The announcement that St. Louis was losing its NFL team to its original city, Los Angeles, came shortly before President Obama’s State of the Union address.
Out of the three St. Louis stations that broadcast NFL games, Fox affiliate KTVI and CBS affiliate KMOV waited until after their networks had wrapped up the respective analysis of the President’s speech at around 9:30 p.m. before going into team coverage to tell their viewers about the loss. NBC affiliate KSDK stuck with the network’s coverage until 10 p.m. before going to local news.
ABC affiliate KDNL showed The Goldbergs right after the network wrapped its SOTU coverage.
KTVI anchor Vic Faust may have summed up the mood of the city in his toss to sports director Martin Kilcoyne, standing by live in Houston. Faust said, “It’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt like we got punched in the stomach.”