St. Louis Stallions
The St. Louis Stallions was the name of a proposed
Expansion attempt
The first attempt to get a team back in St. Louis came in 1991, when the city submitted a package to the NFL. The NFL was looking to add two teams in time for the 1994 season (later pushing this idea back one year), and St. Louis was one of the finalists. The others were Baltimore, which like St. Louis had seen its team, the Colts, move out of town in 1984; Charlotte, which had been seeking a team since 1987 and had already seen an expansion NBA team awarded to the city; Jacksonville, which had seen several aborted attempts at relocation in recent years; and Memphis, who had been trying to get an NFL team since the folding of the United States Football League cost the city its only professional sports team, the Memphis Showboats.[2]
St. Louis was to have placed the Stallions in Busch Stadium, where the football and baseball Cardinals played, for a brief period while a new domed stadium was constructed near the city's America's Center. Although St. Louis had been considered a favorite to land a team, the NFL instead announced in 1993 that the Charlotte and Jacksonville groups were declared the winners and that the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars would begin play in 1995.[3]
First relocation attempt
After St. Louis came up short in its expansion bid, it appeared that the city might land a new team anyway. Advertising executive James Orthwein, a St. Louis native and member of the Busch family, bought the New England Patriots in 1992 from Victor Kiam to resolve a debt between local sportscaster Doug Vaughn and the two men. The Patriots had long been in financial malaise since original owner Billy Sullivan, who was still the team president during Kiam's ownership, had squandered all of his net worth on a series of bad investments in the mid-1980s and was forced to sell the team to Kiam and Foxboro Stadium to Robert Kraft.[4]
Immediately upon purchase, Orthwein made it clear that he wanted to relocate the team from its Foxborough, Massachusetts, home to the Mound City. With the city of St. Louis having begun construction on the new domed stadium that they had discussed in their expansion bid, Orthwein was set to leave New England at the end of the 1993 season.
Orthwein's plans to move the team were thwarted when Kraft refused to let Orthwein out of the long-term lease that he had secured from Kiam and Sullivan as part of his purchase of the stadium. Orthwein did not want to own the team if he could not move it, and Kraft initiated a
St. Louis finally gets a team
During the 1994 season
Shortly after the Rams left, the Raiders also left to move back to Oakland, where they had last played in 1981. The Trans World Dome, which the completed stadium became known as, opened on November 12, 1995, with a game against the expansion Carolina Panthers.
Departure
A major problem with St. Louis was that their fixed-roof and fully covered domed stadium was built at a time when
References
- ^ Eskenazi, Gerald (March 16, 1988). "N.F.L. Approves Team Shift". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2016.
- ^ Allen, Scott (December 11, 2011). "11 Expansion Teams That Just Missed the Cut". Mental Floss. Retrieved August 20, 2016.
- ^ Litsky, Frank (December 1, 1993). "PRO FOOTBALL; N.F.L. Expansion Surprise: Jacksonville Jaguars". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2016.
- ^ Farinella, Mark (June 27, 2009). "Jackson's part in Pats' history was real 'thriller'". The Sun Chronicle. Retrieved September 25, 2012.
- ^ Simers, T.J. (April 13, 1995). "NFL Owners OK Rams' Move to St. Louis". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 20, 2016.
- ^ "Edward Jones Dome listed as one of 10 worst stadiums". KTRS. St. Louis. May 11, 2012. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
- ^ "Ranking the best and worst NFL stadiums, from No. 1 (Lambeau) to 31 (Soldier) | For The Win". 16 October 2015.
- ^ Carbone, Nick (May 10, 2012). "7. Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis | Top 10 Worst Stadiums in the U.S." Time. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
- ^ "NFL Stadium Rankings". Sports Illustrated. 2008. Retrieved January 13, 2013.