The same day it was announced the players agreed to the new CBA, details on a plan to finance a football stadium in LA were released. Under terms of the potential agreement, more of the financial burden would shift to Anschutz Entertainment Group instead of taxpayers. The teams reportedly in consideration to move to LA are the Chargers, Vikings, Jaguars, Raiders, and Rams.
The Raiders and Rams used to play in LA and already have a strong fan base in Southern California. The Rams’ fan base in LA is exceptionally strong, we’ve come to find out.
There’s a fan movement to help bring the Rams back to Los Angeles. The Bring Back the Los Angeles Rams group on Facebook has over 3,100 likes. The group’s mission is “to bring back the Rams to their rightful home: Los Angeles.”
The campaign is a grass-roots movement that began on Facebook. It was started by Andy Hogan, a student at UC-Berkeley, along with Dennis Bateman, a sports writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press.
In an interview with radio host Steve Mason, Bateman says he grew up near Anaheim where the Rams played and that he hasn’t moved on to a new team since the Rams left for St. Louis.
The group has been maintaining a site called the “Rams Revolution Blog” and posting updates periodically. Towards the end of the season last year, they pointed out that the Rams were towards the bottom of the league in average home attendance and that they were only selling around 8%0 of their tickets. By comparison, when the franchise was in LA for the 1990 season, 93% of tickets were sold.
As a Los Angeles native, I’ve been dying for the city to get a football team. I was hopeful the Chargers or Jaguars would move here, but given my thoughts on Sam Bradford, you know I’d love to see the Rams in LA again. Hopefully they make it happen.
