In some ways you can understand the NFL relocating a team. A business is a business, and businesses have a right to try to make as much money as possible. When a market as big as Los Angeles is on the line, it was only a matter of time, really.

But what leaves an especially bitter taste in the mouth of all of this, especially in the case of St. Louis, is the NFL’s embrace of taxpayer-subsidized stadiums. Los Angeles was always the great carrot that made this all possible: ‘Help us build a new stadium or we’ll move to Los Angeles,’ was the general tactic. It worked so well that 29 of the 31 NFL stadiums have received taxpayer money in the last 20 years, according to a recent study, to the tune of almost $7 billion in total.

The City of St. Louis was, of course, one of those governments to help subsidise a stadium. It’s what drew the team from Los Angeles in the first place, and it’s why the nature of the team leaving is such a nasty final blow.

That loan the Rams took out back in 1995 hasn’t been paid off yet. After Missouri taxpayers committed more than $280 million in public funds in the mid-1990s, the city government still owes $36 million in remaining debt on the loan (that extends into 2021). In a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell last week, a city representative asked the league to pay off the outstanding balance.

It’s easy to know what should happen. $36 million is less than half a percent of the NFL’s estimated yearly revenue. Rams owner Stan Kroenke is worth over $6 billion himself, and he wants the team in LA so badly that he’s not just paying owners $650 million in relocation fees to make it happen, the new stadium will also be financed entirely privately.

Just pay back the money, NFL. It wouldn’t go unnoticed in what has been an ugly ordeal for the city.

But $36 million is more than $0, and with no law demanding the NFL has to pay them back, it’s unlikely that the league will. ‘No one forced the city and county governments into making this deal,’ they could say, which is true. ‘We don’t want to provide a precedent in case of future moves’ could be another, also true, defense.

But if the NFL really wants to play that game, they might not like the results.

Now more than ever the image of the NFL has been tarnished by a variety of different mishandlings, and without the city of Los Angeles in its back pocket, suddenly there’d have helped foster a new, insurgent attitude the next time an owner wants a stadium subsidized. Fans, taxpayers, consumers will start asking why their city should bother with an NFL team if they can be cut loose so coldly. Why should we take a financial leap of faith in this owner, they may ask, when the relationship feels so transactional from their end.

The current system of publicly-subsidized stadiums, flawed though it is for those paying for the stadiums, works masterfully for NFL owners. Paying back the City of St. Louis would help stem the choirs of discontent. In the long run, would actually serve the NFL owners’ interest in the long run.

And at the very least, it’s the right thing to do.