The St. Louis Rams have been surrounded by relocation rumors for the last several months, but the team may have just accidentally revealed its actual plans related to a move to Southern California.
As the St. Louis Business Journal just discovered, the team has been re-structuring annual contracts with employees to end in February of next year rather than May. The new contract just so happens to coincide with the team’s deadline to submit a relocation bid with league offices.
As the report noted, many believe the change is related to the team’s plans to leave St. Louis and take up home in the greater Los Angeles area.
“A Rams employee who works on an annual contract said it was also changed, and now expires at the end of February 2016.”
“‘To me, right away, it made sense,’ said the employee, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. ‘As a business, they have to notify the league in February if they are moving, so why would they want to pay people beyond February? They didn’t say that was why, but I put two and two together.’”
The rumors claiming that the St. Louis Rams will move to Los Angeles have been building in the past few weeks.
Last month Glen Walker of KTLA in Los Angeles reported that the team would be moving to Inglewood, where owner Stan Kroenke was planning a football complex. Inglewood Mayor James Butts seemed to confirm the move, Walker reported.
But a day later several news outlets debunked the rumor, including Pro Football Talk which said the timing of the report pointed to it being false.
“Even if the Rams will eventually be returning to L.A., the NFL surely won’t be announcing that in August. As of August, the Rams would still have a full season to play in St. Louis. After the mess than unfolded in Cleveland when the Browns announced in November a plan to move to Baltimore, the NFL learned that these issues can’t come to a head when a team still has games left to play in its current town.”
While the relocations rumors have been building, there are many trying to keep the team in St. Louis as well. There is a task force looking into building a new stadium in Missouri, and co-chair Dave Peacock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they have even considered a deal where the St. Louis Rams could find a new owner that would keep the team in its current home.
[Image via Getty Images/Michael B. Thomas]
