Do The LA Rams Play For Their Fans? Or For Their Big Oil Sponsors? – CleanTechnica

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The LA Rams lost 28-22 to the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round of NFL playoffs yesterday. A slushy field made the game fun. So too did the Rams’ attempt to score by plowing down the field in the last two minutes. It was an unrealized but thrilling threat to win at the eleventh hour.

All in all, it was a successful day of sports competition, right? The answer to that requires a deeper dive than merely whether football fans were satisfied.

Just last week, the NFL was forced to relocate the LA Rams’ previous division playoff game because the Rams’ home field, SoFi Stadium, is only 10 miles from the Palisades Fire, the largest of six blazes in the Los Angeles area. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford had dutifully told reporters that his team was playing for their entire city. “Every time we suit up, we’re the Los Angeles Rams,” he said. “We play for the people in this community, the people that support us.”

However, there’s much more at stake here than empathy for wildfire devastation of homes and human lives, as Elliot Negin reports on Common Dreams. The Rams bow to their corporate sponsors, and Shell Oil Products US is a Rams’ primary sponsor. The climate crisis is directly related to the conditions that ignited Los Angeles’ devastating fires. Fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat. This leads to global warming and climate change.

Scientists say the world must reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and avoid the worst effects of climate change. Last year may have been record-shattering for clean energy applications in the US, but not a whole lot was accomplished for emissions reductions.

The World Meteorological Organization has confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record, based on six international datasets. The past ten years have all been in the Top Ten, in an extraordinary streak of record-breaking temperatures. The global average surface temperature was 1.55 °C  (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the 1850-1900 average. This means that we have likely just experienced the first calendar year with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.

Oil giant Shell plans to boost fossil fuel production even as the company says it still aims to zero out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Yet, to meet that target, the company should be cutting production, not increasing drilling for oil and gas. The Rams seem to be turning their proverbial backs on the inherent hypocrisy.

The LA Rams/Shell Oil Partnership: Preparing Next Generations for Fossil Fuel Consumption

In 2023 Equilon Enterprises (dba Shell Oil Products US) signed an agreement with SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park, and the Los Angeles Rams in a multi-year sponsorship that names the multinational oil and gas company the exclusive fuel sponsor for all three entities.

As part of the agreement, Shell offers a promotion in which Fuel Rewards members in Los Angeles and greater surrounding areas receive 25 cents per gallon off at the pump every Rams gameday, whether they play at home or away. Shell supports Boys and Girls Club flag football teams across Los Angeles, providing equipment, jerseys, and other tournament necessities. The company also works with SoFi Stadium to help Hollywood Park’s community initiatives focus on health and wellness, financial empowerment, STEAM education, and sustainability in Inglewood and the greater Los Angeles region.

Such community outreach sounds lovely, right? Not so fast.

When I was a young media literacy student, I loved to deconstruct the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales campaigns. Were they just wholesome holiday marketing, as described by one analyst, that “tugs at the heartstrings and stays away from controversy?” Not hardly. They were carefully constructed messages to indoctrinate persuade children — who, in turn, would have such warm, fuzzy feelings associated with Budweiser that, when they became of drinking age, it would be the first adult beverage for which they would reach.

That process of association extends beyond the Clydesdales to other brands, too. Core narratives are shaping discourse around the climate crisis due to the persistent “stickiness” of mis- and dis-information — and they’re influencing people to disregard the danger of fossil fuels.

It’s not just the LA Rams who succumb to the lure of big money in sport to support their franchise. More than 60 US pro sports teams and at least three leagues have lucrative sponsorship deals with oil companies and electric and gas utilities. Such sponsorships afford the companies a range of promotional perks, in addition to those that Shell is offering the Rams, from building signage to uniform logos to facility naming rights, according to a survey conducted last fall by UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

The Climate Consequences of Burning Fossil Fuels

The death toll from Los Angeles’ catastrophic wildfires has risen to 24 and is expected to increase further. However, the eventual death toll from the disaster is likely to be “far, far higher, once the health effects from the toxic smoke from the fires are fully realized,” as Jeff Masters explains in Yale Climate Connections.

Additional deaths can be expected in the coming years because of the large-scale disruption to people’s lives. Wildfire smoke contains high levels of PM2.5, particles no larger than 2.5 microns in diameter. These have long been linked to increased risk of illness and death, as they’re small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, where they can harm the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

The horrible stats continue to rise. There have been more than 40,000 acres burned, more than 12,300 structures destroyed, and tens of thousands of residents have been displaced. Rents have risen exponentially, as greed takes precedence over the common good.

The cynical side of our natures warns that we should not be surprised. We are seeing before us a deep disconnect between fossil fuel-producing countries’ commitments to continued production and their Paris agreements for a 1.5°C emissions goal. Big Oil spends a lot of time fighting lawsuits, as dozens of cities and states over the last decade have sued these major climate polluters, as claimants want to hold fossil fuel producers accountable for their role in causing the climate crisis. Climate lawsuits aim to use the law to force change, awareness, and retribution in the form of damages. Corporate sports teams and leagues seem not to notice as they reap the rewards of Big Oil billions.