I was a SD Chargers fan but who should my new team be?

[HuskerWeatherman]

I lived there for 8 years. The majority of the people in SD are transplants or transients. The majority of their fans are the definition of "fair weather". I can't tell you how many Padres games I've been to where there are quite literally 200 people there.... total. Better than 30% of the time there are numbers of opposing fans that are equal or greater to the number of Padres fans in attendance. Attendance for the Chargers games was so bad for a while there that they instituted a TV blackout unless ticket sales were at XX%. Talk about spurring your own fanbase. All the while tickets remained at a premium. The whole situation was a nightmare. I am glad to see any team that attempts to strong arm it's host city in to paying the majority for a nearly 1 billion dollar stadium. Now they are going to be squatting the Galaxy's stadium for at least the next year or two. That stadium was retrofit for Soccer some time ago and only holds maybe 30k. We have seen a handful of Galaxy games there and enjoy the venue....for soccer. That pitch will now be destroyed in about 3 seconds. :end rant:

I believe the blackout rule is league-wide. Not a San Diego ownership choice.

I think Southern California sports fans, in general, are as fair weather as fair weather can be. Personally, I found it to be the worst sports environment in the U.S. when I lived in that part of the country 15-20 years ago.

 

[Red October]

The black out rule has been suspended, unlikely to come back.

 

[Red October]

I am not sure why anyone thinks San Diego "deserves" a football team.

The city has not successfully supported ANY professional franchise - The Padres, The Clippers (prior to their move to LA) and now the Chargers.

They might be LA's 2nd team but they're likely to have as much if not better fan support in the long run with an opportunity for a better ownership valuation than staying in SD would get them.

Everyone wants to vilify owners for seeking publically funded stadiums but every stadium - Jerry World and the Rams new stadium heck even Lambeau Field all have some measure of public monies supporting them. The existence and presence of a team means something to cities - means revenues, jobs, property taxes ... shame on the city leadership for not finding common ground and making something work. Penny-wise Pound-foolish!

Hey, they have a loyal fan base and yes the efffing owners are greedy SOB's. City leadership my butt, they play in one of the greatest places in the country to play outdoor football. The Chargers ownership have been trying for years to find an issue to allow them to move anywhere, same as the Raiders and St Louis. The owners ego's are what is going on not to mention the bottom line. They (San Diego) build a palace to football and the value of the team goes up but they do not share that with the public that is spending the money to build it, and the ticket prices go up too. They hand it off to their offspring or surviving widows.... LA is a terrible football town to wit, they have been without a team for years. The Raiders and Rams both left LA. Now all of a sudden its going to get better because they spend billions on a stadium.

 

[wcbsas]

Hey, they have a loyal fan base and yes the efffing owners are greedy SOB's. City leadership my butt, they play in one of the greatest places in the country to play outdoor football. The Chargers ownership have been trying for years to find an issue to allow them to move anywhere, same as the Raiders and St Louis. The owners ego's are what is going on not to mention the bottom line. They (San Diego) build a palace to football and the value of the team goes up but they do not share that with the public that is spending the money to build it, and the ticket prices go up too. They hand it off to their offspring or surviving widows.... LA is a terrible football town to wit, they have been without a team for years. The Raiders and Rams both left LA. Now all of a sudden its going to get better because they spend billions on a stadium.

No one is arguing about the issues surrounding owner's egos or the value of their team.

I am arguing that:
1. The next team in San Diego to win a championship will be the first team ... the fans universally are apathetic and generally unsupportive of their teams.

2. The city, state and fans of the team benefit from the team's presence. The presence of a team guarantees certain benefits and revenues that do not exist without those teams.

No one is advocating that LA is a good football town. I am advocating that San Diego is a terrible professional sports town. The Clippers tried, failed and left. The Padres have one of the worst overall attendances in the league. Now the Chargers.

Small market teams like Kansas City and Milwaukee for example figure out how to make it work. A collaborative communal effort. Now maybe Spanos did not want to make it work but it sure seems like the city leaders did not try to hard either!

 

[EastOfEden]

Dallas was not lucky

 

[solesrfr]

I am not sure why anyone thinks San Diego "deserves" a football team.

The city has not successfully supported ANY professional franchise - The Padres, The Clippers (prior to their move to LA) and now the Chargers.

They might be LA's 2nd team but they're likely to have as much if not better fan support in the long run with an opportunity for a better ownership valuation than staying in SD would get them.

Everyone wants to vilify owners for seeking publically funded stadiums but every stadium - Jerry World and the Rams new stadium heck even Lambeau Field all have some measure of public monies supporting them. The existence and presence of a team means something to cities - means revenues, jobs, property taxes ... shame on the city leadership for not finding common ground and making something work. Penny-wise Pound-foolish!

I have lived here for 28 years and the bold is a false statement. The city approved the building of Petco park by a 2/3 majority vote. When the Chargers are winning the stadium is sold out and a majority are Charger fans. Fact is the Spanos family has been fleecing the city for almost two decades and the bad taste of the ticket guarantee is still fresh in peoples mouths. I am not a Charger fan(Go Raiders) but this city absolutely deserves an NFL team. Chargers have been here for 56 years and are ingrained int he memories of many native San Diegans.


C

 

[solesrfr]

I lived there for 8 years. The majority of the people in SD are transplants or transients. The majority of their fans are the definition of "fair weather". I can't tell you how many Padres games I've been to where there are quite literally 200 people there.... total. Better than 30% of the time there are numbers of opposing fans that are equal or greater to the number of Padres fans in attendance. Attendance for the Chargers games was so bad for a while there that they instituted a TV blackout unless ticket sales were at XX%. Talk about spurring your own fanbase. All the while tickets remained at a premium. The whole situation was a nightmare. I am glad to see any team that attempts to strong arm it's host city in to paying the majority for a nearly 1 billion dollar stadium. Now they are going to be squatting the Galaxy's stadium for at least the next year or two. That stadium was retrofit for Soccer some time ago and only holds maybe 30k. We have seen a handful of Galaxy games there and enjoy the venue....for soccer. That pitch will now be destroyed in about 3 seconds. :end rant:

True the city is full of transplants but your 200 attendance figure for Padres games is not even close to reality. Well maybe in 1981 but the facts are people will go to the beach instead of watching a bottom feeder. When the Padres are winning people come out to the ball park.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SDP/attend.shtml



Also the city would not have paid for this new stadium it would have been paid for by an increase in the hotel tax which means tourists would have paid for it. With a Superbowl here every 5 years the residual dollars from repeat tourists would offset any cost the city would incur rather quickly. SD is a destination city, a resort town so when people come for the Superbowl and see 72 degree weather in
February they will return for vacations to see Legoland, Sea World, the zoo, Wild Animal Park, etc...


C

 

[solesrfr]

Hey, they have a loyal fan base and yes the efffing owners are greedy SOB's. City leadership my butt, they play in one of the greatest places in the country to play outdoor football. The Chargers ownership have been trying for years to find an issue to allow them to move anywhere, same as the Raiders and St Louis. The owners ego's are what is going on not to mention the bottom line. They (San Diego) build a palace to football and the value of the team goes up but they do not share that with the public that is spending the money to build it, and the ticket prices go up too. They hand it off to their offspring or surviving widows.... LA is a terrible football town to wit, they have been without a team for years. The Raiders and Rams both left LA. Now all of a sudden its going to get better because they spend billions on a stadium.

Exactly, the Spanos family has been fleecing the city for almost two decades now going back to the seat guarantee. During that time they never marketed the Chargers and once it ended all of a sudden they started a marketing campaign to sell tickets. The bottom line is Dean wanted to increase the value of the team so he can sell it. I will bet that shortly after they move into Kroenke's stadium they sell the team as it will go from 3 billion to 6 billion.


C

 

[wcbsas]

I have lived here for 28 years and the bold is a false statement. The city approved the building of Petco park by a 2/3 majority vote. When the Chargers are winning the stadium is sold out and a majority are Charger fans. Fact is the Spanos family has been fleecing the city for almost two decades and the bad taste of the ticket guarantee is still fresh in peoples mouths. I am not a Charger fan(Go Raiders) but this city absolutely deserves an NFL team. Chargers have been here for 56 years and are ingrained int he memories of many native San Diegans.


C

Deserve? The city just voted down a referendum to help fund a new stadium.

While the referendum may have been more of an indictment on the Spanos family than anything ... there are repercussions on those actions. The city leaders should have been working to secure something that is palatable of the taxpayers as well as the NFL and ownership. The NFL wanted the team to remain and did a lot to help encourage that. Milwaukee just approved a new stadium to host the Bucks, Las Vegas is putting up millions to attract the Raiders, LA is helping to build the next version of Jerry World.

What exactly besides selling out an NFL stadium, which coincidentally alone is not a great achievement, has the city done to deserve an NFL team? Does Jacksonville deserve a team, does Tampa Bay deserve the Rays? Does San Antonio or Las Vegas deserve a team?

 

[solesrfr]

Deserve? The city just voted down a referendum to help fund a new stadium.

While the referendum may have been more of an indictment on the Spanos family than anything ... there are repercussions on those actions. The city leaders should have been working to secure something that is palatable of the taxpayers as well as the NFL and ownership. The NFL wanted the team to remain and did a lot to help encourage that. Milwaukee just approved a new stadium to host the Bucks, Las Vegas is putting up millions to attract the Raiders, LA is helping to build the next version of Jerry World.

What exactly besides selling out an NFL stadium, which coincidentally alone is not a great achievement, has the city done to deserve an NFL team? Does Jacksonville deserve a team, does Tampa Bay deserve the Rays? Does San Antonio or Las Vegas deserve a team?

Let me help you out with some facts. First the taxpayers would not have footed the bill it would have been tourists except for maybe some overruns which there always is but that would have been nominal. Now here is the important thing, this was not a county wide vote it was a city only vote. The city comprises mainly of beach towns that are full of wealthy people, college kids from around the country, hipsters, transplants and general beach people. Of those there is a very low population of football/Charger fans. Also it would include LaJolla(wealthy) and a bunch of communities that have been gentrified by hipsters that care about craft beer and not the Chargers. The majority of Charger fans live in San Diego county but outside of the city limits in places like Chula Vista, East Lake, San Yasidro, National City, El Cajon, Santee, Lakeside, Poway, Vista, Escondido, San Marcos, Oceanside, Mira Mesa, etc... and if the vote was a county vote it would have overwhelmingly passed. Another obstacle was the convention center conglomerate that wants a contiguous expansion and this proposal included a non contiguous expansion of the convention center. The cities of Chula Vista, Escondido, and Oceanside all offered to work with the Spanos family in order to build a stadium and even had good site locations but where turned down. Spanos wanted a downtown bay front stadium and if he was unable to have it he was gone. He has been planning to go to LA for around 10 years and nothing outside of a downtown stadium was going to change that. The city has tried for a decade to get a deal done even offering to build one at the current site in Mission Valley but was met with opposition and obstructionism. When 4-5 different mayors try to get this done then the common denominator of the failures is squarely where the blame lies. San Diego has supported the chargers for 56 years and they deserve to have the team. I can't speak to Milwuakee or the other teams you mentioned as I don't know the facts of their specific teams. 56 years of history from the Air Coryell days to the Superbowl appearance and everything before and after is why this city deserves it. If I was the city I would sue for the Chargers name like the Browns did. Bottom line is the day the Chargers move into the new LA stadium the value of the team doubles and that is why Dean took his ball away.



C

 

[wcbsas]

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/17/...hargers-oakland-raiders-las-vegas-relocations

Interesting article on NFL expansion.

 

[wcbsas]

Let me help you out with some facts. First the taxpayers would not have footed the bill it would have been tourists except for maybe some overruns which there always is but that would have been nominal. Now here is the important thing, this was not a county wide vote it was a city only vote. The city comprises mainly of beach towns that are full of wealthy people, college kids from around the country, hipsters, transplants and general beach people. Of those there is a very low population of football/Charger fans. Also it would include LaJolla(wealthy) and a bunch of communities that have been gentrified by hipsters that care about craft beer and not the Chargers. The majority of Charger fans live in San Diego county but outside of the city limits in places like Chula Vista, East Lake, San Yasidro, National City, El Cajon, Santee, Lakeside, Poway, Vista, Escondido, San Marcos, Oceanside, Mira Mesa, etc... and if the vote was a county vote it would have overwhelmingly passed. Another obstacle was the convention center conglomerate that wants a contiguous expansion and this proposal included a non contiguous expansion of the convention center. The cities of Chula Vista, Escondido, and Oceanside all offered to work with the Spanos family in order to build a stadium and even had good site locations but where turned down. Spanos wanted a downtown bay front stadium and if he was unable to have it he was gone. He has been planning to go to LA for around 10 years and nothing outside of a downtown stadium was going to change that. The city has tried for a decade to get a deal done even offering to build one at the current site in Mission Valley but was met with opposition and obstructionism. When 4-5 different mayors try to get this done then the common denominator of the failures is squarely where the blame lies. San Diego has supported the chargers for 56 years and they deserve to have the team. I can't speak to Milwuakee or the other teams you mentioned as I don't know the facts of their specific teams. 56 years of history from the Air Coryell days to the Superbowl appearance and everything before and after is why this city deserves it. If I was the city I would sue for the Chargers name like the Browns did. Bottom line is the day the Chargers move into the new LA stadium the value of the team doubles and that is why Dean took his ball away.



C

Then why didn't the city and county leadership put together a vote that would've succeed, or at least had a better chance of succeeding?

I do not know the specific politics involved and do not know much about Spanos nor his motivations but that is where the City, County and State people should get Goodell involved and the NFL leadership. But that should have happened before the LA vote almost a year ago.

I understand your points and I do think it is a crime that a 50+ year legacy is given up that quickly.

 

[solesrfr]

Then why didn't the city and county leadership put together a vote that would've succeed, or at least had a better chance of succeeding?

I do not know the specific politics involved and do not know much about Spanos nor his motivations but that is where the City, County and State people should get Goodell involved and the NFL leadership. But that should have happened before the LA vote almost a year ago.

I understand your points and I do think it is a crime that a 50+ year legacy is given up that quickly.

Due to regulation a hotel tax increase requires a 2/3 majority and is only able to be voted on by city residents. The city and county have bent over backwards with multiple task forces and proposals for over ten years but an agreement could never be reached. At some point when your ex says it is over there is nothing you can do, no matter how shiny the diamond ring is.


C

 

[Husker Bones]

I like the sound of the city retaining the Chargers name and logo. Gives hope to maybe a returning organization.

 

[The Impaler]

I don't understand why the Chargers didn't explore more than LA. Maybe they did and we just haven't heard about it. But why not explore a city where you can maybe build a new fanbase. Without thinking about this too in depth, a place like Portland? Now, I have no idea if Portland would even be interested but just throwing it out there. Also, ST Louis actually had a plan on the table for a new stadium along the river, why wouldn't the Chargers explore that? Hell bent on staying in SOCAL I guess. I just don't see them building a loyal fan base in LA.