Chargers Moving to Los Angeles
The talk of the sports world this week revolves around the breaking news that, starting next season, the (former) San Diego Chargers will be calling Los Angeles their new home. As is only natural, this news has been met with mixed reactions. On one hand, Angeleno Charger fans love the fact that their favorite team will be moving to the city, but on the other, the faithful fans that reside in San Diego feel betrayed by their beloved Chargers. As a neutral party, it is easy to set emotions aside in order to better examine the pure logistics of the relocation.
Simply put, it is a bad decision to relocate the Chargers to Los Angeles. Most importantly, the Chargers are going to be faced with the difficult task of gaining popularity and fan support in an already competitive LA sports market. In these terms, collegiate teams, mainly USC, largely dominate football in Los Angeles. The Rams, a team with prior history in LA, quickly realized they would face an uphill battle to combat being overshadowed by collegiate teams when they made the move last season. Add in the facts that the Chargers have no real history in Los Angeles as well as their new stadium having a seating capacity of only 30,000 and one is able to come to the conclusion that the Chargers very well may be the least popular sports team in the city. Interestingly enough, according to USA Today, “The last time the L.A. market had two teams, in 1994, the Raiders and Rams ranked 24th and 28th out of 28 NFL teams in home attendance with 42,000 and 51,000 per game”. This does not spell good news for the Chargers, especially when one considers their recent performance on the field.
A simple chain of circumstances can better illustrate the problem that the Chargers face: Revenue results from popularity and fan support, popularity and fan support result from on-field success, and the Chargers have not been having on-field success in recent years. After examining this chain, it is fairly clear that the Chargers will struggle both on and off the field in Los Angeles.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chargers/2017/01/12/chargers-los-angeles-move-san-diego-relocation/96505836/
