Chargers' L.A. move reflects their history: mistake-prone and misguided

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Chargers' L.A. move reflects their history: mistake-prone and misguided

This is a pretty good article about SD's move to play little brother to the Rams.. Some of the highlights:

The Rams arrived last year when owner Stan Kroenke’s plan to privately fund a palatial development on land he acquired in Inglewood beat out the Chargers’ joint deal with the Raiders to get something built in Carson, Calif. It was an owner-vs.-owner contest of competence. Of course, Kroenke won. That was victory.
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Spanos will cry that he had no other option because San Diego wouldn’t agree to his demands over the past decade and a half. Moreover, voters rejected a ballot proposal in November on a hotel tax that could have funded a new stadium. That’s sort of true. The vote, however, was a hastily arranged proposal and came directly on the heels of Spanos’ effort last year to move to Carson with the Raiders.

That didn’t exactly excite the masses. What did he think was going to happen?
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Besides, if Kroenke can spend his own money, why not Spanos? The local government was willing to help some. And the NFL offered its most assistance ever, $300 million to help on a $1.2 billion stadium. The league doesn’t want this either. This is certainly easy to say when it isn’t your hundreds of millions, but was this really impossible?
Instead, Spanos is going to pay a $550 million relocation fee to the league (Why not put that into the stadium?) and head off to what exactly?
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And perhaps my favorite...
Los Angeles went 22 years without an NFL team, and locals were pretty cool with that. If nothing else, they always got the best national games on television. With two franchises, that’s gone.
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Spanos is essentially going to pay more money to relocate and play second fiddle to the Rams who already have control over that market. No wonder the Chargers always stink.
 
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Will it work in LA with 2 teams? For the clubs likley not. For the league yes. Follow the money
 
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/01/12/mayor-takes-parting-shot-at-chargers/

“At the end of the day, Dean Spanos was never willing to work with us on a stadium solution and demanded a lot more money than we could have ever agreed to,” Kevin Faulconer said. “We live in a great city and we will move forward. San Diego didn’t lose the Chargers, the Chargers lost San Diego.”
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pretty much this...

Goodells statement was a bunch of hooey about Chargers trying hard to stay...
 
This is just sad for the SD fans. I suspect only the league was clamoring for a team in LA. Unless the team starts to win folks there won't give a rip about either team. And now there are 2 of them? Good luck with that.
 
I have a hunch the league figured that the San Diego connection, with fans, would still exist. I don't agree with that premise, but it is possible. A comment I heard, from someone living in SD, there is a rail link that would work for getting people back and forth, and probably be faster than driving across LA to games. Nothing is impossible, I suppose. What's disturbing is that $550 mill relocation fee. That's horrendous. It sounds like the Chargers would do anything to leave, because they'd burned so many bridges.

I'm not going to throw this whole thing out as wrong until I see what happens when they both move into the new digs. That complex is going to be an unbelievable source of revenue for everyone involved, and both teams will benefit tremendously because of it's unique design.

I kind of think of it as being what they're doing in GB, only many times bigger, and grander, because of the available money. It's going to be the Taj Mahal of the NFL.

I think something else comes into play. The NFL is looking to expand into Europe. The UK. An expansion team there, combined with an expansion team in the US, would play well. Is it possible that a decade from now, SD will get a new, expansion team? Not saying there's anything being done along this line, just speculating on what could be in the market down the road.

But, based on what I've seen with SD, they lose all their teams. I'm surprised the Padres haven't pulled up stakes.
 
Pugger said:
This is just sad for the SD fans. I suspect only the league was clamoring for a team in LA. Unless the team starts to win folks there won't give a rip about either team. And now there are 2 of them? Good luck with that.
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I agree. L.A. is incapable of supporting 1 team, much less 2. Its a Lakers and Dodger town
 
TW brings out an interesting point wanting a team in Europe. What if the Chargers play half of their home games overseas or outside of the country. London, Mexico City. A way of getting around having a home team over there and might draw more folks to games in LA with fewer chances to watch them. Not sure if it would even have to be negotiated with the union.
 
My edumacated guess at this point is that Las Vegas falls though for the Raiders since the data shows it's not much of a money maker and you see the Raiders move to SD at some point.
 
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