NFL to pay St. Louis $790 million over Rams move to Los Angeles

ST. LOUIS (CN) — The St. Louis region will receive $790 million to settle claims that the National Football League violated its relocation guidelines in allowing the Rams to leave St. Louis for Los Angeles in 2016.

St. Louis and St. Louis County officials announced the settlement Wednesday morning in the four-year old case. The agreement does not include an expansion football team for St. Louis, a rumor that gained steam as the case progressed.

“This historic agreement closes a long chapter for our region, securing hundreds of millions of dollars for our communities while avoiding the uncertainty of the trial and appellate process,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said in a joint statement.

They added that the city, county and St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, also called STLRSA, "are still determining how settlement funds will be allocated.”

It is not clear how much of the settlement would be paid by Rams owner Stan Kroenke or the NFL.

The case was set for trial on Jan. 10, but the settlement came from mediation that began Tuesday and went well into the night.

The city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, and the STLRSA filed their lawsuit in St. Louis City Circuit Court in April 2017. The complaint, which named the NFL and all 32 teams and their owners as defendants, claimed the Rams failed to meet the league’s relocation guidelines, which were adopted in 1984 after the Ninth Circuit ruled the NFL had violated antitrust statutes regarding the Raiders’ move from Oakland to Los Angeles.

The guidelines require the NFL to work in good faith with cities before allowing a franchise to leave, something the plaintiffs allege didn’t happen. They claimed St. Louis lost up to $3.5 million a year in amusement and ticket tax revenue with the departure of the Rams, and that the city lost about $7.5 million in property tax and $1.4 million in sales tax revenue, plus millions in earnings taxes.

The league dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous at the beginning.

“There is no legitimate basis for this litigation,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “While we understand the disappointment of the St. Louis fans and the community, we worked diligently with local and state officials in a process that was honest and fair at all times.”

But confidence on the NFL’s side shrunk as the plaintiffs won round after round in the legal wrangling leading up to the settlement.

In December 2017, St. Louis City Circuit Judge Christopher McGraugh refused to dismiss the suit, and, in April 2018, a state appeals court ruled that the Rams and the NFL could not compel arbitration to settle the dispute.

But perhaps the biggest blow to the NFL came from the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling in November 2019 compelling NFL team owners and other league officials to turn over eight years of cellphone records related to the move.

More recently, McGraugh ruled that multiple NFL owners had to hand over detailed financial information to determine possible punitive damages.

The ruling reportedly led to bitter infighting among the NFL owners after Kroenke attempted to distance himself from an indemnity agreement he signed stating he would be responsible for any legal repercussions from the move.

Faced with the expiration of the Rams lease, city officials produced plans for a $1.1 billion open-air stadium on the St. Louis riverfront, which would have received $400 million in public funding.

Kroenke rejected the plan, painting the St. Louis region in a negative light on his relocation application.

After his move to Los Angeles was approved by owners in January 2016, the NFL claimed its relocation guidelines were not a contract and did not make St. Louis a third-party beneficiary to a contract.

The plaintiffs seemed poised for an award north of $1 billion had the matter gone to trial. The settlement erases the uncertainty and cost of litigation as well as a reduction in the award on appeal.

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