With the 2016 relocation of the Rams back to Los Angeles tied up in court, there has been some speculation of St. Louis receiving an NFL expansion team as a way to appease it for the loss.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke and other team owners are embroiled in a massive legal battle with St. Louis over allegations the team improperly moved to Los Angeles. St. Louis is seeking at least $1 billion in damages while rumors of a potential expansion team for the area have begun to circulate.
During Sunday’s episode of “This Week in Missouri Politics,” Gov. Mike Parson said since Missouri is a “sports-minded state,” any chance to bring a new team in — whether it be professional football or soccer — is worth a discussion.
“We’d be glad to sit down with the NFL and see what it is, if it’s a good thing for the state of Missouri,” Parson said. “We don’t quite want it to end up the way it has the first time.”
The Rams were in Los Angeles for nearly 50 years before moving to St. Louis in the mid-1990s. The team won one Super Bowl championship during the St. Louis era in 1999. Prior to the Rams, St. Louis was home to the Cardinals before that team relocated to Arizona in 1988.
Although still early in the game, the NFL has lost some points in the lawsuit, including attempts to move the case out of St. Louis, but the league has overcome early deficits in past litigations.
Kaitlyn Schallhorn was the editor in chief of The Missouri Times from 2020-2022. She joined the newspaper in early 2019 after working as a reporter for Fox News in New York City.
Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has covered political campaigns across the U.S., including the 2016 presidential election, and humanitarian aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East.
She is a native of Missouri who studied journalism at Winthrop University in South Carolina. She is also an alumna of the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
Contact Kaitlyn at kaitlyn@themissouritimes.com.
