Should the St. Louis Rams Move to Los Angeles?
14th January 2016
Steve Sailer weighs in.
One advantage of the St. Louis Rams football franchise moving to currently NFL-vacant Los Angeles (along with possibly the San Diego Chargers and, more remotely, the Oakland Raiders) is that it removes the threat of moving to Los Angeles that every NFL franchise in a marginally major league city has possessed for the last 20 years: “Submit to our extortionate demand for a taxpayer-subsidized superstadium or we’re relocating to giant Los Angeles!”
An NFL team is a natural monopoly. (Currently, only the New York and San Francisco Bay metro areas have more than one franchise, although Los Angeles had two from the early 1980s through 1995, when it suddenly went to zero because L.A., for all its faults, at least isn’t neurotic about being a Major League City). And NFL owners are extremely clever about extracting monopoly profits from their hosts.
I’d like to see a federal law outlawing professional sports leagues’ ban on community ownership. If the people of, say, Cleveland, are dead set upon staying a Major League City, let them buy shares in their teams and take on the risks and rewards of ownership.