Rush for Rams? Limbaugh bids for NFL team By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer Oct 6, 4:01 pm EDT ST. LOUIS (AP)—The lowly Rams have someone who loves them.
Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday he is teaming up with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts in a bid to buy the Rams, owners of the NFL’s longest losing streak at 14 and just 5-31 since 2007.
In a statement, Limbaugh declined to discuss details, citing a confidentiality agreement with Goldman Sachs, the investment firm hired by the family of former Rams owner Georgia Frontiere to review assets of her estate, including the NFL team.
Limbaugh also declined to discuss other partners that might be involved in the bid, but said he and Checketts would operate the team.
“Dave Checketts and I have made a bid to buy the Rams and we are continuing the process,” Limbaugh said.
Forbes magazine has estimated the Rams franchise has a value of $929 million.
Frontiere’s children, Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez, inherited 60 percent of the Rams when their mother died in January 2008. Billionaire Stan Kroenke of Columbia, Mo., owns the remaining 40 percent. It wasn’t clear if the Limbaugh/Checketts bid was for 100 percent of the Rams or just the share owned by Rosenbloom and Rodriguez.
“Our strategic review of our ownership of the Rams continues,” Rosenbloom said in a statement released late Monday. “We will make an announcement upon the completion of the process.”
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello declined comment. Spokesmen for Checketts and the Blues declined comment.
Limbaugh is a native of Cape Girardeau, Mo., about 100 miles south of St. Louis. He’s so popular among conservatives—fans of his show call themselves “dittoheads”—that he has been called by some the voice of the Republican Party.
Limbaugh, who lives and works in Palm Beach, Fla., once worked for the Kansas City Royals and is an avid sports fan.
In 2003, Limbaugh worked briefly on ESPN’s NFL pregame show, but resigned after saying Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb(notes) was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.
Checketts, 53, and his SCP Worldwide and Towerbrook Capital Partners purchased the Blues in 2006 from Bill and Nancy Laurie. The Blues have been gradually rebuilt under his leadership and made the playoffs last season for the first time since 2004.
Checketts first approached Rosenbloom in early 2009 about possibly buying the Rams. Eric Gelfand, a spokesman for Checketts, said in June that Checketts had put together a group consisting of local and outside investors.
An NFL rule allows ownership of NFL teams and teams in other sports, but only if they are in the same market. That would be a problem if Kroenke wanted to become majority owner of the Rams because he owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche.
Checketts’ company owns Utah’s Real Salt Lake of the MLS. But an NFL spokesman has said the cross-ownership rule does not apply to the MLS.
The potential sale of the Rams has been rumored since Frontiere’s death. Her children are both involved in other interests and neither has ties to St. Louis.
The sale has raised concerns in St. Louis, which lost the Cardinals franchise after the 1987 season when Bill Bidwill moved the team to Arizona.
The NFL passed over St. Louis for the smaller Jacksonville, Fla., market when it awarded an expansion team in 1993. Two years later, civic leaders convinced Frontiere, a St. Louis native, to move the team from Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest market, back to her hometown.
Los Angeles is still without a team, and a loophole in the Rams’ lease allows them to move as early as 2014 if the Edward Jones Dome is not deemed among the top quarter of all NFL stadiums. Though just 14 years old, the dome is fast becoming one of the league’s older venues, and getting it into the top quarter seems unlikely.
Checketts became the youngest person ever to run an NBA team at age 28 when he became president and general manager of the Utah Jazz in 1984. He later ran the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden.
Post subject: Re: Rush Limbaugh Manuevers to Buy NFL's Rams, 53 Black People
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 1:51 pm
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
I don't think this will happen, and even if it did, I think Rush would be a minority owner. You'd get a few protests in his first year of ownership, then people would forget about it soon enough.
Post subject: Re: Rush Limbaugh Manuevers to Buy NFL's Rams, 53 Black People
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 1:56 pm
In a van down by the river
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:15 am Posts: 33031
i find it funny that a owner like Irsay is saying he wouldnt support rushs' bid to buy the team (or stake) due to him not being a good character, yet Irsay moved his team in the secrecy of the dark
Post subject: Re: Rush Limbaugh Manuevers to Buy NFL's Rams, 53 Black People
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 1:58 pm
Administrator
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Peeps wrote:
i find it funny that a owner like Irsay is saying he wouldnt support rushs' bid to buy the team (or stake) due to him not being a good character, yet Irsay moved his team in the secrecy of the dark
You're confusing Jim Irsay, the current owner, with his father Bob, who moved the team.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 Sources: Checketts to drop Limbaugh By Adam Schefter ESPN
Rush Limbaugh is expected to be dropped from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, according to three NFL sources.
Dave Checketts, chairman of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and the point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams, realizes he must remove the controversial conservative radio host from his potential role as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners, the sources said.
Three-quarters of the league's 32 owners would have to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay predicted that Limbaugh's potential bid would be met by significant opposition. Several players have also voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh's potential ownership position, and NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith, who is black, urged players to speak out against Limbaugh's bid.
Ultimately, the sources said, Checketts must reconfigure his group and find another investor to make his bid more viable.
Exactly when Limbaugh will be dropped is uncertain, though some familiar with the situation said it could be within the next week. It is unclear if the two sides even have spoken.
A Limbaugh spokesman told ESPN that Limbaugh would have no comment on Wedneday. Earlier, on his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh was defiant, holding on to hope that he still could be part of the ownership group that buys the Rams.
"I'm not even thinking of exiting," Limbaugh said on his program, according to a transcript provided to ESPN. "I'm not even thinking of caving. I am not a caver. None of us are. We have been betrayed by too many who have caved. Pioneers take the arrows. We are pioneers. It's a sad thing but our country over 200 years old now needs pioneers all over again, but we do."
Without Limbaugh, Checketts and his group would have to find a financial substitute to replace the investment that Limbaugh intended to make. At the NFL owners meetings this week in Boston, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell addressed Limbaugh's potential involvement in the league and said "divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about."
Goodell added: "I've said many times before, we're all held to a high standard here. I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL -- absolutely not."
In 2003, Limbaugh was forced to resign from ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown after saying of Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
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at the headline...
