anybody else here excited about the Rams coming back to LA?

Los Angeles is 51% Hispanic or Latino. Typically this is not your core NFL fan base.

The State has 3 NFL franchises as it is...and demographically the State is losing in population...not growing.

It makes more sense to move the Chargers or Raiders to LA from a business standpoint. California can't support 4 NFL teams. Not enough middle-income white people...who are typically your average NFL fan.

Imagine this scenario.

St. Louis moves to LA, the Raiders move to LA and the Chargers move their stadium to LA.

3 teams in close proximity...we'll call it Southern California for the sake of the argument. This is not economically viable. As I stated earlier California is losing population in terms of those who would support and attend an NFL game. They are leaving in droves to Arizona, Nevada, Washington and Oregon. California is a dead duck in terms of population growth that would appeal to an NFL franchise.

Yet. we're the one's accused of being dreamers?

Yeah keep dreaming LA will support 2 or 3 NFL teams. Good luck with that.

 

who here said LA will support two teams? not me thats for sure.I have ALWAYS said from day one that If its only the Rams the NFL will succeed in LA but the NFL is run by a bunch of idiots and they are pushing for two teams which is why a lot of people like former LA Rams coach John Robinson and Al Michales think it will be the Rams back to LA next year and the Chargers joining them in two years when the inglewood stadium is ready.

It should be ONLY THE RAMS because they have the history and tradition but the NFL is too stupid to see that apparently and is pushing for two. The Chargers and Raiders will both bomb in LA if they try to bring in two teams that I guarantee.

That was why the Chargers left LA after just playing there one year because they could not compete with the Rams for attendance.Even though the Chargers made it to the playoffs that year they only drew crowds of just around 20,000 to 25,000 where the Rams even though they finished that same year with a 4-8 record i believe it was,drew crowds that averaged around 55,000.

and the Raiders? same thing.I vividly remember seeing Raider games in LA televised and that stadium was half empty all the time and because of that,all their monday night games were always on the road where the Rams in the 70's and 80's had many monday night football games at home at both Anaheim and in the LA coliseum.

Plus the year the Raiders won a superbowl out there in LA,the following year for their home opener,they only drew a measly crowd of just 45,000.

what did the Rams draw for their home opener that same year? a standing only crowd of over 64,000 a feat impressive since they were playing in that dump baseball stadium in Anaheim.

The OAKLAND Raiders might have won a superbowl out there in LA,but nobody in LA cared.

The NFL is dreaming if they think the Raiders or Chargers will be embraced in LA.This is a poll conductd by the LA times asking who they would want back the most of the three teams with the Rams easily winning.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-poll-nfl-los-angeles-20150130-htmlstory.html


ESPN did a nationwide poll as well and most people voted the same.Rams the number one favorite,Raiders second,Chargers third.

I agree with you wholeheartely that LA should not have two teams.If the Raiders or Chargers are indeed that stupid enough to ignore history and what the polls say,they will flop and look like fools if they try to come to LA and get support from football fans as they did before.

If I was in charge and had my way,the Rams would come back to LA,the Raiders would stay in oakland,and the chargers would stay in SD but Im not in charge and the NFL is run by a bunch of idiots who dont get that..

and california cant support four teams? oh really? better tell that to all the sell out crowds who sold out all the oakland raider games last year despite how much of a pathetic franchise they have been the last decade. Better tell that to the 49ers,who drew excellent crowds at their games last year,and the chargers who have had an increase in 4000 ticket sales this year,and finally,better tell that to all the THOUSANDS of LA Ram fans who went to the Chargers game in SD this past year and half the stadium has LA Ram fans jumping up and down cheering in the place when the Rams scored the first touchdown of the game.

yep california cant support four teams alright.

 

Here is WHY the Raiders should stay in Oakland and forget this san antonio and LA nonsense.

August 11, 2015

“That Thursday night game against Kansas City shows you the kind of fan loyalty we have here. You can't buy that anywhere." - quote from Raiders owner Mark Davis on fan support in Oakland following the team's home victory in a pounding, cold rain over the Chiefs (2014 season) before a SELLOUT CROWD in a newspaper article.

OAKLAND HAS SUPPORTED AND DESERVES TO KEEP THE RAIDERS AND A'S


the Raiders sold out last year for a thursday night game in a driving cold rainstorm and stayed till the very end.this DESPITE having lost 10 in a row up till that point.

LA wouldnt even support the Raiders the year they won a superbowl out there having a half empty stadium the following year for their home opener,anybody here actually think they would all of a sudden support a losing franchise in a cold raining downpout after having 13 consecutive losing seasons?

The Rams as evidenced from the THOUSANDS of Ram fans at the chargers game in san diego yes, but not the Raiders.

 

Los Angeles has not had an NFL franchise in 20 years.

As shown in this chart, the NFL as a business has not suffered at all by not having two teams located in Southern California. In fact, revenues have increased dramatically since the Rams left LA. This is not to say the NFL isn't interested in putting a team back in LA, and they will do this...however the idea Los Angeles will support three teams is ludicrous. The NFL does not need LA as much as some like us to believe. They will get a team, but a team already in California makes the most sense.

 

here is a newscast of reporters talking about the NFL owners meeting in chicago where they say they ONLY DISCUSSED RELOCATION TO LA. They are saying they MIGHT move up the relocation timetable deadline to october which is currently set for january.

http://fox2now.com/2015/08/11/kroen...mittee/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I loved the part mentioned where he said Kroneke is not engaging with city officials in st louis about stadium talks.

He is reporting what I been saying all along that he is not even returning phone calls from the governor.

http://fox2now.com/2015/08/11/kroen...mittee/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Kroneke is not required to do so,the Rams honored the terms in the lease agreement that was signed when they first moved there,the city of st louis did not honor the terms of the agreement and now they are asking Kroneke to fund a stadium there that he wont even own and yet a few people here have the delusion he will stay when he can legally move them next year? comedy gold.

 

again no argument from me one bit at all on this.as i just said,the NFL will ONLY work in LA if it is the Rams and the RAMS ONLY and they give up this asinine idea of bringing the Chargers to join them as people like john robinson,al michales and many others are predicting.

the raiders and chargers will fail in LA as has been proven in the past.

 

Ever read a court document? What does post length have to do with substance? About as lame a strawman argument when you have no answer for someone - blame the poster for writing long. How many articles posted on the forum require redirect's to lengthy newspaper and periodicals, most the same length. Don't try to school me on the internet, been on it for 15-years, stick to what I wrote. What you write is fan expectations - what you ignore repeatedly is the power of the NFL owner's, and the simple fact that unless ground is broken for, and a stadium is under construction, whether it is in Carson, Inglewood, Farmer's Field, UC-Davis; UC-Irvine - anywhere out there in that bankrupt, messed up city, the NFL isn't going to vote to move any team there - Rams-Jags-Saints-St.Louis. Los Angeles isn't going to pay for a stadium, that is why they don't have an NFL club. Stick to facts - otherwise, just click on past - there is no drumbeat of public opinion or support daily for a Rams move to Los Angeles. Might happen under the right circumstances, but not unless construction is under way, it is privately financed, and guaranteed no NFL team will play in the Los Angeles Coliseum ever again. As for the Rose Bowl, bleacher seats, no suites - zero combination for adequate NFL standards, plus, Pasadena doesn't allow NFL teams to play there. Try staying on topic, if you can't just skip what I am posting - you are the only person excited about this potential St.Louis to Los Angeles move..........

 

well so much for the delusions one person here has that The Rams cannot legally move the team next year if Kroneke doesnt get the neccessary 24 votes from the owners.Its all here in black and white that what I been saying all along since day one is correct,that Kroneke can LEGALLY move them next year which he wants to.

The good news is the NFL is pretty much a cinch to return to Los Angeles after an embarrassing 20-year absence.

that settles that.lol

@DailyNewsVinny: "...is L.A. the sensible home for a franchise that spent 49 years there and is NOW LEGALLY FREE to begin its journey back? ...And does their long-time heritage in Los Angeles insure the most successful NFL return to L.A.? ...When St. Louis decided not to implement terms of arbitration, the Rams converted their lease to year to year with the right to relocate... As far as the Rams are concerned, they are free to move regardless what Missouri comes up with."


http://www.dailynews.com/sports/201...peed-on-raiders-rams-and-chargers-la-projects
THAT SETTLES THAT.lol

Now all that NEEDS to be discussed now is which of the three teams will be there next year. UCLA,the dodgers,and angels who the NFL discussed with about using their facilitys next year earlier in the season,they have bowed out of the picture.

UCLA and USC have said the Raiders are not welcomed to use their facilitys this year because the only people in LA that ever embraced the Raiders were gangs and thugs and there were more fights in the stands than there was on the field when the Raiders were in LA.

the LA coliseum is the only one that has said they will allow a TEAM to play there and only ONE TEAM.

that just leaves the choices between the Chargers and Rams. Lets see,the current athletic director of USC is former Rams QB Pat Haden.You think for a second he is going to choose the Chargers over the Rams?


and we know for a fact the owners love Kroneke inglwood project.

LA RAMS 2016.

okay now that its been established that there WILL be a team in LA next year,we can discuss WHICH of the three it will be,raiders,chargers,or rams.thats the only thing left to discuss now and the only thing i will at this point because facts are facts and nobody here has been able to refute them that there will be a team in LA next year..


that being said,anybody have a valid argument why it will be the Chargers over the Rams after seeing the facts I just posted? any takers? lol

 

well this pretty much answers that last post of mine on will it be the chargers or rams next year if their were any doubts of which of the two it would be.

Spanos hardly is a pauper, but among these wealthy princes -- especially Kroenke, married to Sam Walton’s daughter, the richest of them all (estimated at $12.5 billion) -- he doesn’t have what his fellow owners want -- enough dough to fatten their greedy pie.

It’s going to take a lot of money to move to Los Angeles, even more when you throw in relocation fees, which could be mammoth. And Kroenke swims in Money Lake. Jones is fairly transparent. He doesn’t want to screw around with some haphazard L.A. venture -- involving the useless Raiders, no less -- this time around.

I’m gathering one thing from this meeting near Chicago. The Carson project is on life support, if not dead, despite what Chargers hired L.A. gun/blowhard Carmen Policy says. Kroenke already has spent many millions on his Hollywood Park site, and stadium construction already may have begun.

this writer knows his stuff,he is one of the few sports people telling the truth like it is,that carson is on life support if not dead.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/aug/14/chargers-carson-stadium-canepa/


I love it when people make the ignorant assumption that LA is not an NFL football town and there not supported well there.lol. oh really? here is a game at the LA coliseum against the lowly cardinals no less,a team that was always horrible from 1975.Looks like a packed house to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP61GDj25x8

here is also a game against the eagles in the early 90's at anaheim.Look at the people in the crowd,not an empty seat in the house.lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iepQ6vAipA


LA is an NFL football town when it comes to supporting the Rams.Its just not a football town when it comes to supporting the Raiders.major difference there.

 

first time ever in two decades the Rams returned to southern california for a football scrimmage.a mere coincidence? I think not.

THOUSANDS of LA RAM fans showed up in droves and clearly outnumbered cowboy fans.an impressive feat considering the fact that LA has droves of cowboys fans there.many who became cowboy fans ONLY after the Rams left LA. I guarantee many of those LA Ram fans were long time cowboy fans the past 20 years when the Rams left and since they know they are coming back,they are Ram fans again.


https://www.facebook.com/losangeles...77083695980/10152952230935981/?type=1&theater

For the first time in two decades, the Rams returned to Southern California and thousands of Los Angeles Rams fans were there to cheer them on sending an undeniable message to the rest of the football world!!! GO RAMS!!!

 

I think its cool. Was a big LA raider fan back in the day.

 

Man i so much hated the chokeland faiders when they were in LA.how dare them invade Ram territory.I always rooted for the team that played them each week for that team to win which is what I have done the past 20 years with the Rams.

The Rams leaving LA was the darkest and most depressing moment in my life.it was like having a girlfriend you loved and were loyal and faithful to your whole life give you the middle finger and leave you in the middle of the night for another man.same bitterness.

Now that the Faiders are back in chokeland where they belong with all those other scumbags,its hard for me to hate them now.

I wanted to get excited about the Raiders moving back to oakland when they did and throw a party over it back then but i was so depressed about the Rams leaving a couple months earlier that I could not get excited about it.next year when the Rams are back in LA,i WILL throw a party celebrating the raiders return to LA 21 years later after the fact.

 

Yeah I'm a lions fan so I have enough heart break of my own lol. We slowly getting better though.

 

A team should be able to go wherever the team's owners want to go, and, where the people of a metro area welcome a team and will support it! Now more than ever, professional football is a BUSINESS, and it requires a hell of a large, ongoing investment. By the same token, being a season ticket-holding fan is a hell of a big investment, too, and the prices associated with that pastime are exorbitant on everything from the tickets, to the food and refreshments, parking the car, etc., etc.

Why doesn't San Antonio have an NFL team? It's a sports-crazy town with a metro population of about two million people, and it's growing like a weed! Its fan base could also draw on other cities in Central Texas, like Austin (the State capital), with a metro population of over a million more people....

But if the owners of the Raiders wanted to go to Billings, Montana, it's their team and their right to do so, if the citizens of Billings, Montana, agree....

 

the NFL is pushing for two teams to be there.they are too stupid to get it that LA is not a two team city. From what we are hearing it sounds like it will be the Rams in inglewood next year and the chargers joining them a couple years down the road and thats because of many have said they think its going to play out with former Rams coach John Robinson saying it,Fred Roggin on his radio show in LA,Al Michaels,and Mike Florio recently as well.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/08...ams-that-end-up-in-l-a-with-raiders-left-out/

 

the proof is in the pudding the NFL is serious about putting a team in Los Angeles next year unlike in years past. If you watched the national telecast of the chargers/seahawks game in san diego last night,you heard how the fans there were frustrated with the chargers organization with the possible move to Los angeles..they have nothing to worry about for a couple years anyways because this is breaking news here.

Source indicates Chargers to LA support has eroded among owners, likely not happening. Rams considered "a virtual lock" to move though." -@AllbrightNFL (twitter)

"Based on conversations I’ve had with these sources. These are first-hand accounts of what's going on with the plans here, what they want to do with the NFL and this franchise, the markets they want to tap into and how they want to do it. It looks likeif I was a wagering man, I would say the St. Louis Rams will be the LA Rams playing in a new LA stadium in 2017. I don't think their permanent stadium would be built until that time based on what I know.” -@AllbrightNFL

“Based on what I’m hearing now…I think the Rams will be the only team in LA when this all shakes out. . . The Chargers plan...has not been as detailed and thorough as the plans Kroenke has presented. The (Dean Spanos family) initially had most of the support. And now they're down to about nine owners." -@AllbrightNFL (twitter)

 

LA will love their Rams.

 

Indeed. The Raiders were never embraced in LA when they were there like the Rams were.

here is why st louis will lose them after this season.

Anything can happen, it's all up in the air". Are you paying attention? Do you understand what's happening here? Take emotion of it this situation for one second. There are no "views" with the NFL LA story, only facts. Facts: 1. STL lost their arbitration case against the Rams. The Rams are now free agents. 2. Stan wants LA. Yes, he WANTS LA, it's not leverage. 3. Inglewood is building a stadium. Construction is underway. 4. STL doesn't have a finalized plan, nor will they have a finalIzed plan any time soon (don't forget, Peacock's shady-ass plan includes over $250-300 million of Stan's money). 5. The recently NFL conducted a study of the STL market and it showed that STL can't sustain an NFL franchise long-term. 6. Carson...lol, I'm not even going to get into how many issues surround that "plan".

But go on, you were saying something about "certainty"...

 

Negative. NFL teams are part of a league governed by its owners. Usually requires 30-of the 32 votes for a team to move, and they have to have one damn good reason for doing so. Usually it isn't lack of attendance because the television money generated by the NFL makes it impossible for any owner to lose money on his or her team. It is because of bad performing teams and poor stadium's. We have gone from highs school football fields in the old AFL days (Oakland Raider's played on a HS field); to the Rock Pile, 46,000 capacity War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, later stadium held 80,000 and led the league in attendance several times; 33,000 seat Balboa Stadium in San Diego, a city that desperately needs a new football stadium, as does New Orleans. Major metropolitan areas losing their teams because of stadium problems including our second largest city, Los Angeles, going to the tiny burg of St.Louis; our 4th largest city, Houston, going to an even smaller location in Nashville over stadium troubles; The Patriots were on the way out of Boston in old Gillette Stadium, a major dump, and the team was only kept alive under Billy Sullivan because the late Buffalo owner Ralph Wilson, and Kansas City's Lamar Hunt, carried the payroll, until a new stadium was built there for the club. Wilson and Hunt also sponsored the payroll for the old AFL Oakland Raiders to remain in that town until a new stadium was built, getting them out of the High School park.

The league also made huge mistakes regarding teams. Letting Oakland move down to Los Angeles to compete head-up with the Rams was stupid, and the team wasn't supported in the Coliseum. Than letting the Los Angeles Raiders, a Super Bowl winning team return to Oakland with a Super Bowl trophy - and now debating whether to let them return to Los Angeles? Who is running this mess?

Letting a drunken, now dead, Robert Irsay, pull the tractor-trailers up to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore in the middle of the night, load up, and appear two days later in "skunk town USA" - Indianapolis, called the Indy Colts masquerading as the legendary Baltimore Colts, a travesty. Than letting an even more devious owner than Oakland's late Al Davis, Cleveland's Art Modell, move a team that averaged 80,000 per game for decades, back to Baltimore and masquerade as the Ravens, and win a Super Bowl the next year there - and award Cleveland another team, when they built a new stadium, so they can masquerade as the old, great, legendary Cleveland Browns - a worse travesty. Dumping the "Air Coryell" St.Louis Cardinals to Arizona? Another stupid move, because that city got the Los Angeles Rams back - yea, I know, it's tough to keep up with all the dummies.........

Los Angeles (three times); Houston; Dallas; Cleveland; Baltimore; St.Louis, all lose teams to - St.Louis; Nashville; Kansas City; Baltimore and Indianapolis. It's a wonder the league can make money.......

Now the league has finally put its foot down, and told the owners, who are the league, that nobody can move any team, anywhere for any reason, until the Los Angeles territory, which is the property of the league itself, is filled with a new club - whether it is from St.Louis (losing another NFL team), or long time traditional clubs like San Diego and Oakland, or an expansion team. Stadium are usually the key, they now have to be of the Taj Mahal level, like Jerry Jones' in Dallas (where stands collapse during the Super Bowl), and mega-million dollar suites abound, making attending a Cowboys game almost out-of-sight for the average fan.

We don't need to go into the abandonment of New York City by the NFL, moving both the Giants and Jets out of metro NYC, and into "sparkling water's" Garten State New Jersey. Only Buffalo plays in New York State.

Now we have a three way scramble from the Rams; Chargers and Raiders to fill the Los Angeles market, barren for two decades, and really, the league hasn't missed it at all. The Dallas Cowboys have held their training camp at Thousand Oaks and Oxnard in Los Angeles for over 40-years, and "The Boys" are more popular in LA, than the Rams ever were.

Meanwhile - there are cities out there that desperately want teams, and the NFL desperately wants to fill those requests; London, England is at the top of the NFL's expansion list once the Los Angeles situation is finalized. Buffalo-Jacksonville play the second game of the season there this weekend; believe the Jets kicked the carp out of Miami there a couple of weeks ago. The NFL wants to move two teams to Europe, one in London, a second somewhere in Germany. Other cities on the market for NFL teams: Toronto; Birmingham, Alabama; Las Vegas, Nevada and San Antonio, however, the low population numbers of the latter two probably preclude anybody or the league taking a chance on them. The only reason Los Angeles is considered an attractive location for the NFL is the population and advertising revenue that it would get exposure to - fan interest? Nill. Not unless a new stadium is up and working will anybody be going to Los Angeles, and if the league really needed a club there, they would have built one themselves and awarded an expansion team years and years ago.

The NFL is a crazy-run enterprise, when a league commisioner can dictate that the Super Bowl will be played in a snowbowl in NYC, and got lucky and away with it, while eliminating the two best party cities with the best climates for football in the country, Miami (host of the most Super Bowls), and San Diego. The NFL in Los Angeles story is like a pinball machine where the ball never leaves the field, just keeps slamming against the bumpers, racking up dollars and hopes and nothing ever becomes of it.............

 

You do make good points, and obviously, I was kidding about a team moving to Billings, Montana. I wouldn't wish that on the Oakland Raiders! But I did think that if an owner wanted to move his team somewhere (and Los Angeles would be a good place), and if the citizens and their local government representatives would welcome the team, then how would it hurt anyone? That would seem like a win-win to me. It would be easy to get in and out of L.A. throughout the year. There are adequate airports, good hotels, good restaurants, and lots of other, uh, amusement there, too....

 

Nobody questions the viability of Los Angeles as a destination for an NFL city, and perhaps they will even get their old club, the Rams back there. But, as usual, it is stadium problems that can wreck the idea, because someone has to play in the old Los Angeles Coliseum for two years while a stadium is being built. Putting up an NFL stadium in, say, Birmingham, Alabama, a rabid sport's town, isn't the same as putting one up in a bankrupt Los Angeles County. Plus, when it comes to the National Football League, fan support is the very last thing on their mind when considering a team - advertising revenue is tops on the list, and that puts LA tops on the list.

Same with London, other than England's traditional soccer league - American NFL football is the sole sport over there - gets huge crowds in Wembley Stadium, and subsequently, television coverage throughout the UK. Add in Germany, a favorite for American's, as evidence by the number of American rock groups that tour that country routinely, and the NFL will fly. Scheduling really isn't a problem because you keep your team there for the two weeks and play in London and perhaps Munich. Road trips for those cities would be the same coming to America - they would only do it four times.

I am not in favor of breaking up the AFC and the old original AFL traditional rivals San Diego Charger's, who once actually played in Los Angeles, or the Oakland Raider's. Neither team is the same outside their cities. The Indy Colts and the Baltimore Ravens could win five Super Bowls each, and still not equal the legendary accomplishments of the old Baltimore Colts, monsters, and an original expansion team in the NFL with San Francisco, St.Louis and Cleveland, or the Cleveland Browns with their ten straight championships. Even the Green Bay Packer's don't rate up there with that accomplishment. The Ravens and the Colts are not the same as the Baltimore Colts or the Cleveland Browns, and never will outlive the legacy of those teams, and the sneaky way they ran out on their fans.

I am old school, follow the Bill Veek rule, never antagonize or betray your fan base. Veek ran the Chicago White Sox in their 1950's heyday when they went an entire decade and kept finishing in second or third place to the New York Yankees by about 3.0 games each year, winning only one title, in 1959. Manager Al Lopez was a perfect match for New York's Casey Stingel, and Veek always kept the fans entertained, with a good product on the field, even when he had the Cleveland Indians. He predicted the death of that club when they traded away star outfielder Rocky Colivito, and the Tribe hasn't accomplished a thing since. Yea, they got one base hit away, in 11-innings from winning a World Series finally, against Miami in 1997, but that was it. Actually, the Miami (nee Florida) Marlins, shouldn't even exist in Major League Baseball. Bud Selig arranged the contraction of the Montreal Expos for his friend Jeff Loria, to purchase the Marlins on the cheap, create the Washington Nationals to replace the folded Washington Senator's, and allow Marlins' owner John Henry, to purchase the Boston Red Sox franchise at the lowest bid. Miami got a team based on advertising revenue in South Florida with a 5.0 million population, over several other deserving cities, and stadium troubles, and deliberate last place finishes by the owner, has kept the fans away in droves, despite a spanking new stadium in Little Havana, which nobody will travel too. Same situation exists population and advertising wise regarding Los Angeles - too big to ignore - but the team has lost three NFL clubs in its history - who really wants to take that chance?

Los Angeles may need the Rams, but I really don't think, based on the fact the league has gone over 20-years failing to return a team there, when they immediately returned teams to Cleveland, Baltimore and Houston, and in that process, added Charlotte and Jacksonville expansion teams, that the NFL needs Los Angeles, they just would like to fill it, and forget about it, and move onto other more important matters, like international play, which goes up to six games, than eight in London over the next couple of years. Bills - Jags is there this weekend, the second game in a month in Wembley.............

 

I hadn't realized that American football was gaining so much popularity in Great Britain. But even a number of my German friends like it, although not as much as mania-inspiring "fussball" (soccer).

I'm old-school, too. Except for alterations of the game that really do reduce injuries to players, I think that nearly all the new regs and revisions have only hurt the game. Also, it would create mental illness in most people to try to watch a football game on TV anymore because of all the numerous, lengthy breaks in the action for commericals and because officials have to spend so much time figuring out which of the newer infractions have actually been committed.

Soccer has an advantage there -- a big one. They rarely stop the action in a soccer game by comparison....

 

Well, except for the World Cup, and the American Women's soccer success over the years, not really a soccer fan. It does get exciting like the Olympics for the World Cup. Miami has been bidding for it for years, and is a perfect city to hold it in, with a 75,000 seat stadium, and large Hispanic population, but never seems to get it. We have the stadium, the interest, the hotels and motels, the parties, the infrastructure, and the Olympic village all ready for a World Cup or Summer Olympic Games, without having to build a thing. Apparently our politicians haven't greased the palm of the FIFA or the International Olympic Committee sufficiently to get the nod's.

Believe it or not - the Miami Dolphins happen to be the most popular team from the NFL in London for some reason ??? Germany, Munich or Berlin, would be an excellent place for NFL expansion, which Goodell has stated already will take place overseas in the next ten years. The NFL is looking to become international, like soccer and Formula 1 racing, even to expanding in the Far East Asian countries and Australia. Might as well put a team in Sidney or Melbourne, nobody I have ever met understand's Australian Rules Football......

Back to the topic at hand, The NFL would LIKE a team in Los Angeles, and prefer's to have some established team move there. Clubs on the bubble are St.Louis; San Diego; Oakland; New Orleans; Jacksonville; Tampa Bay; Buffalo; Any movement by the owners of those clubs presents major problems, but gains the Los Angeles territorial rights, which are exceptionally valuable. Since everybody in the NFL is mega rich and can build their own stadium's, you would think one would have done so and moved decades ago. But, there isn't any real push in Los Angeles over the years for the NFL to return. Some fans and sport's personalities might like the idea, but the NFL can do fine without Los Angeles having a team, the same way the National Hockey League (NHL), and thrive for decades (`1967 to be exact when black and white television was the mode), without a competitive team in their largest, most prosperous, and hockey crazy city - Toronto. Sells out every game since 1948 - hasn't appeared in the Stanley Cup since 1967.

The team the NFL really wants in Los Angeles is the San Diego Charger's, who originally played there in the AFL. Circumstances have presented themselves there that preclude building the Charger's a new stadium, they belong to Los Angeles anytime they want to make the move by their owner. Getting the Rams back, fine, kind of silly to leave and return, but the NFL is pretty silly most of the time. St.Louis is a baseball town, one of the top three in the country, and everyone likes the St.Louis Cardinal's, the St.Louis Rams NFL team, and the old St.Louis Cardinal's team, were always second fiddle to the baseball team there.

I agree with you that the rules committee of the NFL, with the exception of new safety ones installed to protect players from crippling and debilitating injuries, has been a detriment to the game. It is a game, there are what 9 officials on the field? Those officials all see the collisions at full speed up close, withing a yard or so most of the time, and I have never seen a college or NFL player break a long run for a TD, and seen him outrun the official to the end zone. The idiocy started with the "breaking the plane" rule. A TD in football used to mean exactly that - you pushed the ball over the goal line, and touched it down. Now we have 29 camera angles to see in slow motion, whether a player broke the end zone plane? Nuts. Whatever the official saw up close should stand. The officials are responsible for determining too many games, most on closing "Hail Mary" pass interference penalties. That should simply be a 10-yard penalty from the line of scrimmage and replay the down, not a 50-yard gain because the defender bumped the receiver. We could run an entire thread about rules ruining competition in sports (it has destroyed NASCAR), golf is a joke, and the set-up for a routine broadcast of an NFL game takes three days minimum. For what? The NFL is the sport where only one team comes out a winner, and the Super Bowl loser is the chump always. No credit for making it to the final, like one gets in baseball with a pennant for each World Series competitor.

However it comes out, I am bored with the Los Angeles NFL story. Lived in that city and San Diego when the Rams were there, and never saw anybody really get excited about the Los Angeles Rams, the score, or their fate. Now - Southern Cal - Notre Dame or Southern Cal - UCLA, different story..............

 

OH, how heartily I agree with you about the stupidity of the "breaking the plane" rule! Golf? Does anybody watch golf? Or bowling?

But as much as anything else, football (all of it -- NFL and college) has been way over-saturated with commericials and promos. Every time somebody so much as lets a fart, they break away for another mind-battering assortment of cars-and-beer-and-beer-and-cars. It's almost gotten to the point where the whole damned thing is unwatchable by anyone who hasn't already had a labotomy....

An afterword about advertising, which I studied along with advertising/psychology/propaganda back at the Univ. of Texas a million years ago: after the third message, the mind wipes almost all of it out of memory, and filters every undesired thing that follows in a process known as a "narcotizing dysfunction". No wonder Americans have developed such a pathetically short attention span....

 

Nice post. What do they call it when the commercial is so good, that people actually forget exactly what the product happens to be? Remember "Where's The Beef"? How about "Heh Mike-Mike-Mike, what day is it? with the camel walking through the office? HUMP DAY! Hilarious, and I have no idea what the product is that is being advertised. As for the NFL? Between the commercials, the dysfunctional players (one survey done reported that the average reading level of NFL players is 4th grade). Guys like Dexter Manley and Lawrence Taylor, great players, were illiterate. Manley used to carry the Wall Street Journal and a New York Times bestseller book under his arms all of the time when out of uniform - everybody thought he was a genius - he couldn't read a word. Than you have the "experts" idiots like Stephon A. Smith and Skip Bales on all of the time, analyzing everything that has happened. A player criticizes a coach - front page news for a week. A player cold clocks a female in an elevator, or rapes a college coed in the men's room - neither one gets suspended or charged. The women love that stuff, even race after these idiots, while the males? Just go nuts every Sunday over the NFL. I did my college thesis on great American social changes, and picked the addition of Monday Night Football as the topic, which changed America in so many ways it is hard to count. Without MNF and the halftime highlight's, there would be no ESPN or other football networks. As for what the major colleges do to these athletes who put their bodies on the line every Saturday for the chance to get spotted and drafted by the NFL, it is like condoned assault. And they expect these kids, who can make $5,000 every night on the streets at crime, and many come from crime-ridden neighborhoods, to live on $200 a month and meal money, while taking the chance of being destroyed for life on the football field for the glory of, yuck, Notre Dame or Ohio State? Love college football, and the NFL, but we have been overly saturated with the league and forgotten that it is only a game, which happens to have turned millions into gambling junkies with the fantasy football leagues, more addictive than big lottery jackpot's. It is a game, play it, enjoy watching it, don't go berserk over it, burn down a neighborhood when your team wins a title, or pamper the big babies, and let them rape and pillage against women (I swear all NFL players are Democrats - that party condones equality for women), so it is with violence toward them by athletes. Always excused because of their athletic ability. Makes me ill, because we see it once a month all of the time. Pro and college sports are mega-money makers, that is all they do, it isn't important in the grand scheme of life or even recreation. Look how the Cleveland fans turned Nazi when LeBron went to Miami from the Cavaliers, than forgave him for stupidly returning to the "Mistake By The Lake."...........well - nuff said..........you get the idea........