Scramble for Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium? More than dreams – Orange County Register

OJ Simpson tosses a Pregame coin and Michael Jackson performed a halftime show the last time the Super Bowl visited the Los Angeles area in 1993.

The area had two NFL teams at the time, though both left within two years for St. Louis and Oakland and the league is something locals only watched on TV for a generation.

The long and winding ride from there to Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, when the former and current Los Angeles Rams will face the Cincinnati Bengals in a $5.5 billion palace – Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium – requires faith, incredible timing and, yes, some luck that leaves even insiders shaking their heads in disgust.

“It’s bizarre that we’re here in so many ways after all these years,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

After all, that journey takes a billionaire who realizes that doing business in expensive Los Angeles is better than in the Midwest, and a year later, a millennium from Washington is just the man he needs to lead the way.

It also relied on three months of rainfall – 17.1 inches worth – which was great for drought conditions but terrible for construction and forced what ultimately proved to be a random delay.

And a cute encounter in Cabo San Lucas certainly helped.

“If it’s a Hollywood script, it’s going to roll out because nobody believes it,” Rams CEO Kevin Demoff said at a recent conference call.

Of course, the preferred scenario for Rams fans would include a win on Sunday for the franchise’s second Super Bowl title but it represents the Los Angeles area for the first time.

The organization won Super Bowl XXXIV as the St. Louis Rams, but it was funniest for local fans, who were perplexed when then-owner Georgia Frontiere moved the team out of Anaheim after the 1994 season.

The Rams’ LA version reached Super Bowl XIV at the Rose Bowl against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta against the New England Patriots, but they lost both times.

“If the Rams can win the Super Bowl, it’ll be like realizing my childhood dream,” said longtime NFL agent Leigh Steinberg, co-chair of the Save the Rams campaign, who tried to stop it. Frontiere took the team to St Louis.

A long time to come

When Kathryn Schloessman took on the role of chair of the Los Angeles Sports and Recreation Committee, the NFL’s return to the region and with it, more events like the Super Bowl seemed like a certainty, an impossible conclusion. avoid.

“I thought we would have a team coming back in three to four years and a Super Bowl right after that,” she said. “That was 25 years ago.”

Schloessman became a regular at other cities’ Super Bowls, where she discussed the seemingly obvious benefits of an NFL presence in the entertainment capital and the nation’s second-largest television market.

And such a comeback has passed the concept stage and entered the intense effort of everyone from real estate developers to Hollywood moguls. They flirted with possible franchise moves and even reached a final vote on an expansion group in 2000.

That team is called the Houston Texans, by the way.

“Losing two teams from the NFL (here) in the ’90s was a difficult period for us and the fans,” Goodell said. “But we want to find the right solution.”

The NFL controls the rights to Los Angeles and refuses to let just any team make their claims. It’s the combination of a team that can leave – without creating new problems for the league – and an owner who can afford to build a world-class stadium without the need for support. tax aid, something that wasn’t started in California.

Billionaire Rams owner Stan Kroenke had a deal in St. Louis with an eviction clause, the wealth needed to pay for the site to become the SoFi Stadium, and the opportunity to correct what many saw as Frontiere’s wrong.

Kroenke also understands that moving to Southern California will be a boon for the business, even with significant costs like relocation fees and building the site to make it happen.

“When the Rams were in St. Louis, their value is approximately $875 million. “As soon as they came back, suddenly $2 billion. Now it’s 3 billion dollars”.

On January 12, 2016, the owners of the NFL approved the Rams’ move back to Los Angeles, their former home for 49 seasons.

Exactly a year later, they hired Sean McVay, 30, then an offensive coordinator in Washington, and made him the youngest coach hired in the NFL since 1938.

McVay was 55-26 in the regular season, 6-3 in the knockouts, and became the second Super Bowl coach in five seasons. He turns 36 on January 24.

“Those two risks have made us where we are today,” said Demoff, COO of Rams.

Through the rain

McVay was leased in the midst of one of the driest lands in recent Southern California history, a critical phase in construction that must be met to open the Rams’ stadium for the 2019 season.

Bound to that deadline is the Super Bowl after the 2020 season, which the NFL has planned as the first of many firsts in the new home of the Rams and Chargers.

“I remember losing sleep every night when it looked like the construction was lagging, that we wouldn’t be able to host the 2020 Super Bowl (season), I woke up with twitching eyes,” Demoff said. everyday. “You feel so bad for the league.

“We’ve ramped up to provide this amazing stadium to host the Super Bowl and we’re going to have to push it back.”

When the Rams realized they couldn’t open the building for the 2019 season, the NFL’s owners pushed the LA Super Bowl back a year.

“We won in 2021 and then the weather gods decided to rain,” said Schloessman of the LA Sports and Recreation Commission. “We have moved from 2021 to 2022.

“We have been blessed.”

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won Super Bowl LV on February 7, 2021, at their home stadium in front of 24,835 people, a crowd significantly restricted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Not even that small crowd was possible in California at the time; The Rose Bowl just moved to Texas last month.

A year later, the biggest crowds in SoFi Stadium’s short history are expected for Super Bowl LVI at the end of a game week in pristine conditions, a reason other than business that keeps some finds appeal from the Midwest to California.

“The weather gods clearly love us,” says Schloessman.

Talk about a dream, try to make it come true

Super Bowl LVI may break the record for the hottest incarnation of the Roman-numbered spectacle – Sunday’s highs are forecast to be 83 degrees – but McVay found warmth in Cabo San Lucas in last year after the Rams were knocked out of the knockout stages.

He has also found his midfielder.

McVay and his fiancée vacationed at the same resort where then-Detroit Lions defender Matthew Stafford and his wife were staying in January 2021. The Rams left the ball to Andrew Whitworth, a man. Stafford’s good friend, was also there and encouraged the coach to spend time with Stafford, someone he knew a little bit but didn’t know well.

Apparently, they hit it with drinks and football chat at the pool.

The Rams traded their previous No. 1 overall draft pick, quarterback Jared Goff, two first-round draft picks and a third-round pick for the Lions to Stafford, the quarterback they hope to have. could do all that he did. Well, they’re hoping for one more win this season.

During the season, they also traded in for former Super Bowl lineman MVP Von Miller and signed three-time Pro Bowl winner Odell Beckham Jr.

The Rams are frequently disqualified because they don’t have many options on draft day, but they value proven talent more than potential clients with the potential to become stars.

“Maybe that’s not for everyone,” Demoff said. “And maybe that’s not sustainable. Maybe it doesn’t work for long; We seem to find that out every year.

“But it’s working right now.”

Perhaps the Rams and their fans have imagined success like this on the field, although two Super Bowl appearances in the past four seasons has been extraordinary for a team that has only played in three out of 52. first Super Bowl game.

However, the chances of winning the championship both inside and outside the Los Angeles area – in the first season fans were allowed to go to SoFi Stadium, much less – exceeded what most people would dare dream of. to wish.

Southern California’s first Super Bowl since 1993 will be huge regardless of the teams participating, but LASEC’s Schloessman said the Rams’ involvement “takes it to another level.”

And she’s pretty sure that the “fairy tale” playing can capture the hearts of even weary locals who don’t need SoFi Stadium’s giant video screens to uncover a compelling yet irresistible sports movie plot.

“Everybody’s more excited because it’s the Rams,” she said. “One team has been here for too long. One team back.

“It’s an interesting story but could be a complete Hollywood ending if they win.”