Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 13, 1995 TAG: 9504280001
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: IRVING, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
\ The Rams will play in St. Louis this year after all.
A month after barring their move from Southern California, owners voted 23-6 on Wednesday to relocate the Rams to St. Louis, the first time an NFL team has left the West Coast.
The Rams, St. Louis officials and even the Missouri attorney general had threatened to sue the league if it blocked the move.
``The game is over, and I won't say we won but ... well, I guess we won one,'' Rams owner Georgia Frontiere said. ``I think we all won.''
The Rams agreed to pay $30 million to the league to get the owners to reverse a 21-3 vote last month in Phoenix. The 23 votes Wednesday was the minimum needed.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the reversal, which will leave the NFC West with only one team west of St. Louis, was more an attempt to avoid a lawsuit than about the money.
``The decision to have peace and not to have war was a big factor,'' Tagliabue said.
Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Washington, Phoenix and both New York teams voted against the move. Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis abstained, as he did in Phoenix.
``I'm not for it,'' Steelers owner Dan Rooney said. ``You've got to support the fans. The fans in Los Angeles supported the Rams for years.''
Sports agent Leigh Steinberg of Save the Rams felt betrayed.
``Clearly, the league has decided here that the violation of their guidelines governing franchise relocation isn't important,'' Steinberg said. ``The NFL's got some mighty tall explaining to do as to how violations of their own relocation policy by the Rams suddenly became acceptable.''
The move also is apparently tied to the construction of a stadium for the Los Angeles Raiders at Hollywood Park, which would guarantee an NFL franchise in the area. The Raiders, who moved from Oakland in 1982, had been hinting they might move, and NFL owners worried over not having a team in the nation's No. 2 market.
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB