The NFL distributes so much money among its 32 owners every year that kicking $790 million to St. Louis is more economical for the league than dividing NFL revenue among 34 or 36 teams instead of 32.

On top of that, if St. Louis had received a franchise, someone would have had to pay for it at the going rate for expansion teams, as the Tampa Bay Rays owners did when they got a franchise to settle the lawsuit over MLB blocking the Giants from moving there. So this payout is a great deal for St. Louis, given that AFAIK no one was offering to pay $3 billion for an expansion team there.

Must be a lot of skeletons in the NFL closets for them to pay this much. Jon Gruden is probably thrilled at the thought of how much the NFL will have to pay him to keep the owners’ skeletons out of the public eye.