Chargers to announce they're moving to LA tomorrow

[boltfan72]

 

[poprocksncoke]

 

[True Lakers Fan]

Here's a good representative crowd shot of an LA Chargers home game, from the last LA Chargers home game...

I don't care either way what happens. Fail or succeed wont affect me, but if the fans are happy, then I am happy for them. It's a business and they did need a new stadium. Clearly the people in San Diego have spoken and are not going to pay for a new structure, so there has to be winners and losers in this unfortunate decision.

 

[boltfan72]

Chargers' desperation move is a shot to the NFL's vitality

Good read, though it makes the dbag look like some sort of victim.

 

[Caliskinsfan]

McVay!

 

[boltfan72]

I don't care either way what happens. Fail or succeed wont affect me, but if the fans are happy, then I am happy for them. It's a business and they did need a new stadium. Clearly the people in San Diego have spoken and are not going to pay for a new structure, so there has to be winners and losers in this unfortunate decision.

This is something few outside of San Diego understand. The city of San Diego is about 30-35% of the population of San Diego County. The majority of the fans don't live in the city of San Diego.

The city proposed rebuilding on the same site in Mission Valley, and the county committed $150 million on top of $200 million from the city. Just recently SDSU committed $100 million, so there was the potential for $450 million in public money for a 1.2 billion dollar stadium, well in line with what other cities have done (except for LA, who isn't paying a dime for Kroenke's palace). Had this proposal been on the ballot, it would have been a county wide vote, needing only 50% of the vote to pass since there were no tax increases. Many more people outside of the city would have been able to vote, and county polls showed over 50% approval.

Spanos decided he'd rather have a downtown palace to rival the Inglewood stadium, still butthurt by the owners choosing Kroenke. He went after it and proposed a hotel tax increase, requiring 67% approval. He then spent nothing on advertising or promoting the initiative. He also alienated county voters, as only city residents could vote on it. Many in SD saw this as a bad deal and voted it down (I voted for it because of blind loyalty). The city/county proposal was seen as much more reasonable and achievable. In the end a little over 500k people cast a ballot for the initiative, in a county with 3.3 million.

So when I hear "the people have spoken", that's complete bullshit. Most people that cared never got a chance to speak. Dean knew this initiative would never pass and only did it as an attempt to try to hold on to his fans. Didn't work asshole.

 

[Bolts]

They did before and they support two NBA teams, two Hockey teams and two MLB teams. It's a big market and many fools and their money are quick to depart ways

If the Chargers are good, then it could happen. The Rams' crowd support at the end of the season was bad and that was after years and years without a team. Besides, LA already has all those pro teams you listed and both UCLA and USC football/basketball. Whether or not fans choose to support the Chargers or not, they definitely don't need or deserve another team.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

This is why cities should own the sports teams, it sucks losing teams you rooted for all your life and they just pack up and leave town... It's a slap in the face... Packers have the best model of ownership out of all the NFL teams, had they not done that they wouldn't have them there right now... It's funny how the NFL quickly stopped other teams from having that ownership model... Sorry San Diego fans, totally sucks ...

Whether you agree or disagree, the people of SD decided they did not want to take on $1 billion plus in debt or allocate hotel tax revenue towards building a stadium for the team to play in. I'm not exactly sure how that would work if the team were publicly owned, but I get the sense that it would still come down to a vote of some type to get funding.

Otherwise you'd have a small group of people (say a city council) making a decision to spend that money.

I don't blame SD for saying no, but without knowing all the details of why the stadium measure failed, I don't feel sorry for them either..

 

[Bolts]

This is something few outside of San Diego understand. The city of San Diego is about 30-35% of the population of San Diego County. The majority of the fans don't live in the city of San Diego.

The city proposed rebuilding on the same site in Mission Valley, and the county committed $150 million on top of $200 million from the city. Just recently SDSU committed $100 million, so there was the potential for $450 million in public money for a 1.2 billion dollar stadium, well in line with what other cities have done (except for LA, who isn't paying a dime for Kroenke's palace). Had this proposal been on the ballot, it would have been a county wide vote, needing only 50% of the vote to pass since there were no tax increases. Many more people outside of the city would have been able to vote, and county polls showed over 50% approval.

Spanos decided he'd rather have a downtown palace to rival the Inglewood stadium, still butthurt by the owners choosing Kroenke. He went after it and proposed a hotel tax increase, requiring 67% approval. He then spent nothing on advertising or promoting the initiative. He also alienated county voters, as only city residents could vote on it. Many in SD saw this as a bad deal and voted it down (I voted for it because of blind loyalty). The city/county proposal was seen as much more reasonable and achievable. In the end a little over 500k people cast a ballot for the initiative, in a county with 3.3 million.

So when I hear "the people have spoken", that's complete bullshit. Most people that cared never got a chance to speak. Dean knew this initiative would never pass and only did it as an attempt to try to hold on to his fans. Didn't work asshole.

I thought the 43% or whatever the final approval rate was for the vote was pretty good despite everything it had going against it. Like I said before, it was a bullshit attempt from Spanos to make it seem like he tried to keep the team there when they had no chance of getting 67%.

 

[True Lakers Fan]

This is something few outside of San Diego understand. The city of San Diego is about 30-35% of the population of San Diego County. The majority of the fans don't live in the city of San Diego.

The city proposed rebuilding on the same site in Mission Valley, and the county committed $150 million on top of $200 million from the city. Just recently SDSU committed $100 million, so there was the potential for $450 million in public money for a 1.2 billion dollar stadium, well in line with what other cities have done (except for LA, who isn't paying a dime for Kroenke's palace). Had this proposal been on the ballot, it would have been a county wide vote, needing only 50% of the vote to pass since there were no tax increases. Many more people outside of the city would have been able to vote, and county polls showed over 50% approval.

Spanos decided he'd rather have a downtown palace to rival the Inglewood stadium, still butthurt by the owners choosing Kroenke. He went after it and proposed a hotel tax increase, requiring 67% approval. He then spent nothing on advertising or promoting the initiative. He also alienated county voters, as only city residents could vote on it. Many in SD saw this as a bad deal and voted it down (I voted for it because of blind loyalty). The city/county proposal was seen as much more reasonable and achievable. In the end a little over 500k people cast a ballot for the initiative, in a county with 3.3 million.

So when I hear "the people have spoken", that's complete bullshit. Most people that cared never got a chance to speak. Dean knew this initiative would never pass and only did it as an attempt to try to hold on to his fans. Didn't work asshole.

I understand what you're saying, but I have the tendency to believe that he has done some calculations and knows what it will take to remain profitable in the next 30 years. He could be wrong, but the Chargers has been trying to get a new stadium for a really long time. Hasn't it been something like 16 years they have been trying? At what point do you simply say - screw this and move on? It's a business and if you support football games, then you are giving your money to the business. I personally don't like down-town San Diego and I personally consider the fan base to be from Fallbrook down to San Ysidro and possibly as far north as Temecula with the fans if they marketed it correctly, but the only way it's going to happen is for the team to leave. Then some one is going to invest and do what they are doing in Inglewood. I've been in business all my adult life and found that the only way to succeed was to walk away from certain deals and start over somewhere else. It's brutal, but sometimes the only way

 

[Vitamike]

And do you know why the Rams went to Anaheim?

I do...

They moved from the Coliseum to Anaheim because the team sucked and people stopped going. Every game was blacked out and they thought by downsizing the stadium and not having to sell 90k tickets they could pack the stadium again. It didn't work.

Wrong!

Sorry but saying the Rams sucked is just no where near the truth.

In the 7 years prior to moving to Anaheim in the 1980 Season, the Rams were actually dominate!

• 1979 Super Bowl Season.
• 1974-1979 (5) Championship Games.
• 1973-1979 (7) Straight Playoff Appearances
• 1973-1979 (7) Straight NFC West Division Titles
• Overall record of 75-26-1.

As I recall the Rams led the league in NFL attendances many years straight, but you are correct about the 72 hour blackout rule. Even though the Rams had set NFL attendance records, 92K seating at the LA Coliseum was tough for the NFL in the 1970's.

That would be tough to fill even with today's NFL popularity, and were talking ~40 years later!

 

[Center Ice]

Agree with this 100%, IMO it should be a 50/50 venture where the sports franchise gets to play rent free but the rest of the year it is for city use where they can collect a huge amount of revenue and not having to burden the taxpayers by raising taxes to make the city a first class city.

I agree with keeping the taxpayers whole in this but with the team getting to use the stadium ony 8 times a year (home games) and the city getting to use it the rest of the time, the investment is disproportionate as the city has waaaaaaaaaay more opportunities to earn their money back faster.

 

[True Lakers Fan]

Whether you agree or disagree, the people of SD decided they did not want to take on $1 billion plus in debt or allocate hotel tax revenue towards building a stadium for the team to play in. I'm not exactly sure how that would work if the team were publicly owned, but I get the sense that it would still come down to a vote of some type to get funding.

Otherwise you'd have a small group of people (say a city council) making a decision to spend that money.

I don't blame SD for saying no, but without knowing all the details of why the stadium measure failed, I don't feel sorry for them either..

It's not just the one time they couldn't get a deal through - they needed a new stadium 20 years ago and still haven't gotten it together. There is a time for a successful business to move on. That's what contractors do sometimes. They change locations and their business names so that people who has sued the shit out of them won't know who they are and follow them with bad reviews

 

[True Lakers Fan]

If the Chargers are good, then it could happen. The Rams' crowd support at the end of the season was bad and that was after years and years without a team. Besides, LA already has all those pro teams you listed and both UCLA and USC football/basketball. Whether or not fans choose to support the Chargers or not, they definitely don't need or deserve another team.

I don't support the Chargers coming to Inglewood or Los Angeles just for the record and would rather see them make a deal to stay in San Diego. I do like San Diego as an area and feel for the fans. I would love to see the Clippers go back to San Diego for the same reason. I just think it's silly for their to be two teams in the same town.

 

[Vitamike]

The city proposed rebuilding on the same site in Mission Valley, and the county committed $150 million on top of $200 million from the city. Just recently SDSU committed $100 million, so there was the potential for $450 million in public money for a 1.2 billion dollar stadium, well in line with what other cities have done (except for LA, who isn't paying a dime for Kroenke's palace). Had this proposal been on the ballot, it would have been a county wide vote, needing only 50% of the vote to pass since there were no tax increases. Many more people outside of the city would have been able to vote, and county polls showed over 50% approval.

I knew about this and thought the Chargers would stay. I have family in Downtown off of 10th. I think you are right about Dean's motives, too bad to. The Chargers belong in SD, moving to LA just doesn't make any sense, now the Raiders on the other had would give the Rams a run for their money!

 

[Vitamike]

The Rams' crowd support at the end of the season was bad and that was after years and years without a team.

Season ticket holder here, I went to 7 games and sold the other two games. No way was I going to the games on Christmas Eve and New Years Day!

The end of the season for me was more about what I've been doing over the last 20 years, and my traditions on those specific Holidays!

 

[boltfan72]

Comparing the Rams attendance this year to what may happen with the Chargers is idiotic. They spent 46 years there. It was seen as a homecoming. It'll be far different with the Chargers.

 

[boltfan72]

I understand what you're saying, but I have the tendency to believe that he has done some calculations and knows what it will take to remain profitable in the next 30 years. He could be wrong, but the Chargers has been trying to get a new stadium for a really long time. Hasn't it been something like 16 years they have been trying? At what point do you simply say - screw this and move on? It's a business and if you support football games, then you are giving your money to the business. I personally don't like down-town San Diego and I personally consider the fan base to be from Fallbrook down to San Ysidro and possibly as far north as Temecula with the fans if they marketed it correctly, but the only way it's going to happen is for the team to leave. Then some one is going to invest and do what they are doing in Inglewood. I've been in business all my adult life and found that the only way to succeed was to walk away from certain deals and start over somewhere else. It's brutal, but sometimes the only way

The Chargers have wanted a stadium for 16 years, and there was some turmoil in city hall for a while there, but if you lived here you'd see that most of the efforts were half assed, and years went by with no effort at all, especially after the 2008 crash. In those 16 years do you know how many ballot initiatives we voted on? That's right, just one. And as I've explained, it was not the best deal on the table and was a city only vote.

 

[Dude]

No, the original deal was that San Diego had one year option to move to Los Angeles and if San Diego declined, then Oakland would be given the permission to move. There will not be three teams. Oakland could move to San Diego though - If they could talk some one into rebuilding that stadium and it's pretty bad. I have worked in San Diego a lot and there have been times when the stadium was under water from rain storms. It needs a major overhaul or to be torn down and rebuilt

Wait a minute there, it rains in San Diego?

 

[True Lakers Fan]

Wait a minute there, it rains in San Diego?

Man, you know it does - lmao.