Rams Moving to LA Short of What City Deserves

Photo taken by Daniel Millhouse

As of yesterday, the NFL announced that they have granted the Rams franchise of St. Louis the okay to move to the Los Angeles area. With a vote of 30 to 2, NFL owners granted the Rams approval to move the site of the old Hollywood Park horse racing track which is located in Inglewood. Is this really the best move for the NFL though?

While this news breaks the hearts of many Raiders fans in Southern California and leaves Chargers pondering if their team will join the Rams within the next year. The Chargers will have one year to decide whether or not they want to move to Inglewood and if they pass, the Raiders will have one year to make a similar decision.

Stan Kroenke, owner of the Rams has also promised that the stadium will be surrounded by entertainment, retail, and restaurant venues, upgrading the entire area surrounding the stadium that is expected to be completed by 2019.

Everything sounds great on the surface, but what about building a loyal base? Though the Rams played in Southern California from 1946 to 1994, some of their fan base still feels the sting from when the team left the first time around along with the Raiders. Some of the loyal fan base still remains, but it now feels like Southern California is getting back a recycled team that couldn't thrive in a part of the country that adores football more than any other sport.

If the Chargers moved to Los Angeles, they would have that same recycled team feeling. Raiders fans on the other hand are masochistic in a manner, not seeming to care that their teams moves every couple of decades on a whim of the Davis ownership. They're in Oakland, they're in LA, they're in Oakland, now they want back in LA. Just stay put in Oakland or move to St. Louis or San Antonio as some have proposed.

What Los Angeles deserves is a new expansion team. One that can build that fan base and feel like they truly belong to Southern California. Even if you disregard that the Rams played in St. Louis since 1994, the fact is they originated in Cleveland, though many of us alive today wouldn't remember that. A team in the second largest market in the United States shouldn't feel like they're getting a recycled team.

Bringing in an expansion team would allow fans to feel more invested in their team from day one. From logo and mascot creation, to the expansion draft, to their first college draft, fans will feel like they are part of the ride. Yes, the team will probably have a few poor seasons before finally pulling everything together, but it's not as if the Rams, Chargers, or Raiders were winning teams either.

Two teams seems ridiculous in Los Angeles as well. There are so many markets ready for a football team such as San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Omaha all come to mind. To many teams in the same market saturate the fan base and the money that could be spent on sports. It would be one thing if there was some sort of history with two teams in the same city such as Chicago with the Cubs and White Sox, but Los Angeles doesn't share that same die-hard devotion to their teams that Chicago does.

No, an expansion team would have been best for the city of angels. Bringing in an existing franchise falls just short of what the football fans of Los Angeles deserve. Something to call their own, from the start.