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Eugene Baker III
"Oh a stitch in time, just about saved me..."
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The Chargers Are a Case Study in Whether an NFL Team Needs Fans
What if it works? What if the Chargers never develop an enduring fan base, but still prove profitable? What if brokers can break even by selling pricey tickets to out-of-towners? What if corporations in Los Angeles are willing to purchase expensive luxury boxes for not just one, but two NFL teams? What if the hyper-expensive ticket prices negate the lack of revenue from concessions? What if an NFL team that lacks fans isn’t the premise of a Ponzi scheme, but rather a functional way to generate revenue?
We’ve long known that team owners will prey on our love. We invest our feelings into their teams. We turn sports into a proxy for all the emotions that we can’t unleash in our daily lives. And then the owners tell us that our love is not good enough unless it is coupled with money. They find the price we’ll pay to maintain this crucial part of our identity and routinely raise it by threatening to leave for fans with deeper pockets.
But the Chargers didn’t exchange its existing fans for wealthier ones. They traded San Diego’s love and support for a heaping pile of cash.
We desperately want this endeavor to fail. Two weeks ago a reporter said that the league might consider sending the team back to San Diego, and the story turned into a full-blown rumor that the Chargers-in-L.A. experiment could be ending. The NFL has now flatly denied that rumor, but we hoped that it was real. Part of this was because we wanted to laugh at billionaires immediately realizing that their dumb decision had backfired. And part of it was because we find the notion that a team catering to nobody could be part of the plan hard to stomach.
We’ve long presumed that fans are the lifeblood of a team. But fans can be pesky, yelling, booing, and calling into radio shows to demand changes that team owners don’t want to make. If a franchise proves profitable without having a sizable fan base, it’d represent a way for owners to cash in without dealing with the endearingly human problems that fans frequently cause.
And so the Chargers are the NFL’s post-fan experiment. What’s happening in Los Angeles is more than just an opportunity to make jokes about a consistently empty stadium. It’s a battle for the soul of sports
What if it works? What if the Chargers never develop an enduring fan base, but still prove profitable? What if brokers can break even by selling pricey tickets to out-of-towners? What if corporations in Los Angeles are willing to purchase expensive luxury boxes for not just one, but two NFL teams? What if the hyper-expensive ticket prices negate the lack of revenue from concessions? What if an NFL team that lacks fans isn’t the premise of a Ponzi scheme, but rather a functional way to generate revenue?
We’ve long known that team owners will prey on our love. We invest our feelings into their teams. We turn sports into a proxy for all the emotions that we can’t unleash in our daily lives. And then the owners tell us that our love is not good enough unless it is coupled with money. They find the price we’ll pay to maintain this crucial part of our identity and routinely raise it by threatening to leave for fans with deeper pockets.
But the Chargers didn’t exchange its existing fans for wealthier ones. They traded San Diego’s love and support for a heaping pile of cash.
We desperately want this endeavor to fail. Two weeks ago a reporter said that the league might consider sending the team back to San Diego, and the story turned into a full-blown rumor that the Chargers-in-L.A. experiment could be ending. The NFL has now flatly denied that rumor, but we hoped that it was real. Part of this was because we wanted to laugh at billionaires immediately realizing that their dumb decision had backfired. And part of it was because we find the notion that a team catering to nobody could be part of the plan hard to stomach.
We’ve long presumed that fans are the lifeblood of a team. But fans can be pesky, yelling, booing, and calling into radio shows to demand changes that team owners don’t want to make. If a franchise proves profitable without having a sizable fan base, it’d represent a way for owners to cash in without dealing with the endearingly human problems that fans frequently cause.
And so the Chargers are the NFL’s post-fan experiment. What’s happening in Los Angeles is more than just an opportunity to make jokes about a consistently empty stadium. It’s a battle for the soul of sports
