Of course, fining an NFL owner $5,000 would be like you or me being fined thee fiddy....
Apologies if posted earlier...
Sam McDowell- KC Star
Wed, October 13, 2021
A St. Louis judge fined Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt and other NFL owners Wednesday and set a hearing for potential contempt of court for failing to disclose a fuller picture of their financial records as the judge previously requested.
That request came last month as part of discovery for a long-running lawsuit that alleges the NFL bypassed league relocation rules when the Rams left St. Louis.
Judge Christopher McGraugh levied Hunt a $5,000 fine — and also fined Dallas owner Jerry Jones $6,000, New England owner Robert Kraft $5,000 and New York Giants owner John Mara $8,000 — during a hearing Wednesday, in which he accused each of delaying in providing financial statements to gauge their net worth.
“It does seem to me that your clients ... are dragging their feet on this,” McGraugh told a lawyer for the owners, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which attended the hearing and has been covering the lawsuit since its 2017 origin. “It seems like we’re in a three-card monte game.”
A month earlier, the judge warned the fines would arrive if fuller financial records did not. He made good on that promise Wednesday and set a hearing for Dec. 3 for why the four owners “should not be held in contempt of court,” according to his order. He also made them responsible for jointly paying $25,000 of attorney fees.
Hunt and the other three were part of a committee that helped explore the possibility of returning the Rams franchise to Los Angeles.
McGraugh also ordered Rams owner Stan Kroenke to fork over records, but the plaintiffs said he eventually obliged after initially trying to avoid disclosing them.
The lawsuit alleges that the the Rams’ move from St. Louis to Los Angeles cost the city millions of dollars in revenue.
As noted by the Post-Dispatch, Missouri’s state law permits the admission of civil defendants’ financial records in order to help juries assess potential punitive damages.
Originally Posted by jettio:
I think it is questionable to name all the other individual teams and owners. It is a silly lawsuit in that regard.
I think Judge expects the Plaintiff's lawyers not to leak the information if turned over and thinks parties should produce the information in discovery if ordered.
Judge will probably split the trial to determine liability before allowing evidence on damages.
I think even a St. Louis jury will think it is wacky for parties that enticed the Rams to leave LA have much right to beef about the team going back to LA.
There is no real contract that says teams can not get approval to relocate.
I doubt the financials of 31 teams and their owners will ever be evidence at a trial if liability is determined before evidence on damages. But judges expect parties and their lawyers to follow orders and produce information and judges also expect the Plaintiffs' lawyers to guard the information.
As I understand it, the issue is that Kroenke (and the league) led the City to believe that the team would stay if they upgraded the stadium, so the City put all sorts of effort into figuring out what it would take to get it done. The reality was that Kroenke wanted to leave for LA all along, so he basically just cost the City time and money on a fool's errand. That might not sound like much, but it was years of work for a number of people, both government employees and others.
As for the contract, that's actually where the core issue is. The NFL's own rules state that there's a process for moving a team, and they skipped over parts of that process to get out of St. Louis. Therefore, St. Louis is trying to go after all of the money they've now lost from the team being relocated. And the bigger issue for the league is that any settlement would require information about the league's finances, and the league would almost rather pay the billions of dollars than let everyone know how much money teams really make.
At least that's how I understand it. Definitely not a lawyer. [Reply]
They're making them turn over financial documents because of punitive damages (relevant for the purposes of determining what amount would truly be punitive in scope).
Your standard errors and omissions sort of insurance policy doesn't typically cover punitive damages. I mean ultimately the league could have some sort of multi-billion dollar policy to cover this sort of stuff - but if it comes in the form of punitive damages, they're out of pocket for it.
'The League' is essentially an association of the owners, so if the league's agreed to indemnify the owners, that means its the OTHER owners that are gonna have to pony up. And if they don't have an insurance policy that takes them off the hook, they may be looking at hundreds of millions each if this thing goes really south.
I don't care how wealthy you are, you're never going to be excited to throw a quarter of a billion dollars away.
It could get hairy. Kroenke really screwed this up, IMO. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
As I understand it, the issue is that Kroenke (and the league) led the City to believe that the team would stay if they upgraded the stadium, so the City put all sorts of effort into figuring out what it would take to get it done. The reality was that Kroenke wanted to leave for LA all along, so he basically just cost the City time and money on a fool's errand. That might not sound like much, but it was years of work for a number of people, both government employees and others.
As for the contract, that's actually where the core issue is. The NFL's own rules state that there's a process for moving a team, and they skipped over parts of that process to get out of St. Louis. Therefore, St. Louis is trying to go after all of the money they've now lost from the team being relocated. And the bigger issue for the league is that any settlement would require information about the league's finances, and the league would almost rather pay the billions of dollars than let everyone know how much money teams really make.
At least that's how I understand it. Definitely not a lawyer.
I think you got a point that there may be some liability for some expenditures made to further efforts to keep the team in St. Louis, but those entities promised the Rams that they would always provide a venue that would objectively be considered a top 25% venue compared to all other NFL venues. And that failure to do so, would make the lease at the dome a year to year. IIRC, an independent arbitrator determined that the dome was not top 25% and that the lease became a year to year.
The NFL is not making most of its money harvesting organs for human transplants, there is nothing in the NFL's books that is a problem.
Everybody knows that they make a lot of money from media rights deals and some money from tickets and parking and licensing.
The NFL owners have to be transparent on certain matters with the NFLPA to honor the CBA when it comes to determining salary cap.
This idea that each individual owner should have all of their personal finances disclosed to these plaintiffs seems like litigation for nuisance sake. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Yeah - he's made a fair amount of money of his own by rat-****ing various business partners in land-deals over the last 40 years.
He's a truly awful human being. I think he's probably a good business man, but he's a piece of shit.
And Kroenke is better than his brother in law. He is a world class prick.
Their mother in law on the other hand is one of the sweetest old ladies you will ever meet. My great uncle was personal friends with her husband Bud. [Reply]
I'm fully fine and content that St. Louis doesn't ever get a NFL team in my life time again if it means the City gets to clown, nuke, and scorch earth the NFL.
Let it burn to the ground.
Kroenke Out.
Originally Posted by DaFace:
As I understand it, the issue is that Kroenke (and the league) led the City to believe that the team would stay if they upgraded the stadium, so the City put all sorts of effort into figuring out what it would take to get it done. The reality was that Kroenke wanted to leave for LA all along, so he basically just cost the City time and money on a fool's errand. That might not sound like much, but it was years of work for a number of people, both government employees and others.
As for the contract, that's actually where the core issue is. The NFL's own rules state that there's a process for moving a team, and they skipped over parts of that process to get out of St. Louis. Therefore, St. Louis is trying to go after all of the money they've now lost from the team being relocated. And the bigger issue for the league is that any settlement would require information about the league's finances, and the league would almost rather pay the billions of dollars than let everyone know how much money teams really make.
At least that's how I understand it. Definitely not a lawyer.
This is correct.
To add on, unlike San Diego and Oakland, the City approved millions of dollars to be invested in a new stadium along with spending millions to plan a new stadium in an effort that the NFL kept encouraging along the way to put on the show that they were actually trying to find a way to stay in St. Louis. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jettio:
So did Kroenke have any money before marrying Sam Walton's daughter?
Pretty amazing how he has all these sports franchises and he got it all by saving up his allowance like a kid who wants a bicycle.
To be fair, after looking at his wikipedia bio, he married in 1974 and did a lot of real estate business in the 1980's and 1990's before he started buying teams, so seems to have made some money through his own work.
That's a bit misleading. A ton of Kroenke's money was made by buying land around the spots where Wal Marts were going to be built & developing strip centers along those properties anchored to the Wal Mart. However my understanding was given that he was married into the Walton family he could get advance notice of where stores would go allowing him to get land that was pretty useless & sell or lease it at a premium once Wal Mart built there.
Granted it's not like he inherited a trust fund or anything but claiming he is "self made" isn't really right either. He married well & then parlayed that advantage into becoming one of the richest people in the world. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
And Kroenke is better than his brother in law. He is a world class prick.
Their mother in law on the other hand is one of the sweetest old ladies you will ever meet. My great uncle was personal friends with her husband Bud.
Bill Laurie?
Yeah, he's known around Columbia to pull the literal "Don't you know who I am" shit. Like...to anyone. Cop, Mcdonalds worker, drunk chick at a bar - makes no difference to him.
By all accounts he's just a slime. Kroenke's awful to people because it can make him more money faster. Laurie is awful to people because he can be. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RealSNR:
Hope Mark Davis wasn't involved. $5000 isn't exactly chump change to him these days
About 5 or so years ago back when I was a server. I actually served him at our local restaurant and some woman… he left the bare minimum tip of like %18 lmao… I was like damn really? Probably messed up saying I was a chiefs fan. [Reply]
Yeah, he's known around Columbia to pull the literal "Don't you know who I am" shit. Like...to anyone. Cop, Mcdonalds worker, drunk chick at a bar - makes no difference to him.
By all accounts he's just a slime. Kroenke's awful to people because it can make him more money faster. Laurie is awful to people because he can be.
Yep ole Bill. Bill has been a prick since he was young. His other two brothers are nice as can be. Kroenke will run you over to make a buck. Bill will run you over you just bc he is a dick. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Yep ole Bill. Bill has been a prick since he was young. His other two brothers are nice as can be. Kroenke will run you over to make a buck. Bill will run you over you just bc he is a dick.
My wife has talked with Nancy a few times - says she's nice enough. Meanwhile most people wouldn't piss on Paige if she were on fire. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
My wife has talked with Nancy a few times - says she's nice enough. Meanwhile most people wouldn't piss on Paige if she were on fire.
Yep that's true. Wish Sauto was still around he is good buddies with Kroenke's ex son in law. We could get some more good dirt. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Yep that's true. Wish Sauto was still around he is good buddies with Kroenke's ex son in law. We could get some more good dirt.
Ha! Really?
Like, the guy who married Paige? I heard that was a complete shit-show pretty much from day 1.
I mean, marry into crazy and that's gonna happen... [Reply]
