Some may groan when someone tries to relate sports to larger issues in our society, but sports = money, which equals societal priorities. There\u2019s a looming issue in St. Louis, MO with the professional football team, the Rams. They have a 20-year lease on the Edward Jones Dome<\/a> (aka TWA Dome), and it runs out in 2014. The team came to St. Louis from Los Angeles, and it seems quite possible that it could turn into a round trip, just with a 20- year layover.<\/p>\n Ownership of the team is currently in transition, but it seems likely that it will fall into the hands of Wal-Mart-heir-in-law Stan Kroenke<\/a>. This is a man who has been successful in business, but who seems to leave a wake of disappointment, possibly despair, behind his enterprises. Most recently, he secured a seven- million- dollar TIF (tax-increment financing) from the small town of Bridgeton, MO in order to build a Wal-Mart. Bridgeton doesn\u2019t have money to sacrifice; its median household income is nearly 20% less than that for St. Louis County as a whole<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Kroenke has neither committed himself to keeping the Rams in St. Louis nor in the Dome if they remain in St. Louis. The Rams organization secured a rather unusual provision in their lease for the dome prior to coming to St. Louis in 1995.\u00a0 After 20 years in the Dome (meaning 2014), the team can opt out of its contract, if the Dome is not among the 25% best stadiums in the National Football League. This was part of the price of getting the Rams to leave the City of Angels to come to the Gateway Town. St. Louis was desperate, in part because it had already begun construction on the Dome in anticipation of securing an N.F.L. franchise; it didn\u2019t want the dome to be a stadium where no one played.<\/p>\n