Super Bowl Rams Still Third Fiddle in L.A.?
First place in the NFL.
Third fiddle in Los Angeles?
Beating the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl LVI is nice and all, but to be the sports team of Southern California the Los Angeles Rams have to be more than a trendy one-hit-wonder. Only back in town for six years, the Rams still lag firmly behind the popularity of legacy franchises of the Lakers and Dodgers.
The City of Los Angeles has toasted three major sports titles in the last 16 months: the Lakers inside in a Disneyworld bubble, the Dodgers in a mostly empty stadium in Texas, and the most recent amid a corporate crowd at SoFi Stadium. Evidenced by the sparsely attended parade along a laughably small 1.1-mile route, the Rams' championship is the least important of the three to Southern California.
It didn't stop, however, the Lakers' LeBron James from trying to glom onto the success. Tweeted LeBron:
"We, Dodgers and Rams should all do a joint parade together!!!! With a live concert afterwards to end it!! City of Champions.”
Even the Dodgers Justin Turner chimed in, tweeting:
“Hey @Rams, when is the parade??? We are locked out and available.”
This may not rival a title by L.A.'s dynamic duo franchises, but it belongs to the Rams and only the Rams.
Owner Stan Kroenke paid for it. Chief Operating Officer Kevin Demoff strategized for it. Les Snead, the team’s general manager and true most valuable player, created it.
Under 36-year-old coach Sean McVay and in an unprecedented palace of a stadium, the Rams have suddenly won three NFC West championships in five seasons and gone to two Super Bowls. A culture has been built. A championship has been won.
Alas, the Rams have a long way to go before they can share Hollywood's spotlight with the Dodgers and Lakers. Not to mention a saturated entertainment landscape that also features a SoFi suitemate in the Chargers, baseball's Angels, basketball's Clippers, hockey's Kings and Ducks, two Power 5 college programs, two Major League Soccer teams and a WNBA franchise.
If the Rams don't run it back, they are fully aware their temporarily fixated fan base could get distracted by Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, Universal Studios, the beach or ...
“I absolutely believe we can own this market,” Demoff said during the Super Bowl. "And I think that’s probably the wrong thing to say. I absolutely believe that we can be at the level the Dodgers and Lakers have been. Those teams have decades of success and championships and building a fan base, building a deep, multicultural fan base. You know, stars, legends, Hall of Famers and building on consistency.”
While glowing about his 2021's team success, Demoff also acknowledged the pressure to repeat, and maybe repeat again.
"What we do in 2022 is vital," he said. "But also in 2023. You cannot get to be at the pinnacle of this market by having one great season."
In a 2020 survey of L.A. sports fans, the Lakers were the favorite team (35 percent), followed by the Dodgers (31 percent) and - a distant third - the Rams at 7 percent. Winning the Super Bowl surely shrinks that chasm, but will do little to overturn the hierarchy of popularity.
In L.A.'s revered sports history there have been the "Showtime" Lakers, the Dodgers' "Fernandomania" and Wayne Gretzky's glitz on the ice. Can the Rams place their star on that walk of fame?
The journey has only just begun.
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