Anyone who has read about the legal entanglements the NFL finds itself in over the relocation of the Rams shouldn't be surprised by talk that the league might dangle an expansion team as a way to settle the case.

More: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20...sion-team/

Quote:As the powers-that-be come to grips with the power they don’t have in a Missouri court that will conduct a trial of the litigation challenging the move of the Rams to L.A., the possibility of an expansion team as part of a potential settlement of the case has been floated in league circle with the stature and influence to float such concepts.

Although Rams owner Stan Kroenke has agreed to indemnify the rest of the league for whatever the verdict may be — and although the lawyers have told the other owners that the indemnity commitment is ironclad — there’s a concern that the eventual judgment in the case could be big enough to get Kroenke to try not to honor it. Thus, if and when other owners are looking at the possibility of paying for all or part of the compensatory damages (and possibly punitive damages) awarded to the St. Louis plaintiffs, a new team for St. Louis could be dangled as a way to wrap up the case.

That doesn’t mean it will be, but there’s an acknowledgment in league circles of the possibility that giving St. Louis a new team could help resolve the case.

There’s no “news” there, just idle speculation from Florio, who is not “plugged in” as an insider; he’s just a guy with opinions like any of us.

The cost of entry is very high, even if there’s a lawsuit to use as leverage. If there is a multi-billionaire out there who can both pay an NFL-sized expansion fee and convince St. Louis politicians to pick their own taxpayers’ pockets for a new NFL-level stadium, then that speculation might have some possibility. Doubt they’d get much money from the state of Missouri because as soon as that topic came up with the state, the Chiefs would be at the state capitol demanding an equal amount of money.

The only thing going for Saint Louis is that the Bears want something they can't really afford: a new stadium. Put a secondd team in Chicago (AFC) and Saint Louis (NFC), let Chicago AFC share the Bears' new den, and count the money.

(10-10-2021 10:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There’s no “news” there, just idle speculation from Florio, who is not “plugged in” as an insider; he’s just a guy with opinions like any of us.

The cost of entry is very high, even if there’s a lawsuit to use as leverage. If there is a multi-billionaire out there who can both pay an NFL-sized expansion fee and convince St. Louis politicians to pick their own taxpayers’ pockets for a new NFL-level stadium, then that speculation might have some possibility. Doubt they’d get much money from the state of Missouri because as soon as that topic came up with the state, the Chiefs would be at the state capitol demanding an equal amount of money.

If a stadium comes it would need to be almost entirely privately funded.

While an NFL franchise may be 'priceless,' sentinement in the area seems to be that we would rather have the cash.

Personally, I don't trust the city/region to do what's best for the region with $1B, so I'd take the expansion team and run with it.

(10-10-2021 10:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There’s no “news” there, just idle speculation from Florio, who is not “plugged in” as an insider; he’s just a guy with opinions like any of us.

The cost of entry is very high, even if there’s a lawsuit to use as leverage. If there is a multi-billionaire out there who can both pay an NFL-sized expansion fee and convince St. Louis politicians to pick their own taxpayers’ pockets for a new NFL-level stadium, then that speculation might have some possibility. Doubt they’d get much money from the state of Missouri because as soon as that topic came up with the state, the Chiefs would be at the state capitol demanding an equal amount of money.

I'm surprised that the Chiefs have not done that already with everyone else asking for a new stadium. St. Louis is very much against the NFL right now. Probably the only way St.Louis gets another team is someone in St.Louis pulls a "Kroenke" or a "DeBarto-York" and builds their own stadium and buys their own land too!!

To be quite honest, I am surprised that the Chiefs have not decided to use London as a bargaining chip as Jaguars have done already. Maybe it is only a matter of time???

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(10-12-2021 07:28 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(10-10-2021 10:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There’s no “news” there, just idle speculation from Florio, who is not “plugged in” as an insider; he’s just a guy with opinions like any of us.

The cost of entry is very high, even if there’s a lawsuit to use as leverage. If there is a multi-billionaire out there who can both pay an NFL-sized expansion fee and convince St. Louis politicians to pick their own taxpayers’ pockets for a new NFL-level stadium, then that speculation might have some possibility. Doubt they’d get much money from the state of Missouri because as soon as that topic came up with the state, the Chiefs would be at the state capitol demanding an equal amount of money.

I'm surprised that the Chiefs have not done that already with everyone else asking for a new stadium. St. Louis is very much against the NFL right now. Probably the only way St.Louis gets another team is someone in St.Louis pulls a "Kroenke" or a "DeBarto-York" and builds their own stadium and buys their own land too!!

To be quite honest, I am surprised that the Chiefs have not decided to use London as a bargaining chip as Jaguars have done already. Maybe it is only a matter of time???

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

Chiefs aren't going anywhere. The city loves the Chiefs, and the Hunts are part of the fabric of the city. Plus they have a great stadium already.

I don't believe that St Louis would ever try again to lure another existing NFL franchise from another city. The already tried that twice, and the each team stayed less than 30 years before moving again.

I would guess for St Louis, its an expansion team or nothing. They don't want any franchise with a pre-existing history and an owner with no pre-existing loyalty to the city. That's my take anyway. There is no guarantee an expansion team will never move, I just think emotionally it would be easier for the fans in St. Louis.

(10-10-2021 10:55 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  The only thing going for Saint Louis is that the Bears want something they can't really afford: a new stadium. Put a secondd team in Chicago (AFC) and Saint Louis (NFC), let Chicago AFC share the Bears' new den, and count the money.

Austin or San Antonio, San Diego, and Oakland can support a NFL team.

Also remember- Jacksonville can relocate.

Jaguars to St. Louis wouldn’t be bad. The divisional geography would be much tighter.

Me no unnerstand...they have the Blues and baseball already. There's no other major league sports these days.

(10-14-2021 04:20 PM)chess Wrote:  

(10-10-2021 10:55 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  The only thing going for Saint Louis is that the Bears want something they can't really afford: a new stadium. Put a secondd team in Chicago (AFC) and Saint Louis (NFC), let Chicago AFC share the Bears' new den, and count the money.

Austin or San Antonio, San Diego, and Oakland can support a NFL team.

Also remember- Jacksonville can relocate.

Not unless they want to pay the fee for breaking the lease. It doesn't expire until 2029.

(10-19-2021 05:26 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(10-14-2021 04:20 PM)chess Wrote:  

(10-10-2021 10:55 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  The only thing going for Saint Louis is that the Bears want something they can't really afford: a new stadium. Put a secondd team in Chicago (AFC) and Saint Louis (NFC), let Chicago AFC share the Bears' new den, and count the money.

Austin or San Antonio, San Diego, and Oakland can support a NFL team.

Also remember- Jacksonville can relocate.

Not unless they want to pay the fee for breaking the lease. It doesn't expire until 2029.

The Jags owner has his eye on London. He already owns a soccer club there. Unless he gets tired of the NFL and sells the team, the most likely outcomes are that he either gets an OK from the NFL to move the team to London, or he uses the threat of moving to get a fantastic deal in Jacksonville, such as the city/county pays for more renovations and lets the team use the stadium rent-free forever.

Frankly... I think the divisional structure of the NFL is perfect where it's at. I don't see a need to expand and most markets that don't have a team are covered by outsider teams. If I expand, it's to Toronto and Mexico City.

(10-10-2021 10:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There’s no “news” there, just idle speculation from Florio, who is not “plugged in” as an insider; he’s just a guy with opinions like any of us.

The cost of entry is very high, even if there’s a lawsuit to use as leverage. If there is a multi-billionaire out there who can both pay an NFL-sized expansion fee and convince St. Louis politicians to pick their own taxpayers’ pockets for a new NFL-level stadium, then that speculation might have some possibility. Doubt they’d get much money from the state of Missouri because as soon as that topic came up with the state, the Chiefs would be at the state capitol demanding an equal amount of money.

I would disagree with that. Florio has good sources within the NFL. There is a lot of speculation to this particular issue because no one really knows how it will be settled. But an expansion team is a possibility, although I don't think the NFL is excited about being forced to expand in a particular city. The NFL would prefer that this St. Louis issue would just go away, just like they would like the issue of 650,000 emails to just disappear.

(10-19-2021 06:20 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote:  Frankly... I think the divisional structure of the NFL is perfect where it's at. I don't see a need to expand and most markets that don't have a team are covered by outsider teams. If I expand, it's to Toronto and Mexico City.

Mexico City has air quality issues. Imagine Denver only even higher in elevation and with an LA sized commuter sprawl.

Putting a NFL team in Toronto is a death sentence to the Toronto Argonauts (unless you just buy them and call the new franchise the Argonauts). And that's the beginning of the end of the CFL. If you're going to go to Canada, just pluck the most successful CFL franchises and add Toronto:
+Toronto
+Winnipeg
+Saskatchewan
+Calgary

Imagine the NFL expanding to 40 teams total adding 8 new expansion teams.

Add 1 new expansion in
1. Mexico City
2. San Diego
3. San Antonio
4. St Louis
5. Chicago
6. Toronto
7. London
8. London x2

Then NFL can realign into east-west conferences

(10-20-2021 08:52 PM)goofus Wrote:  Imagine the NFL expanding to 40 teams total adding 8 new expansion teams.

No thanks. There are not enough quality QBs for 32 NFL teams, let alone 40.

I doubt the NFL expands ever again. 32 is a nice even number and the next possible number that would make sense is 36 and it’s hard to come up with 4 places that could support a team plus it would involve realigning from 4 divisions of 4 per conference to 3 divisions of 6. The AFC South could split up pretty easy but creating new divisions in the NFC would be challenging.

The NFL could do nine divisions of four:

6 games in Division
8 games, 1 each against each division based on prior year standings
3 games, balance of teams in one division (rotates yearly)

Only drawback is that you won't have a case where you have a conference of teams that played 9 road games one that played 8 road games, so that may be an issue with playoff seeding. That might be the push to go to 18 games. Another issue is that having 9 division champions means one of them doesn't get a home game

Expansion to 36 would also work better with a team in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones - likely Salt Lake City.

West 1: Seattle, San Francisco, LA Rams, Arizona
West 2: Salt Lake City*, Las Vegas, LA Chargers, Denver
West 3: Houston, Saint Louis*, Kansas City, Chicago "AFC"*

Central 1: New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Carolina
Central 2: Minnesota, Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago Bears
Central 3: Indianapolis, Tennessee, Cleveland, Cincinnati

East 1: New York Giants, Washington, Dallas, Philadelphia
East 2: New York Jets, New England, Miami, Buffalo
East 3: London, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh

yeah i agree there is a serious lack of quality in the league as is. teams are valuable but NBA and soccer is where the rich are looking to turn a profit.