Kroenke’s Starving Arsenal (and other teams) for Rams’ Stadium
(Teams are signing players left and right and still no one’s talking about the $4B elephant in the room)
If you’ve read my writing about Atlanta United, you know I was skeptical.
Atlanta United was going to be moving from Bobby Dodd Stadium on Georgia Tech’s campus nestled right in the heart of Midtown Atlanta to the no man’s land by Vine City. How would that atmosphere translate? Where would we tailgate?
Luckily, it all worked out. Mercedes Benz Stadium would be the darling of the newest stadiums and the experience scaled lovely. In fact, it often seems as if the Benz was made for Atlanta United.
Stadiums are a big deal.
Supporters of that other club in North London will attest to that. The excitement surrounding a new stadium is beyond palpable. Videos of the new White Hart Lane pop up as often as videos appear on Grm Daily.
Well, there’s another stadium that’s being erected that Arsenal fans and supporters should be paying attention to as much as they pay attention to the one a few miles away.
This stadium, however, has nothing to do with futbol or even a futbol team (both LA teams in the MLS have their own stadium). Nope. This stadium has nothing to do with that. This stadium is a love project for the NFL’s LA Ram’s and it’s where all of Stan Kroenke’s money is going.
Oh, you have a problem with Stan Kroenke…get in line.
That’s a 308,626 person line. That line consists of every man, woman, and child in St. Louis.
You see, Arsenal fans and supporters, Stan Kroenke is a real estate man, and, as such, plays the long game. Not to mention, you can’t understand the current state of Arsenal until you understand the Rams…and stadiums. Let me explain.
Growing up, St. Louis had a football team, the Cardinals. I’m talking from the time I was born ’til my older brother graduated high school in ’88. When that team moved to Arizona, I still called them the St. Louis Cardinals…even now…to me, they the St. Louis Cardinals.
Then, for eight years the Gateway to the West had no football team. But they knew that the Rams in Los Angeles were a team dissatisfied with their home. Fan clubs formed, even Walter Payton lobbied to move the Rams.
In swooped Missouri native, Stan Kroenke — a man who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Twenty years prior he married a woman who would become the heir to the Wal-Mart fortune. Who knew? Now, he was in place to bring the city what they had been longing for — an NFL Team…and the citizens would pony up the costs for the stadium.
And so it was, in 1995 the Rams moved to St. Louis.
This right here, however, is that long game that I mentioned above. The Rams organization made sure to sign an escape clause that if the Rams Stadium didn’t land in the upper 25% of stadium revenues, ownership was free to move (note: it was a similar escape clause that brought the Rams to St Louie in the first place).
All seemed well. The Rams won the Super Bowl in 2000, went back (and lost) a year later. Things were great. Or were they? The next year (02), St. Louis didn’t go to the playoffs — nope, they didn’t even have a winning season. The year after that (03), a disappointing double overtime play-off loss. The cracks were starting to show because they were a wildcard team in 04 that was blown away 47–17 in the divisional playoff game.
For the next ten years….they never went to the play offs again (three of those seasons the Rams won only three, two, and ONE game, respectively). For perspective, this is the equivalent of not only not qualifying for Champions League play but not even making Europe.
Losing seasons meant less support. Who wants to go and watch their team lose seven out of eight home games? And then Kroenke was blessed.
Like I said, this is also a story of stadiums. Team owners L O V E to build new ones and they hold cities hostage with the threat of moving if they don’t capitulate. Just off the top of my head, I remember Oakland (Raiders) moving to LA, Baltimore (Colts) moving to Indianapolis, Cleveland (Browns)to Baltimore…whew…you get the point.
So how was Kroenke blessed? He was blessed when Dallas and New York built new, state of the art stadiums. It was rumored as far back as 2008 that the Rams would pull up and leave by 2015 if they were unable to build a new stadium. But ah, as they learned later, there was never no such plan. After Kroenke bought the Rams outright in 2010, he quietly bought land in Los Angeles in 2014 and a year later the team would sneak out of St. Louis (which was captured quite vividly on HBO’s Hard Knocks) leaving the city with $36M in debt on a stadium that was built for an NFL team that is no longer there.
AND, get this — one of the reasons Kroenke listed for leaving was that it would make “no economic sense” to move to a proposed stadium as the Rams would have to come out of pocket to pay for it…keep that in mind.
So if you have a problem with Stan Kroenke, pull a number — you’re number 308,627.
As I mentioned here, if my following of the MLS were a human, it would barely be out of the new walker waddle.
My MLS experience ain’t begin until March of 2017.
That said, I thought the Colorado Rapids always sucked. In 2017 they finished in 20th out of 22 (shame they couldn’t be relegated), having only scored 31 goals and leaking in 51. This past year (18), Atlanta’s record breaking, championship year, the Rapids finished in 21st place…they improved their goals scored to 36 (at one point, Josef Martinez, Atlanta’s top scorer, had more goals than the entire Rapids squad)…BUT…they let 63 passed em.
Little did I know that back in 2010 the Rapids had won an MLS Cup.
When I lived in Denver, if I didn’t ask about the team, I wouldn’t have even known that they existed. I didn’t see the Rapids mentioned in the news, there is no Rapids store in the bustling, mile-long downtown 16th Street Mall strip, you won’t find Rapids paraphernalia in any sports store, and the Stadium…that 18,000 seat…thing is just like everything else Rapids — out of sight, out of mind.
Let’s talk about that Stadium real quick.
Built by Stan Kroenke in 2007, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park was supposed to bring in additional revenue streams and attract new fans to the sport. But bruv, that Stadium. I’m from Denver. That shit is built in Commerce City. And, despite the new light rail, and overwhelming growth, Commerce City is still in the ass of the city. Tucked between companies and the highway, NO ONE goes there. So it goes without saying that those 18,000 seats…don’t always get filled.
When I went to look into Kroenke and the teams he owned, I conducted a simple search typing the teams name — Rapids — with Kroenke Hate, and that produced great results. The first thing I did was compare like for like. Silent Stan owns a futbol team here in America and abroad. Let’s see how the American side is doing.
No bueno.
Supporters are tired of losing. Tired of promises. And tired of the impression that it’s ok. When manager Pablo Mastroeni spoke to FourFourTwo about the state of the Rapids, it was the first of many final straws.
The article opens, “The Colorado Rapids know where they want to be, what they want to be, and if it requires them to sacrifice this season to pave a path toward that future, then that’s how it has to be,” and then further down, Mastroeni casually states, “We’re definitely looking at 2018; there’s a lot of great opportunities in 2018…” It was the beginning of the season…in 2017.
That was enough. Centennial 38, the largest group of organized season ticket holders (and generally peaceful bunch), went to the place where everyone goes to state their gripes…Facebook…and made a list of their concerns, the first of which, might sound familiar:
1) Minimal player acquisitions and a general lack of overall activity during the offseason, especially if rebuilding is the actual plan for 2017.
2) The unbalanced trade that sent Sam Cronin and Marc Burch to Minnesota in exchange for unproven prospects and vague promises of future acquisitions.
3) Comments by Pablo Mastroeni in an April 28th article published by FourFourTwo magazine, in which he effectively stated the 2017 season is being sacrificed for 2018.
Centennial 38 concludes:
The third item is particularly concerning; because it gives supporters the impression that being competitive in 2017 is not important to the club.
We believe it is unfair to increase ticket prices, based in large part on the success of 2016, and then seemingly scuttle that team under yet another premise of rebuilding. In addition it is unfair to the players wearing the badge, and to the fans who have stuck with this club through more lows than highs, to announce that this season isn’t important less than two months into the campaign.
That was something. And that something sent me down the rabbit hole of the Burgundy Wave. It’s here that I learned that out of 23 MLS teams, the Rapids ranked 23rd in net worth, I learned that like Arsenal, the results were dividing the fan base, and I learned that other people were piecing this thing together.
But alas…no one went far enough. Let’s look at another Kroenke team — the Nuggets.
I had stopped watching the NBA.
I’m a Sixer fan and was trusting the process by not watching them lose season after ten or so seasons. It was also partially because it hardly seemed competitive. How many times could I watch the Spurs versus whoever Lebron was playing for.
Another part was all them damn games. 82 games…come on…they can’t all be important.
And lastly, it was just becoming boring. Spread pick and roll offense is the basketball equivalent of the Christmas office party — everyone stands around and waits to see what the boss is going to do.
Then came the Golden State Warriors. Their unselfish offense was electrifying, the off the ball movement, the endless rain of threes, that was something that I could watch. So for the past three years…I’ve been kind of paying attention.
But this transfer window has made me focus on another Kroenke team — the Denver Nuggets.
First of all, I was surprised.
I did not know not nare person on the team and BOOM they were in first place. We’re talking midway through the season — forty or so odd games in, and above Golden State, above Houston, Oklahoma, San Antonio. I was surprised.
Then I watched them lose to Houston. They looked outclassed. Just recently, they got blown out by Golden State. They were behind by twenty in the first quarter. Again, outclassed. That caused me to look into the structure of the Nuggets.
As you can see from the image above, the Nuggets have ZERO number one draft picks. Imagine this as a squad of whoever the sixth center back down…no…the fifteenth center back down after Van Dijk…and that’s the Nuggets squad. They are a team built on what has been dubbed ‘Money ball.’
The concept is simple. Out of the hundreds of thousands of players of the sport, in that group there are “bargain” players that, for whatever reason, are overlooked. Take the Nuggets star, pivotal player, Nikola Jokic.
He’s 7'. He’s Serbian. He’s hefty. And he’s a triple-double racking up machine — double digit rebounds, points, and assists — more often than not. I’ve watched ten games so far and not one has gone by where the announcers haven’t goshed over how amazing it is to see this seven footer doing all that he’s doing. Who would have thought? The algorithms, that’s who.
That approach keeps the Nuggets payroll rock bottom (only seven teams have payrolls less than the Nuggets) and with good coaching, it seems to be working…until it ain’t. When they play the big teams…it ain’t working.
But in numbers we trust. And, I was surprised to see that yet another Kroenke team is run the same way — his hockey team, the Colorado Avalanche.
Even the organist sucked.
You’ll read about a lot of complaints from various Kroenke teams but it’s something when you pull up a gem about fans hating their organ player.
So get this — it was once a part of the Hockey experience to have an organ player pound away the CHARGE tune and provide music throughout the game — it’s a dying tradition. But the Avalanche seemed to make it a priority.
Seemed.
It’s Kroenke.
Fans believe Kroenke hired the cheapest organ player they could find and this person (not from the photo above) couldn’t play the Tommy Walker “CHARGE” fanfare, and worst, could barely hold a tune (to be fair, his job can’t be any easier than anyone else working under the Kroenke regime — making more with less).
Fans were livid.
And that’s just the organ player.
It seems that the board of every Kroenke Sports & Entertainment stays on message — we’re rebuilding. Rebuilding. That’s the line to use when you don’t want to invest money.
My knowledge of hockey is limited to Youngblood and 24/7 but low and behold, reading about the Avalanche, I found kindred spirits. A core group of supporters who faithfully love their team and are willing to enjoy the ups of ten game winning streaks and suffer the extreme lows of back to back seasons of mediocrity.
The Avalanche won a Stanley Cup the first year (00) that Kroenke owned them, but they haven’t been back since and have missed the playoffs as many years as they’ve been in it. But that’s a deceptive stat because for the past ten years, the Avalanche have failed to go to the playoffs back to back and have only gone three times.
The worst years seem to be between 2014 and 2017 where not only did Colorado fail to make it in the playoffs, they had abysmal finishes in seventh, six, and seventh place respectively. Looking in those years is where I found the above gem about the organ player and where I see that the Rapids also seem to have a player/front office conflict which was illustrated here.
You can click that hyperlink but I’ll include this quote:
The Colorado Avalanche haven’t had any more or less (disagreements) than the average team. The difference, though, is that other teams generally resolve these issues before it starts to inadvertently impact the rest of the organization — while the Avalanche, for whatever reason, are stubborn. Contract term, free agents, whatever it may be. More often than not, the front office will dig their heels into the ground before working things out to a conclusion.
Sound familiar Arsenal fans and supporters?
That was enough to force Patrick Roy to abruptly quit the Avalanche. Roy, a former player, was given an extravagant position of Manager/Vice President of Hockey Operations. Supposedly he would have final say in personnel and player trades. But he didn’t. General Manager Joe Sakic did (and does).
Denver Post sports columnist Mark Kiszla brought that thing on home:
A hockey man who demands nothing less than excellence ran out of patience with a once-dominant NHL team’s mamby-pamby approach to restoring its lost luster.
Sound familiar Arsenal fans and supporters?
With Roy out, Colorado quickly moved to a more analytics approach (surprise) and a more youthful squad.
I hope you’re paying attention.
It was once the Comanche Empire.
Their land stretched 250,000 square miles but there was no stopping the spread of the white man and the push west of the United States. One of those white men was Dan Waggoner and he came to this land in the 1850s with an enslaved 15 year old African.
After amassing a small fortune from a herd of 5,000 steer, the Waggoners dynasty began. But of course, they needed more land — cows gotta graze. So they bought out the Comanche Chief, Quanah Parker who forked over some of his people’s territory and that land has been in their family every since — land that’s advertised as the biggest ranch under one fence — 535,000 acres.
Now it belongs to Stan Kroenke, bringing him into the top five of land owners in the US…and America is big as fuck. The property was on sale for $725M (although it’s not stated what he paid).
Soon as Kroenk’ bought that jawn, he sent out eviction notices to everyone who dared to be taking up residence on that vast swath of land.
Unable to afford the move, sixty-one year old Rick Ellis committed suicide. He left a note for Kroenke which began, “Stan you took my home.”
That land was purchased in February of 2016.
The only player brought in that transfer window was Elneny. Only five million pounds was spent and it didn’t address the long-standing issues in defense.
Arsenal whimpered into second place that 2015/16 season, ten points behind the surprising Leicester City.
2016/17 saw the beginning of the Wenger out protests which culminated in Arsenal finishing out of the top four for the first time in twenty years. Wenger extended his contract.
Protests continued.
The 2017/18 season was a shit show and some of the saddest futbol I’ve ever seen from Arsenal Football Club. The away fixtures were horrid, we crashed out of the F.A. Cup losing to Nottingham Forest. Arsenal finished sixth with not even a remote chance at fifth, never mind fourth which was twelve whole points away. The silver lining was Wenger actually was out. Thanks for the years, don’t let the door hit ya.
I sat eagerly awaiting to see who the manager would be, scouring every league for managers who played a similar system to what we were familiar with, someone who might invigorate the supporters and the squad.
I can’t front, I was shocked at the announcement of Unai Emery. Pre-Neymar, I had been slightly impressed but after seeing that squad implode, I had doubts. But hey, I was going to support him.
Preseason was cool. I could see some adjustments. But just cool.
The first two matches I ain’t expect to win. No surprises there. I predicted a ninth place finish, even tweeted it.
Then we went on our tear.
I was optimistic. It felt good. The Emirates was loud. We won away. Then we beat that shit team. If the season had of ended there, it would have been the best turnaround in history — a feel good, fairy tale, happy ending.
But this is Kroenke’s Arsenal and that ain’t happening.
The new, reinvigorated Southampton crossed us to shreds, winning 3–2. Thought maybe it was a one off because the next match we eased past Burnley 3–1. Then we drew to Brighton. Uh oh. Smashed by Liverpool. Ok. Time for the Transfer Window.
Again. Hope.
We spank Fulham (it’s Fulham).
Then…blanked by West Ham.
Now we’re here.
For the past eighteen days I’ve been typing ‘Arsenal’ in my search engine and refreshing throughout the day…and it keeps getting worst…and Worst…and WORST.
Seeing that we’re losing Ramsey on a free, that was first. Then learning that Emery would only be able to get in loan players, THEN Sven Mislintat is leaving the club…What The Fuck.
All the while…I’m also seeing the Los Angeles Rams inch closer to the Super Bowl (if they win this Sunday, 20 Jan, they’re on their way), seeing the costs for the Rams Stadium skyrocket, reading that Kroenke has not only never spent any of his money on Arsenal but that he also takes money out…I just had to write something.
Because of all the things that I’ve read, I have yet to see anyone connect the dots.
This man, Stan Kroenke, Silent Stan, is playing the long game. The first team that he bought was the Rams. They are his crown jewel; the only team he cares about (isn’t it miraculous that they sucked for at least the past decade and then like Man U recently did, rose from the dead like the Undertaker once they hit that Cali soil).
Some pundits say that Unai Emery is in the same place that Jurgen Klopp was in when he first joined Liverpool but nothing can be further from the truth. The Fenway Sports Group backs Klopp and are an actual sports outfit that cares about winning; their business moves demonstrate that (see: selling of Coutinho).
Meanwhile, Kroenke is paying the NFL $550M to relocate the Rams, $1.6B to build the Stadium, and $720M on the ‘biggest ranch under one fence.’ All from his money (he got a loan to buy out those Arsenal shares…go figure). If you did the math, that’s Two BILLION Eight Hundred and Seventy Million dollars — $2.9 Billion dollars, bruv. On the Rams and his ranch.
Zero for his other clubs.
Following a club to the outsider is a childish act. They watch as the supporter gets worked up, emotional, with great shifts in joy and sorrow…sometimes all within ten minutes.
We set ourselves up for it. Speaking of the team, we use the pronoun ‘we.’ We purchase the clubs merchandise and become walking advertisements. We make shows, podcasts, blogs, etc dedicated to our love (or disappointment) for the club.
We do all of these things willingly. We just want to feel like we’re in good hands. Like we are valued. That we are not wasting our time.
Part of what gives us that feeling is an owner who cares.
I opened this writing because I’m happy to be a follower of Atlanta United. Arthur Blank cares about the fans and supporters…because he cares about his bottom line. Happy fans, happy bank.
But when an owner doesn’t care…you feel pimped, taken advantage of, used, abused, led on, mistreated. You feel like there’s no hope that things will ever improve…and that’s where we are now.
I’ve written about it in the past, but as things continue to unfold I can see clearly that unless things change drastically and soon, Arsenal Football Club is headed down the table. If something doesn’t change, Arsenal will be what Everton has become. If it gets worse, we could be the next Newcastle…or Aston Villa.
And Kroenke doesn’t give a fuck.
He’s got the Rams. They’re back in Los Angeles. And they might go to the Super Bowl. Fuck the Nuggets. Fuck the Avalanche. Fuck the Rapids. And yes, Fuck Arsenal.
I leave you with the words of the late Peter Hill-Wood:
We are all being seduced that the Americans will ride into town with pots of cash for new players. It simply isn’t the case. They only see an opportunity to make money. They know absolutely nothing about our football and we don’t want these types involved.
Coda:
I’ve never seen anything like it.
Not in modern football at least.
Nickell Robey-Coleman gave his best Jack Tatum impression on Tommylee Lewis. Not only was it a helmet-to-helmet tackle, and not only was Robey-Coleman not looking for the ball, he did all of that, before the ball even arrived.
We thought, “surely, the Saints are on their way to Atlanta now.”
But there was no call. No flag. No penalty. They played on and Kroenke’s Rams went on to win and head to the Super Bowl.
It was the biggest no-call that I’ve ever witnessed (in the next game Brady’s pads were tapped and a roughing the passer penalty extended their downs…also inexplicable.)
Now…far be it for me to say that the game was fixed…but I will say that Saints owner Gayle Benson doesn’t fit the good o’ boy model, that the Ram story seems to be more, well, compelling, and that the story sells the tickets.
I will also say that if Roger Goodell wanted to rectify the situation, he could evoke Rule 17, Section 2, Article 1 which states:
The Commissioner has the sole authority to investigate and take appropriate disciplinary and/or corrective measures if any club action, non-participant interference, or calamity occurs in an NFL game which the Commissioner deems so extraordinarily unfair or outside the accepted tactics encountered in professional football that such action has a major effect on the result of the game
But Goodell wouldn’t want to do that. What? And upset good o’ boy, Stan Kroenke? I think not.
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