Rams Score Big as They Sign On With St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — It’s official: The Los Angeles Rams agreed Tuesday to take the money and run.

In a frenzy of self-congratulation, the Rams were signed and sealed and all but delivered to football-starved St. Louis. The city by the Mississippi put a virtual pot of gold at the end of its famed arch and lured away what was once one of the National Football League’s most distinguished franchises.

Signing a blown-up version of a relocation agreement, St. Louis city and county officials turned the anticlimactic announcement of the move into a giddy celebration complete with indoor fireworks and streamers.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said team owner Georgia Frontiere, 67, who stands to make more than $20 million annually as part of the deal. “I don’t think I’ve been this happy since the last game we won.”

Frontiere, who has been shopping cities for more than a year, also introduced her new partner, Stan Kroenke. The Missouri businessman will pay $60 million for a 30% share of the team and the title of Rams vice chairman of the board.

Pending league approval, the move will end the Rams’ 49-year relationship with Southern California, where the team made 14 playoff appearances from 1973-89 and reached the 1980 Super Bowl. It also ends a seven-year NFL drought for St. Louis, which lost the Cardinals to Phoenix in 1988.

“The happiness . . . it’s like going to a wedding,” a teary-eyed Frontiere said after the 45-minute news conference, during which she received several standing ovations. “The sadness . . . it’s like going to a funeral.”

“I just felt like this is where I have to be--this is home,” said Frontiere, who was born Georgia Irwin in St. Louis in 1927. “To be greeted like that almost took my breath away. It was hard to keep from crying. . . . I mean, the spirit of St. Louis has kind of gotten into me.”

But while Frontiere and St. Louis exploded in pigskin-mad rejoicing, another NFL franchise delivered a cautionary note: To finalize her exit from Anaheim, Frontiere still must garner the votes of 23 of the league’s 30 owners at the NFL’s March 12-17 league meeting in Phoenix.

“I don’t think that it’s a sure thing at all at this point,” said Roger L. Headrick, Minnesota Vikings president and chief executive officer. “One of the things you have to look at is the reasons that they lost money there.”

Headrick said he had discussed the possible move with other owners before Tuesday’s announcement. “I feel some of them are in favor of it, but there are others, like myself, who remain to be convinced,” he said. “I think it’s tough right now to get 23 votes for anything.”

Members of Save the Rams, the group trying to keep the team in Orange County, also stressed Tuesday that the St. Louis celebration is premature.

“Ram fans should not lose hope,” said Newport Beach sports attorney Leigh Steinberg. “St. Louis can celebrate from here until doomsday. . . . But the reality is that we only need the votes of eight owners.”

Steinberg, Save the Rams co-chairman, said efforts to block the move have already begun.

“Hopefully, we will get the hearing with the league that we never got with the Rams,” Steinberg said. “The Rams clearly had a plan to move to St. Louis that didn’t just spring up in August, 1994. Part of that plan was an unwillingness to seriously hear the local proposals to keep the team.”

In Anaheim--a city held hostage for nearly a year for a ransom it couldn’t or wouldn’t pay--city officials said they already have targeted as new tenants four teams, which they declined to name.

“Assuming that the Rams are successful in getting the league vote, we will be aggressively pursuing another NFL franchise,” City Manager James D. Ruth said.

Ruth would not say whether officials are actively courting the Los Angeles Raiders but commented, “The Raiders are a quality, winning franchise. We would be proud to have them consider Orange County.”

But some questioned Tuesday how easy it would be for an area that lately was unable to fill the stands when it had a franchise, to lure another team. Andy Puzder, a Newport Beach attorney and Save the Rams member, said, “I don’t know if they realize how difficult that will be.”

While city officials began searching for a new Anaheim Stadium tenant, frustrated fans and former players began to absorb the loss. The Rams were the first big league sports team to move to California, arriving from Cleveland in 1946.

“It is outrageous that an NFL owner is allowed to run down a franchise and hijack the team to a desperate city for a huge ransom,” said Jeff Hamill, 40, of Anaheim Hills, whose family has held season tickets for 17 years. “Fifty years in Southern California should count for something with the NFL.”

In his hometown of Richmond, Ind., Ram great Lamar Lundy, a 6-foot-7 leader of the Rams’ famed Fearsome Foursome defensive line, remembered the days when the talk about the team was much kinder.

Lundy, 59, spoke of the three magical years in the mid-1960s, when he, Rosey Grier, Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones--”the Secretary of Defense”--captured the imagination of the fans.

“It was just the right combination and everything worked,” said Lundy, who signed with the Rams for $8,500 in 1957. “It wasn’t teams playing the Rams. The teams were playing the Fearsome Foursome. . . . St. Louis Rams is going to be a hard name for me to accept for a while.”

After the jubilant St. Louis news conference, Frontiere said she understood the frustration of Southern California fans.

“I have those same emotions myself,” Frontiere said. “I’m angry it had to come to this, and I’m sad for the people (in Southern California) who cared.”

Ram President John Shaw, who orchestrated the yearlong negotiation that focused primarily on St. Louis and Baltimore, said Frontiere received an offer from a Southern California group to buy the team for $225 million.

“But I didn’t want to sell,” Frontiere said. “That wasn’t an option.”

So she chose to go to St. Louis, where the Rams will receive virtually all revenues from the taxpayer-financed stadium and 15-year guarantees on the sale of luxury boxes and club seats, a package that is expected to net the Rams more than $20 million a year in pretax profits.

St. Louis officials believe it is a wise investment, and Tuesday’s announcement was handled as a civic celebration.

“When we lost the Big Red (Cardinals), our pride was wounded, our image diminished nationwide,” said St. Louis County Executive George (Buzz) Westfall, who was joined onstage by U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-St. Louis), St. Louis Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. and several civic leaders. “But four years ago, we started getting over it.”

But St. Louis will pay dearly for the team. In addition to the lucrative lease offered to the Rams, fans are being asked to raise $67 million through a personal seat licensing program (PSL)--a one-time fee for the right to purchase season tickets. These fees will cover almost all of the team’s relocation costs.

There will be 46,000 licenses, priced from $250 to $4,500, put on sale, with 34,500 of them costing $1,000 or less. The Rams’ deal is contingent on selling 40,000 licenses by March 7, a week or so before the expected NFL vote.

Several area banks are offering five-year financing for PSL purchases, and charter PSL owners will have their names “immortalized” on a special Wall of Honor in the stadium.

“I know people have complained about the financial aspect of this, but you look at the Tampa Bay deal--they were sold for $192 million,” said Bryan Herrick, a 31-year-old community college counselor from St. Louis. “It’s not going to get any cheaper. You either play the game and pay the price, or you don’t get an NFL team.”

But in Orange County on Tuesday, Frontiere’s deal was the staggering second blow in an unthinkable one-two punch: Exactly six weeks after the county filed for bankruptcy, it has probably lost one of the nation’s most-sought after civic treasures--a pro football franchise.

One fan suggested that Shaw do one last bit of negotiating on his way out the door.

“Since the group John Shaw has been negotiating with is not really named FANS for ‘Football at the New Stadium,’ but RUBES for ‘Really Unbelievable Bozos Being Exploited Stupendously,’ ” said Tom McClain, 42, of Santa Ana, “maybe as one final negotiations hurdle, John Shaw can get them to agree to also take (ex-county Treasurer-Tax Collector) Robert L. Citron as their county treasurer and pay for his 1994 losses.”

Times staff writers Lon Eubanks, Greg Hernandez and T.J. Simers contributed to this story.

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