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profootballtalk.nbcsports.com]
Via Daniel Kaplan of TheAthletic.com, the NFL filed last week a motion for change of venue in the case. Although the motion was filed under seal, it’s obvious that the league doesn’t believe it can get a fair trial in the county that it abandoned.
The league likely has two concerns. First, it fears that it will be impossible to find an objective jury in St. Louis County, given that the Rams left town. Second, it quite possibly believes that the judge has a bias against the Rams and the NFL, based on the decision from last month to order that financial information of the Commissioner, Rams owner Stan Kroenke, and multiple other owners be released for the purposes of assessing potential punitive damages, even before ruling on a pending motion for summary judgment that, if successful, would end the case in the league’s favor.
A change of venue motion ostensibly targets the jury pool. But here’s the reality in St. Louis and any other NFL city. Tens of thousands of potential jurors in those locations don’t care about pro football. They don’t follow it. They don’t watch it. And they don’t think public money should ever be used to subsidize the billionaires who own the teams. Surely, a pool of prospective jurors who have no opinion whatsoever about the Rams or the NFL can be found in St. Louis County.
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