,000-seat stadium that cost $281 million. But the
state-of-the-art facility from the mid-1990s is antiquated in 2008. St.
Louis could not renovate the stadium to approximate some of the features
that have nothing to do with the actual game of football itself — such
as the Great Wall, which will go up outside the new Giants-Jets
facility. The wall will feature murals of players and great moments in
team history in a space that's 400 feet long and 40 feet high. Four
restaurants are also being built inside the stadium. The Giants-Jets
stadium will also have various naming rights: MetLife has bought one of
the four stadium entrances, Anheuser-Busch has another entrance, and
there's also the stadium's name itself. The stadium will have 200 luxury
suites and 9,200 club seats. The mid-1990s St. Louis stadium can't match
that increased source of revenue.

Frontiere died in January, and her son, Chip Rosenbloom, is now the
franchise's majority owner. Rosenbloom has acknowledged that there is
some interest from people who would like to move or own the team, but he
would prefer keeping it for the time being, and remain in St. Louis.

There are a number of other franchises that could be actively seeking
new homes. Zygi Wilf's Minnesota Vikings play in a woefully inadequate
and poor revenue-producing stadium, and have a lease through 2011. Al
Davis's deal with Oakland ends in 2010: The Oakland Coliseum (now known
as the McAfee Coliseum) was first opened in 1966, and in 1995 a football
grandstand was added. The San Francisco 49ers' ownership wants to leave
Candlestick Point as soon as possible, but the York family suffered a
major setback last week when Santa Clara officials declined to put a
stadium vote in the November ballot because they didn't reach an intent
agreement with the Yorks, A referendum could come as early as June 2009.

The Spanos family still wants a new stadium in San Diego for its
Chargers franchise. After eight years of talk, there is still nothing
concrete in terms of building a new facility somewhere in the San Diego
area, though. Then there is Jacksonville, a market that is presently too
small to house an NFL team and struggles to sell out the city's stadium
(which doesn't have a corporate name). The Jaguars' ownership has put
tarps on the upper decks of the stadium to reduce the capacity in the
hopes of selling out games and having Jaguars home games on television
in the team's home market. Could Wayne Weaver sell his club to interests
in Los Angeles, or at least move there? There's one problem with that
plan: There is no NFL-ready stadium in L.A., although the chief
executive officer of Majestic Realty, Ed Roski, would like to put one up
in the City of Industry.

A deal between the owner of the New Orleans Saints, Tom Benson, and
Louisiana is done after 2010. Will Louisiana continue subsidizing Benson
to the tune of $23.5 million annually after the lease is up? And will
the Buffalo Bills play in Orchard Park, N.Y., beyond 2012, when the
lease agreement expires — or will the moving vans pack up the Bills'
equipment and lug it over the Ontario border to Toronto?

If any of these teams relocate, or get new stadiums, blame it on the
Giants or Jets or Cowboys. History is going to be repeating itself very
soon, as NFL teams will be looking to keep up.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com


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