Georgia Frontiere
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Georgia Frontiere is the owner and chairman of the St. Louis Rams.
She inherited ownership of the team in 1979 after the death of her then-husband, Carroll Rosenbloom. The inheritance was designed as a tax dodge so that Georgia would not have to pay high taxes on Rosenbloom's estate, and it appears that he never intended for her to have a role with the team. But that was not Georgia's intention at all as she immediately took over control as owner and through her lawyers and tax attorneys began to make major changes to the team's organization. She quickly fired her stepson Steve Rosenbloom as the head-office executive and began hiring people loyal to her.
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Georgia moved the Rams to St. Louis, which was a financially risky proposition initially but soon proved to be a goldmine as the city of St. Louis provided a publicly funded stadium for $260-million, and more than $22-million was guaranteed in annual luxury suite and ticket revenues. For a period of time, the St. Louis Rams were exposed to a great deal of public humiliation as the press and other NFL teams made fun of them for having the league's only female owner. There is a popular story that the Rams once entered the visiting team locker room at another team's stadium and found that the towels and the soaps provided to them were pink and that a lot of pink bunting had been hung on the walls. However, Georgia got the last laugh in 2000 when the Rams, under head coach Dick Vermeil and MVP quarterback Kurt Warner beat the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV and Georgia was on the platform hugging Vermeil when the Lombardi trophy was awarded to the Rams as the winners.