In yet another sign that St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke wants to just take his NFL ball (club) and go home (to Los Angeles), city officials in St. Louis told ESPN Wednesday that Kroenke will no longer return their calls.
"He hasn't responded, he hasn't called back, he hasn't done anything," said Maggie Crane, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's spokeswoman.
"After a while, you sort of get the hint," said Jeff Rainford, the mayor's chief of staff.
Kroenke of course, is part of a venture with confirmed plans to build a brand new, 80,000 seat stadium in Inglewood, California. The Rams' current 30-year lease in St. Louis can be ended a decade early due to the inability of Kroenke and city officials to come to terms on an agreement to make much-needed improvements to the Rams' current home, the Edward Jones Dome.
Now, with Kroenke freezing out those very officials, more fuel has been added to the speculative fire that he will be moving the Rams back to Los Angeles sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Still, many in Missouri, including Gov. Jay Nixon, refuse to accept that the Rams are all but gone at this point, even as city officials turn their efforts from garnering Kroenke's attention to working directly with the NFL.
"St. Louis is an NFL city," Nixon said Wednesday. "I don't think it's too late to keep the Rams."
Kroenke and his staff have yet to comment, even as a decision on whether or not to convert their current lease to a year-to-year proposition looms large later this month.
Despite a myriad of protestations and stated attempts to keep the franchise in St. Louis, it's starting to sound like some city and state officials are very prepared to move on and find a new team should Kroenke in fact take the Rams to Los Angeles.
"The NFL can make money in St. Louis," Rainford said, pointing to the organization's loyal fan base and the fact that St. Louis is the nation's 20th-largest market.
"It may end up being the Rams with this owner, the Rams with a different owner, a different team with a different owner."
