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Ramgator
In a few years, some other city is gonna be held for ransom while an owner strives to top Stan........And a few years after that......etc etc etc
I absolutely understand and empathize with the pain StL fans felt--supporting a lousy team for decades and then losing it. And I must admit that, living in MN, it doesn't really matter to me where they play.
But, as a resident of MN, I know about teams holding up cities for ransom. The Vikings threatened to leave FOR DECADES, trying to get the state to pay for a new stadium when the lousy dome they built on the cheap soured. Vote after vote was shot down, but the money guys never gave up, and finally rammed it through. Snowman and I are paying for it.
And that SUCKS!
But ... there's a fact about Stan. He never held StL ransom. He never wanted StL money. He wanted to move West, and he never really pretended otherwise. StL was never held hostage by actual funding proposals as we were up in Minny.
And, in SoCal, he is not, to my knowledge, asking for funding either. He's probably getting tax breaks, but he is putting up the stadium money himself.
I'm far from being a capitalist. I don't admire money and I generally think owners are narcissistic jerks. But ...
I do have to respect a Capitalist who is willing to invest his own money in a enterprise. He cut the heart out of StL Ram fans. But he never did hold them hostage or demand that SoCal come up with a tax on hotel rooms or whatever to pay for it.
