London Calling

Today, it was announced that the Rams would play a regular season game in London.  The catch is that the Rams and NFL agreed to a 3 year deal.  So for the next 3 years, the Rams will lose a home game and play in London.  The game in 2012 will take place on October 28 against the Patriots.  Kevin Demoff emailed a letter out to all of the season ticket holders prior to going on Fox 2 to make the announcement.  Here is a copy of the letter:

Wow, what an exciting few weeks it has been! As I said at the press conference on Tuesday, we felt that the time for bold action for this organization was now, and we hope you are as thrilled as we are about the hiring of Jeff Fisher as head coach of the St. Louis Rams.

I want to thank you for your patience as we went through the search process to find the next head coach who will return winning football to St. Louis. We were fortunate to meet several great candidates with bright futures ahead of them. However, when we had a chance to hire a proven winner, we knew we wanted Coach Fisher to lead our football team. I can’t tell you how excited we were when Mr. Kroenke received the phone call from Coach Fisher informing us that he wanted to be the next head coach of the St. Louis Rams. With Coach Fisher, we hired the third-winningest active coach in the NFL, a coach who has been to the Super Bowl (and thankfully lost), a coach who is chair of the prestigious NFL Competition Committee, and a coach who will bring a confidence and swagger to the St. Louis Rams.

One thing that should be noted – we have all of you to thank for helping us land Coach Fisher. Throughout the process, he spoke of St. Louis’ reputation as a great sports city, the passion of our fan base and the excitement surrounding our Club as reasons for wanting to be a St. Louis Ram. Together, we share a vision of rewarding this community by building a model franchise both on and off the field that will make St. Louis proud. When Coach Fisher walked into his office for the first time on Tuesday, he looked out the window towards the practice field and smiled, knowing that this is the beginning of many great things to come.

As we enter the weekend, Coach Fisher is hard at work building a top-notch coaching staff that will put us in position to compete for the division titles our fans deserve. We are hopeful to have both coordinators hired by the end of the weekend and the rest of the staff in place within the next week or so. As for the General Manager search, we will conduct interviews late next week in St. Louis with many of the league’s rising personnel stars. We have identified roughly a half dozen candidates to meet with and our goal is to find a bright mind that will bring the same passion, energy and skill to our personnel department that Coach Fisher brings to our coaching staff.

Lastly, in a week full of news, we wanted you to be the first to hear that the NFL will be making an exciting announcement later this morning that the St. Louis Rams have been selected to play a home game in London for each of the next three seasons. The International Series kicks off this fall on October 28 when we play the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium. It is a tremendous honor to be selected by the NFL to represent our community and country in such an important league initiative as we look to grow our game internationally. We believe our selection by the league speaks to the promise and direction of the St. Louis Rams and we look forward to helping shine the international spotlight on our region as few games deliver this degree of publicity and exposure.

As we learn more about the London opportunity from the NFL in the coming weeks and months, we will share information about how you can travel to the United Kingdom to be part of the festivities. All season ticket holders will have a chance to purchase tickets to the game at Wembley Stadium, and we are making plans to reward lucky season ticket holders with free trips to the game and opportunities to fly with the team as part of a lottery system. More details are forthcoming as plans are finalized.

In closing, the hiring of Coach Fisher has brought an energy and buzz to our fan base that we have not seen since the Greatest Show on Turf, and we are eager to finish the search process for a General Manager so that we can get started on rebuilding the St. Louis Rams for the 2012 season and beyond. From the hiring of Coach Fisher to the International Series selection, the St. Louis Rams are proving to the rest of the NFL that we are serious about establishing ourselves as an elite franchise.  We hope that we are most importantly proving to you that we are committed to turning the St. Louis Rams around and rewarding your loyalty with winning football!

Sincerely,
Kevin

Kevin Demoff
Executive VP/Football Operations & Chief Operating Officer

Many St. Louis Rams did not take this news positively.  I don’t blame them.  St. Louis is losing a home game and there have already been rumors of a move out of town in 3 years.  Kevin Demoff did many radio interviews today.  I listened to many reactions to the Demoff interviews and they were not very positive.  On the flip side, new head coach Jeff Fisher also did several radio interviews today.  Those interviews had more positive reactions.  Watch Fisher’s interview with Bernie Miklasz below.

 

The bottom line is that there isn’t anything that the Rams fans can do to keep the Rams in St. Louis.  Stan Kroenke has a favorable lease agreement that will allow him to move the team in 3 years.  The key date will be Feb. 1.  This is the date that the CVC is to present ideas to Kroenke on upgrading the dome to meet the agreements in the lease.  Here is the bottom line, the Rams just hired a great head coach.  If there are only 3 years left in St. Louis, let’s hope they are successful and bring the Rams back to the playoffs.