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The Chargers began in LA. I assume they'll stick with the name.
I need to find the article I was reading today that said the Chargers were going to be re-branded after the first year in LA. So, new name, new colors, etc..
if the lack of even one post on this thread during the past season is any indication, it's unlikely that anyone in San Diego will even notice the Chargers have left
To be fair there's a quite a few team threads with little or no action. Some only have posts from fans of other teams.
I'm a huge Chiefs fan, but I hate this so much. The Chargers should have stayed in San Diego. LA doesn't need two teams. They stole one from St Louis and can't support them any better than St Louis did and now they are taking another team? They will always be the San Diego Chargers to me.
I'm a huge Chiefs fan, but I hate this so much. The Chargers should have stayed in San Diego. LA doesn't need two teams. They stole one from St Louis and can't support them any better than St Louis did and now they are taking another team? They will always be the San Diego Chargers to me.
LA didn't steal a team. The Rams owner decided to build a stadium and move the Rams back to LA. Makes sense for the Rams not sure it makes as much sense for the Charges but we'll see.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo
I'm a huge Chiefs fan, but I hate this so much. The Chargers should have stayed in San Diego. LA doesn't need two teams. They stole one from St Louis and can't support them any better than St Louis did and now they are taking another team? They will always be the San Diego Chargers to me.
LA didn't steal anything. Two cities didn't feel it was in their best interest to fund new stadiums so those owners found a city who was willing to accomdate them.
Weird that the only three examples of a major franchise in one of the 'big four' (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) relocating and then relocating back to a city where it previously played involve Los Angeles:
Raiders, Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland
Rams, Los Angeles-St. Louis-Los Angeles
Chargers, Los Angeles-San Diego-Los Angeles
Playing in a small soccer stadium is curious - harkens back to 1961-66, when the Chargers played in Balboa Stadium with a seating capacity of 34,000.
One final note:
With two teams in Los Angeles, the great lever which franchises have used as a relocation threat to pry lucrative stadiums deals from their home cities is gone.
The two largest metropolitan areas now have two teams each (as does the sixth, the Bay Area - but with the Raiders probably Vegas-bound, not for long). The largest metro area without a team is now... San Diego! (population 3.3 million). Then come:
St. Louis, 2.8 million
Portland, 2.4 million
Orlando, 2.4 million
San Antonio, 2.4 million
Sacramento, 2.3 million
Las Vegas, 2.1 million (but apparently soon to have the Raiders)
Columbus, 2.0 million
Austin, 2.0 million
San Diego clearly doesn't care, St. Louis is probably wary for now after being burned, Orlando is too close to Tampa and Jacksonville, Sacramento is too close to San Francisco, there's no way Ohio will get a third team, and Austin would not get one before San Antonio (or after, for that matter).
So the pickings for the "Build, or we're moving to _____!" threat are slim. Portland and San Antonio are the obvious best bets for that, but they're not great sources for said blackmail.
Of course, there's Toronto (dearly six million people in the metro), but the Bills more or less have that territory staked out as theirs. And there's London, but the NFL will never let a team more there, because they salivate over the expansion fee that could be extracted from a team there (probably in the billions).
^ Interesting analysis, Unsettomati. I'll add that in the case of Columbus and Austin you have two college programs that an NFL team would struggle to compete with for fan dollars. You can probably add Portland to this category as well with the University of Oregon just a short distance down the road in Eugene. The NFL may not be in direct competition with NCAA programs (play on different days, etc) but the truth is when it comes to it they are competing because fans only have so much money to use to support a team. In the case of Austin (University of Texas) and Columbus (Ohio State) you're not likely bringing a newcomer NFL team to town and convincing fans to buy NFL tickets and merchandise instead of the entrenched college program. Of course, the television revenues will help, but no team wants to play in a stadium that can only reach 3/4 capacity or is going to be constantly invaded by visiting fans. In fact, that's why the Chargers left San Diego.
I am really curious to see how the Raiders fare in Las Vegas.
Location: San Diego CA>Tijuana, BC>San Antonio, TX
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San Diego will be just fine without the NFL, just like LA was for 20 years. The NFL will come crawling back in a few years.
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