By Vincent Bonsignore

One of the incredible ironies emerging from the Rams decision to partner up with Hollywood Park land developers to build a new football stadium in Inglewood is that it proves Rams owner Stan Kroenke has the means to privately build a stadium where ever he pleases.

Kroenke is worth more than $6 billion. And his wife, the heir to Walmart, is worth an additional $7 billion. Their $13 billion dollar combined wealth means they can build multiple stadiums if they want.

Why is that ironic?

Well, back home in St. Louis Kroenke is essentially telling local leaders he needs them to either foot the bill on the $700 million needed to refurbish his current home, the Edward Jones Dome, or kick in a substantial amount of money to build him an alternative home.

Kroenke isn’t exactly crying poverty, but he is demanding St. Louis leaders assume an incredible amount of financial responsibility for a stadium he could easily build himself.

If not, he’ll move his team to Los Angeles.

Now that it’s out in the open Kroenke is willing to dig deep into his own pockets to build a stadium in the Los Angeles area, the obvious question St. Louis and Missouri residents must ask is: “Why don’t you just build your own damned stadium in St. Louis rather than demand we, the taxpayers, assume so much financial responsibility?”

The obvious answer, of course, is Kroenke really wants to move the Rams to Los Angeles. And that he is just playing a hand to make that happen.

Which is fine. That is his prerogative.

His money, his team. And as we are certainly realizing, maybe even his rules.

Either way, Kroenke certainly put Missouri Governor Jay Nixon in a precarious spot.

Nixon appointed a high-powered task force headed by former Anheuser-Busch president Dave Peacock and attorney Bob Blitz to come up with a stadium plan to keep the Rams in St. Louis.

They are expected to present Nixon their plan later this week, but unless Peacock and Blitz found a willing private partner to kick in a substantial amount of money the hunch is their plan will include a sizable contribution not just from St. Louis, but the whole state of Missouri.

This is common practice in these sorts of deals – see the new Minnesota Vikings stadium in which $498 million of the $1 billion dollar project will come from local and state sources.

But with Kroenke already letting the cat out of the bag he can privately finance a stadium, how can Nixon bring the good folks of Missouri a proposal in which a whole lot of their money is required?

As Dave Helling wrote in the Kansas City Star, that’s a heavy political lift for a Democrat governor still reeling from the fallout over Ferguson and in 2014 saw his vetoes on taxes, guns and abortion overturned by the General Assembly.

Helling also points out  Nixon faces even more obstacles now that there will be larger veto-proof Republican majorities in both houses this year and after Missouri voters took away some of his budget powers last November.

With all that working against Nixon, is this really a good time to ask taxpayers to foot so much of the bill on a stadium Kroenke can easily pay for himself?

But then, Kroenke already knows the answer to that question, right?

Of course this isn’t the right time. Which is why Kroenke made this power move to begin with.

It’s pretty clear he wants to be in Los Angeles, not St. Louis.

And that every move he makes is a very calculated step toward making his wish a reality.