If you pop over to the Chargers’ Twitter feed, you’ll see they’ve wasted no time. The San Diego Chargers are no more. The Los Angeles Chargers have returned after a 56-year detour in San Diego. Owner Dean Spanos made it official Thursday morning and the team has already released a new logo on their Twitter page.
Chargers to Relocate to Los Angeles
News Release: https://t.co/mZrHOaG53y pic.twitter.com/9Xrt8rYpmc
— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) January 12, 2017
Rumors began hitting the street Wednesday night that an announcement was coming, giving the NFL some time to try to come up with any way to stop it by throwing cold, hard cash at the Chargers. But, as often happens when Roger Goodell is involved, the NFL failed miserably.
The Chargers are headed about an hour and 44 minutes up the road and will play at the StubHub! Center in Carson for the next two years until Stan Kroenke’s City of Champions Stadium is finished in 2019. They’ll share that stadium with the Los Angeles Rams.
OFFICIAL: @StubHubCenter will serve as the temporary home stadium for the @Chargers: https://t.co/FYf22wUhV3 pic.twitter.com/MHTpVd4HVF
— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) January 12, 2017
So, in the span of a single calendar year Los Angeles went from having no NFL teams to having two NFL teams. And both of them former L.A. teams at that.
Owner Dean Spanos released a stadium at the same time the move was made official.
After much deliberation, I have made the decision to relocate the Chargers to Los Angeles, beginning with the 2017 NFL season.
San Diego has been our home for 56 years. It will always be part of our identity, and my family and I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the support and passion our fans have shared with us over the years.But today, we turn the page and begin an exciting new era as the Los Angeles Chargers.
LA is a remarkable place, and while we played our first season there in 1960 and have had fans there ever since, our entire organization knows that we have a tremendous amount of work to do. We must earn the respect and support of LA football fans. We must get back to winning. And, we must make a meaningful contribution, not just on the field, but off the field as a leader and champion for the community.
The Chargers are determined to fight for LA and we are excited to get started.
The whole situation is strange because Spanos really didn’t want to move to Kroenke’s stadium in Inglewood. After his and Mark Davis’ Carson plans went up in smoke, Spanos really wanted to work it out in San Diego. In the fall, the city government tried to trick the people of San Diego with a ballot measure that would supposedly pay for a new stadium with a hotel room tax increase. The idea was that out of town visitors would pay for the stadium, not taxpayers. The voters of San Diego didn’t fall for it, rejecting the measure 57-43, a good 23 percent below the 66.3 percent of votes it required to pass.
Thankful to our fans, supporters and the city of San Diego for everything my first year. You made it a special first year and place to live!
— Hunter Henry (@Hunter_Henry84) January 12, 2017
So that was a problem. The other issue was the Oakland Raiders, who were right in line to move to Los Angeles with the Rams if the Chargers decided against it this offseason. The Raiders have one foot out the door in Oakland already and are working all the angles to move to Las Vegas. If the Chargers had stumbled here, the Raiders would probably be announcing their move to L.A. today.
With the move, the Chargers can now cash on a whole new set of personal seat licenses that could be worth a clean $800 million. And that’s just for the rights to buy season tickets, not the actual price of the tickets.
Of all the franchise moves and “so-called” angry fan bases left behind, this one should be the least painful. It’s less than a two-hour drive to the team’s new digs and there’s no indication the team will change its nickname or uniforms.
The question I have is how the StubHub! Center is going to work holding NFL games. Its max occupancy is 30,000 fans. The Chargers’ final home game two Sundays ago welcomed 54,915 people. I can understand not sharing the Los Angeles Colosseum with the Rams because the the Rams are already sharing it with USC.
https://twitter.com/show_case29/status/819579146376478720
Regardless of the logistics, this is happening. The Los Angeles Chargers have returned and there’s every chance by the time they host a game in the Inglewood facility in 2019 they’ll be welcoming the Las Vegas Raiders as the visiting team.
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