NFL-Rams, Kroenke open old wounds in St. Louis

Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke may never be loved by the fans but a Super Bowl triumph on Sunday could offer consolation for a move to LA that has further affected his reputation.

While the Rams will face the New England Patriots in the NFL's championship game in Atlanta, Kroenke may forever face the perception that he values profit at the expense of the fan base. When the Rams left for Los Angeles in 2016, following 21 seasons in St. Louis, Kroenke became the target of a heartbroken city that had lost its team.

"The team was so incredibly popular," Tiffani Wilson Burris, a former Rams employee, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "They were so beloved in this city. People loved them. It was everything." Kroenke, a Missouri native, had taken sole ownership of the Rams in 2010 with a promise that he would try to keep the team in St. Louis.

Five years later, he declared that the Rams' then Edwards Jones Dome was not suitable and that the city of St. Louis was no longer a viable market for football. Not so coincidentally, Kroenke’s real estate group announced it was teaming up to build a 70,000-seat NFL stadium just outside Los Angeles.

In January 2016, the Rams officially applied to relocate to Los Angeles despite St. Louis making a final push and recommending a $1 billion waterfront stadium. The Rams are now three seasons into their thriving relocation.

The Los Angeles Stadium & Entertainment District at Hollywood Park, expected to cost around $5 billion, is set to open in 2020 and serve as the home for the Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. SCAR TISSUE

The scar tissue of St. Louis, however, has not healed. The city's sports bar chain Hotshots has launched a promotion dubbed "Slam the Rams" that will offer patrons discounted pitchers of beer for each touchdown scored by the Patriots on Sunday.

"The Patriots were probably the city's least-favorite team, prior to the Rams leaving," former Rams executive Bob Wallace told the Dispatch. "The Rams are now the least-favorite team." Kroenke is its symbol.

Urinal screens in the bathrooms of Hotshots, as well as dart board targets, will feature Kroenke’s face. But St. Louis is not the only hotbed of disdain for Kroenke.

The 71-year-old is majority owner of English Premier league soccer team Arsenal and last year he bought out Russian rival Alisher Usmanov for around 600 million pounds ($786.60 million), a move that did not go down well with the London club's fans. Kroenke had already alienated the Arsenal faithful, concerned about falling behind Premier League rivals, with a clumsy quote that implied he was not concerned with the team's performance, only the bottom line of money.

"If you want to win championships, then you would never get involved," he told a sports analytics conference in Boston in 2016. "I think the best owners are the guys that sort of watch both sides a bit." Kroenke owned the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche from 2000-2014 but ceded them to his wife as the NFL prohibits an owner controlling teams in other markets.

Kroenke has won titles as an owner, with the Rams in 1999 and Avalanche in 2000-01, but he has never won many fans. ($1 = 0.7628 pounds) (Reporting by Jahmal Corner; editing by Ken Ferris)