Last January, The NFL overwhelmingly approved the St. Louis Rams to relocate to Los Angeles for the 2016 season to become the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams were previously in Los Angeles from 1946-1994 before Georgia Frontiere moved the team to St. Louis for the 1995 season.
As part of the move, the Chargers had their first crack at joining the Rams in Los Angeles and were given one year to negotiate a new stadium deal to keep the team in San Diego. Well, the Chargers didn’t get their way and thus last week announced that they would be joining the Rams in Los Angeles.
The Chargers also announced that they would be playing at the Stubhub Center in Los Angeles, home of the MLS Los Angeles Galaxy for 2 years until the new stadium opens in 2019. Not long after that, the Oakland Raiders filed relocation papers to move to Las Vegas. In all, 3 cities lost their teams in a 2-year span. So, if these cities have any chance of bringing back a professional team(s), whether it’s the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, or another sports league.
The cities, the fans, and overall the community, should unite and own a team. In today’s sports culture, any team from any league that has a sole owner and sometimes, not from the area can move the team to wherever he or she wants to move the team to with the exception of this team that I believe all cities should look up to. The Green Bay Packers.
The Green Bay Packers were founded in 1919 by 2 men named Earl Lambeau and George Calhoun. It was a struggle at first for the 2 men when the franchise was forfeited 1 year before Lambeau got financial backers, which became known as the “Hungry Five” and formed the Green Bay Football Corporation now known as Green Bay Packers Inc. The Green Bay Packers have been publicly owned as a non-profit corporation since August 18, 1923. This is the only franchise that is a community-owned team.
The fans of Green Bay know that they will never lose their football team again. But the rest of the league, not so fast. In fact, fans have lost their teams due to greedy owners not getting their way and moving the team to another city. The biggest one was in 1984, known as the midnight move, which involved owner Robert Irsay who owned the Baltimore Colts and moved them to Indianapolis. This would start a long period of Baltimore not having an NFL team til the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996.
But before the Browns moved to Baltimore, they had another team. A CFL team called the Baltimore Stallions. To this day, they are the only American team to win the Grey Cup which was in 1995 when they beat the Calgary Stampeders 37-20. The Stallions were a hit for the CFL before the Browns moved in. Then everyone forgot about the Stallions thus they left and helped reform the Montreal Alouettes.
Cities like San Diego, St. Louis, and now Oakland, which have lost their football teams should follow the Green Bay Packers motto and get the community together to own a football team. Think about it, if cities owned the sports teams, you wouldn’t have seen teams like the Houston Oilers, original Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts, St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland Raiders, and San Diego Chargers leave town.
They would be there forever. If the cities needed a new stadium, they could sell stock shares like the Packers did several times to upgrade Lambeau Field to upgrade their stadiums as well and the money would go back to the communities and the cities. No owner would ever threaten a city again if all the cities owned the sports teams.
If San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland can start non-profit corporations to start a new football team. What better league to join than the Canadian Football League (CFL)? Personally, I like the CFL over the NFL. The CFL is a fun game to watch and a great product. The league currently has 9 teams with 3 of them publicly owned (Edmonton, Saskatchewan, and Winnipeg). I think if San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland can convince the CFL to let them into the league, you will have 12 teams, which would help the CFL tremendously to balance the season schedule. All the CFL has to do is move Winnipeg back to the East Division. Just for fun, this is what the CFL would look like if San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland were in the CFL.
CFL
East Division
Hamilton
Montreal
Ottawa
Winnipeg
Toronto
St. Louis
West Division
Calgary
Saskatchewan
Edmonton
B.C Lions
San Diego
Oakland
With these cities in the CFL, they would also help the league continue to grow its audience with the current television contract with ESPN. Because now having 3 American teams in the CFL would boosts ratings and draw a bigger American audience to watch the CFL. I think you would see more cities, even those that don’t have an NFL team would form their own non-profit corporation and would want to put their team in the CFL.
These 3 cities would start a movement of their own. The movement would be that the communities are tired of these sole owners who play mind games and threaten to leave if they don’t get a new stadium and simply the city can say “get out, we don’t need you, take your team somewhere else.” Other cities would follow suit and they would never have to worry about losing a sports team ever again. This would be a win for the city, the community, and most importantly, the fans.
What former NFL cities should get a CFL team? Leave a comment below.
