Los Angeles celebrates its Rams with a big Super Bowl party and tears open old wounds in St. Louis. While former Rams fans scoff, at least for team owner Stan Kroenke, the move has been worth it.

Munich – NBA star Jayson Tatum summed up the feeling of many American football fans. When asked before the Super Bowl about his favourite winner, his answer came out of the blue: “The St. Louis Rams!”

Tatum was born in St. Louis. And like many of his fellow sufferers from the big city in the state of Missouri, he has a love-hate relationship with the Rams, which reached a painful climax with the Super Bowl triumph of the Los Angeles Rams.

The Rams and St. Louis. It’s been a long time fit. From 1995 to 2015, the NFL franchise was at home in the city of 300,000. In 2000, the St. Louis Rams were the first Super Bowl winners of the new millennium. The home games in the city’s Dome were regularly sold out and also a spectacle in terms of atmosphere.

Early Rams fans caustic about Super Bowl party

But then came Stan Kroenke. The one-time co-owner of the franchise took it over as sole owner in 2010 and pushed ahead with behind-the-scenes relocation plans. Kroenke, who was born less than a two-hour drive from St. Louis, bought a plot of land in Inglewood, California, but denied rumours of a stadium being built there. The property was far too small for an NFL stadium.

Today, the SoFi Stadium stands there. The arena where the Los Angeles Rams play their home games. But in contrast to the Dome in St. Louis, there is often no question of home field advantage for the Rams in LA. The tired atmosphere in the “City of Angels” has long been a running joke among NFL fans.

The fact that the Rams and Los Angeles are still strangers to each other was also shown by the Super Bowl party in the best weather in Los Angeles. When the Rams returned to St. Louis for their triumph in 2000, tens of thousands were on the streets there in winter weather. The rather tepid celebrations in Los Angeles, on the other hand, drew derision on Twitter among former Rams fans and even in local media.

Rams fan: “we won!”
LA resident: “whoa, I didn’t know St Louis was playing”
Rams fan: “we won the super bowl for LA!”
LA resident: “the Raiders won”
Rams fan:

– Morgan Cameron Ross ✊ (@Morgan_C_Ross) February 14, 2022

Local St. Louis area sports news media is trolling the Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl Championship parade. Pure saltiness pic.twitter.com/882xEqZlDk

- Pranav Sriraman (@PranavSriraman) February 17, 2022

Aaron Donald & Co. already in St. Louis

For Kroenke, the move paid off despite the high cost. $550 million in relocation fees he had to pay out to other NFL team owners. On top of that was a $790 million payment Kroenke and the NFL settled out of court with the city of St. Louis in November 2021 as compensation for leaving. The biggest item, however, was the total of $5 billion that the privately financed construction of SoFi Stadium cost.

In turn, the Rams' value tripled, according to "Forbes", from one billion dollars in 2014 to almost three billion dollars in 2016 as a result of the move alone. With the Super Bowl title, the brand value should now even crack the five billion mark.

And then Kroenke, of all people, got to be the first to receive the Vince Lombardi Trophy in his stadium after Super Bowl 56. "I think the construction of the stadium was quite alright," Kroenke said after the Super Bowl triumph. Salt in the wounds of old St. Louis fans who watched superstar Aaron Donald, punter Johnny Hekker and right tackle Rob Havenstein also celebrate in a shower of confetti.

NFL city of St. Louis? "It's about the prestige "

There, the city is admittedly richer by $790 million minus legal fees. But poorer by one NFL team. For the second time since the Cardinals in 1987, an NFL franchise has left St. Louis for another city.

"We are no longer part of the club," the Washington Post quotes local sportswriter Frank Cusumano as saying. "At first, I felt like I despised the NFL and everything to do with it. But because the league is so sexy and compelling, I just couldn't sustain that feeling any longer."

Some football fans accused city leaders of squandering a chance at a future NFL team with the purely financial deal. As recently as the fall, an NFL commitment to a new team in St. Louis in the event of a mid- or long-term increase in the league was considered a possible option for a deal. That is now off the table.

"It's about a lot more than financial. It's about the prestige of being one of 30 cities to have an NFL franchise," said Bob Wallace, the former St. Louis Football Cardinals adviser and executive vice president of the Rams. "It may be a baseball town, but we're a football nation. "

XFL attendance record: St. Louis has football buzz

The latest indication that the people of St. Louis continue to be hungry for football was the St. Louis BattleHawks' XFL attendance record of nearly 30,000 in early 2020.

Journalist Casumano sums up the pain of an entire city: "I think it's terrible that my children won't be able to experience Patrick Mahomes. We won't have the opportunity to see Josh Allen play a football game 20 minutes away from us. We can watch it on TV, but there's something about saying, 'Hey, I just saw Kyler Murray run 60 yards.' We'll never have that. Never. "