The deadline for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission to give the Rams a plan for updating the Edward Jones Dome is Wednesday.
The Rams’ lease allows the team to leave in 2015 if the Dome isn’t in the top 25 percent of NFL stadiums.
But since the Dome’s construction in 1995 several impressive stadiums have been built such as the more than a billion dollar Cowboys Stadium.
Sports economist Patrick Rishe, a professor at Webster University, says it would take hundreds of millions of dollars get the Dome in the top tier.
"Unless you’re proposing something of a retractable roof and somehow instilling greater natural light that's able to come into the building, I just think we’re up against the wall," Rishe said.
Developers in Los Angeles are currently trying to build a new stadium.
Rishe says the best hope for keeping the Rams in St. Louis is for another NFL team to beat them to L.A.
Neither the CVC nor the Rams are commenting about the upcoming negotiations.
