Regarding my statement about The Dome being even more of a white elephant in downtown St. Louis after the Rams move to Los Angeles, Steven Skelton e-mails:
My understanding is the people who run the convention and visitors center believe that the Dome will provide more jobs and create more revenue without the Rams. August through the end of fall is a good time for conventions, and the Dome is virtually blacked out from hosting them because the NFL requires so many open dates for scheduling. With the Rams gone, they can schedule more business.
Also, the 10 Rams dates generate almost no money for the Dome. The Rams pay a pittance ($250k) per season in rent, yet collect all game day Dome revenue. The conventions and expos that move in will make money for the Dome, not just Stan.
I hope that's true, but I worry that many groups that might have considered St. Louis for big conventions started to look elsewhere after the incidents in Ferguson, which created a negative image of the whole region for the rest of the world -- even though the trouble spots were isolated to a few small areas and did not affect the rest of the metro area.