NFL owners are scheduled to vote Tuesday in New York on the long-festering question of who will ultimately pay for the $790 million settlement with Missouri government entities over the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles from St. Louis, sources said.
It was at the same October meeting in New York last year that rancor erupted over Rams owner Stan Kroenke declaring that he did not want to pay a then-hypothetical settlement himself, as had been presumed to be the case until that point. The settlement was agreed to the following month.
When Kroenke won the right to move the Rams in January 2016, to get the last votes over the line he agreed he would take the Chargers or then Oakland Raiders on as a stadium tenant and partner, and to indemnify his peers against lawsuits stemming from the relocation. Or so most owners thought.
But last October, Kroenke’s newly voiced position was that he had agreed to cover legal “costs,” not a settlement and that the competing stadium bid for LA from the Raiders and Chargers had sent information to the St. Louis authorities in 2015 that had proven damaging in the lawsuit. Former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who was opposed to the Rams’ move, also gave damaging deposition testimony that buttressed the St. Louis argued the league violated its own relocation bylaws, sources said.
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