The most shocking headline you'll see all year.

[Direckshun]

http://deadspin.com/los-angeles-does...ers-1818503650

Los Angeles Doesn't Care About The Chargers
Barry Petchesky
Yesterday 9:07am

Sunday saw the return of the Los Angeles Chargers, their first home game since 1960, and no one’s very excited about it.

New and relocated teams usually get a first-year attendance bump, just from the novelty. The Chargers are a good team with an offense that’s fun to watch. Their temporary home, a soccer-specific stadium, is intimate and unique. There are plenty of reasons the Chargers might draw a good crowd. None of those reasons, apparently, are enough to overcome the hard realties of deep, deep disinterest:

Opening kickoff crowd for @chargers game today - this can't be blamed on the weather pic.twitter.com/aKrXr9Bmiq

— Matt Baylow (@MattBaylow) September 18, 2017

A stadium that seats 27,000 couldn’t sell out, drawing an officially (generously) announced crowd of 25,381 for a 19-17 loss to the Dolphins. Making that attendance figure even sadder is that half of paying fans weren’t there to see the Chargers. “There were a lot of Miami fans out there,” Melvin Gordon said. “I think it was around 50-50.”

Including, perhaps, the person in charge of setting off the cannon after Chargers scores. Listen for the boom as Younghoe Koo missed a 44-yarder that would’ve won the game:

Younghoe Koo misses his try for the winning kick... Dolphins win.

Final:
LA - 17
Miami - 19#Chargers #Dolphins #Stubhub pic.twitter.com/fj0qepZJZW

— Rich Ohrnberger (@ohrnberger) September 17, 2017

You’ll also hear a lot of cheers in that video. Those are the Dolphins fans, and they confused Philip Rivers all afternoon:

“I heard the roar before I saw the official’s signal,” Rivers said. “I wasn’t sure which roar it was.”

Well, and why not? The Chargers have done everything in their power to alienate their old fan base (a plane towed a banner over the stadium calling Dean Spanos the worst owner in sports), and little to cultivate a new fan base. They fled San Diego three full seasons before their new stadium will be ready, and in the meantime they’re charging $100 for parking. They’re already second fiddle in their new city, a subordination that will be even more marked once they move in with the Rams. Philip Rivers said the team needs to win and it’ll see better attendance, but Los Angeles isn’t exactly tabula rasa for fandom. There are a lot of people from all over, with their own rooting interests, and a strong strain of Raiders fandom runs through the city, and any fans excited for a new team probably jumped aboard with the Rams last year. In short, it is difficult to picture a combination of circumstances and sensibilities that would lead a person to becoming a Los Angeles Chargers fan.

Let’s be clear: None of this is an indictment of those Chargers fans that exist or of Angelenos. You’re under no obligations to go to games, and considering how much better television is than the live NFL experience, the incentives are already slim. The NFL is a business, and if people aren’t consuming a product, that’s a sign of a failure of the company to offer a product people want to consume. And, potentially, a fatal misread of the market. Could it be possible, after the NFL spent decades using Los Angeles as a threat to strong-arm cities into building stadiums to keep their teams, that Los Angeles didn’t actually want its own team, let alone two? It’s still very early, but:

Kickoff at the Coliseum between the Rams and Redskins. Not many here to see it. pic.twitter.com/XAwandU2l6

— Lindsey Thiry (@LindseyThiry) September 17, 2017

[DaFace]

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

The Rams are locked in because Kroenke's spending $3 billion of his own money to build the new stadium (and home of the NFL Network), which won't be completed until 2020.

The Chargers should go back to San Diego immediately, if not sooner.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The Rams are locked in because Kroenke's spending $3 billion of his own money to build the new stadium (and home of the NFL Network), which won't be completed until 2020.

The Chargers should go back to San Diego immediately, if not sooner.

The Rams are the only team I think that's doing this right.

They left a city that was lukewarm about them to go to a huge market that has a history with them. Instead of begging for public funding, they're going to fork over their own money to build a stadium, and from the looks of it, it's going to be the nicest one in the league (until that Vegas one theoretically gets built). They've put a fair amount of effort into branding and messaging. And their team is pretty well coached and has the key pieces in place for a swift rebuild.

The Chargers didn't even think it through. All the way down to their logo this was just corporate and mindless. LA doesn't give two shits about this team and never has, and that's going to get even worse when the Chargers ask the public for money on a stadium. They may have to pay the Rams for rent.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

The Rams are the only team I think that's doing this right.

They left a city that was lukewarm about them to go to a huge market that has a history with them. Instead of begging for public funding, they're going to fork over their own money to build a stadium, and from the looks of it, it's going to be the nicest one in the league (until that Vegas one theoretically gets built). They've put a fair amount of effort into branding and messaging. And their team is pretty well coached and has the key pieces in place for a swift rebuild.

The Chargers didn't even think it through. All the way down to their logo this was just corporate and mindless. LA doesn't give two shits about this team and never has, and that's going to get even worse when the Chargers ask the public for money on a stadium. They may have to pay the Rams for rent.

Spanos got called on a bluff, that's all there is to it.

Spanos: "If you don't build my new stadium, I'm going to L.A..."

SD: "**** off"

Spanos: "No seriously guys, I'm going to leave. I'll give you one more chance to build me a new stadium or I'm really going to go to L.A..."

SD: "****. Off."

Spanos:.....{sheepishly packing his suitcase}...."well fine, I'm just gonna go then. You guys are mean." {stomps out of room like jilted toddler}

Everything - absolutely everything - about the SD conundrum had a really easy solution and one the NFL should've absolutely forced: Make Spanos build or sell. You don't give him his relocation. You don't let him fleece SD taxpayers. You tell him he can build his own goddamn stadium that ISN'T one of the ridiculous Jerrahdomes or Kroenke Palaces or he can sell the team to any number of arrogant billionaires that would love that feather in their cap.

This was a dumb idea approved by greedy, shortsighted owners who wanted a chunk of the relocation fee and all driven by a skinflit moron who wrote a check he never had any real interest in cashing.

I'm not sure quite how to turn this into a WWI analogue, but I'm sure that if given enough time you could make it happen. Somehow I'm confident that the Spanos clan would end up being Austria in the whole thing.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Spanos got called on a bluff, that's all there is to it.

Yep and they really got screwed when Clark Hunt led the majority of the owners in choosing the Inglewood site over the Carson site that would have hosted the Raiders and Chargers.

Carson wasn't going to build a $1.6 billion dollar stadium for the Chargers and Kroenke's been planning the move to Los Angeles for more than a decade, so his presentation blew away the other owners.

At that point, it was game over.

[Reerun_KC]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

The owner I fly for is seriously trying to buy an NFL franchise.

Would be interesting to see if he goes after the chargers, since we're in Napa and SoCal all the time anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Earthling]

I think they'll probably be fine in another twenty years or so.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

In five years the Rams will be the only team in LA and who knows, maybe the Chargers will just return to San Diago under new ownership.

Hell the real problem in San Diago is that the owner not only wants a stadium, but a shopping complex attached. It's stupid. There are plenty of people in this world who would love to own an NFL team. Go find one and make SD work.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

The KCK Rams

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I kind of hope both the Rams and Chargers fail miserably and are looking for a new home in 5 years.

That has been the history for the NFL in LA. I heard one time that those that don't learn history are destined to repeat it, or something like that.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

That has been the history for the NFL in LA. I heard one time that those that don't learn history are destined to repeat it, or something like that.

That's why Kroenke is building a $3 billion dollar complex that will not only house the NFL Network, host NFL drafts, Super Bowls, the Olympics, Final Fours and so much more but it will be a destination, with swimming pools and high end retailers and restaurants.

People will flock to the stadium, just for the experience and if the Rams happen to be good, they'll get plenty of support.

The Chargers?

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

That's why Kroenke is building a $3 billion dollar complex that will not only house the NFL Network, host NFL drafts, Super Bowls, the Olympics, Final Fours and so much more but it will be a destination, with swimming pools and high end retailers and restaurants.

People will flock to the stadium, just for the experience and if the Rams happen to be good, they'll get plenty of support.

The Chargers?

Yeah if the rams are good the place will be packed

The chargers just never made sense.

I kind of agree with DJ that Canada makes sense

[ModSocks]

Originally Posted by O.city

Yeah if the rams are good the place will be packed

The chargers just never made sense.

I kind of agree with DJ that Canada makes sense

Toronto makes sense for the Bills. Chargers not so much unless they completely re-brand.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by O.city

Yeah if the rams are good the place will be packed

The chargers just never made sense.

I kind of agree with DJ that Canada makes sense

Will it? I mean, did the Rams pack the house before in LA when they were competitive?

Are people going to battle their way across LA through traffic and everything else, to pay prices to attend games that will surely be above Jerry's World prices, because there's a campus around it which hosts the NFL network? And this will need to support two teams?

I mean, call me crazy I suppose, but it seems like franchises are powered by fans who feel loyalty to a football team and support it through thick and thin. Not because the team is good but because it's a passion.

Are people going to be passionate about the "gameday experience"? Are they going to keep coming back over and over to pay (exorbitant prices) at the great bars and restaurants in the stadium?

Does the League think the fan base has infinite resources and will pay for anything they put out? Any add on, any upsell or upcharge?

Do they think rank and file fans care about uber-luxury experiences or do they just want to see good football at a price they think is fair?

I don't think history is going to bear this out.

I don't think amenities drive attendance, football does.

I don't think "gameday experience' means anything when the team is terrible or when the city has no attachment to it.

I don't think fans cheer for owners like Spanos or Kroenke who regard the fan base with contempt. I don't think these teams are going to have an easy time building attachment from football fans in the city, many of whom already have a team.

Maybe I am wrong - maybe just being in LA is enough to keep a team profitable. Maybe they will suck enough corporate dollars out of the city and sell enough suits and advertising that the gate receipts won't matter that much. You watch LA Kings games on TV and unless the team is near the top of the conference, the lower level looks about 2/3 full. Who knows.

I just don't buy into the idea that this "district" is going to drive attendance, especially for two teams, because the football fans that keep franchises going don't want to go to Disneyland. They just want to watch football.