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

[ToxSocks]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Long

If all that's as you portray it, then the opposite of my statement will soon enough visit the LAC: All business failure is sales-marketing failure but I wouldn't give up without a fight for relevance in spite of what appears a poor business decision to go to LA in the first place.

You mean like free Chargers tattoo day? Gimicky shit like that? They had something like 12 people show up for that and half of them were from San Diego

[ChiefsCountry]

NFL isn't done yet giving a **** you to the Chargers. Wait till the Raiders will play their final season before going to Las Vegas in San Diego.

[O.city]

They should have stayed in sd. It was ****ing blatantly obvious to everyone.

I wonder if Little Rock could work? It'd be a tiny market and they're not about that so probably not.

The more this shit plays out the more I think Mark Cuban was right about the NFL

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Long

If all that's as you portray it, then the opposite of my statement will soon enough visit the LAC: All business failure is sales-marketing failure but I wouldn't give up without a fight for relevance in spite of what appears a poor business decision to go to LA in the first place.

Have you ever been to Los Angeles?

Do you realize that it can take HOURS to travel short distances?

People aren't rushing out to meet NFL players on a historically shitty football team with zero ties to the area.

The Lakers, Clippers, USC Trojans, UCLA Bruins and Dodgers own this town.

The Chargers are an unwelcome entity.

[Reerun_KC]

Hartford Connecticut
Richmond Virginia




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[O.city]

If I were a billionaire and the opportunity arose, I'd buy the chargers and move them to stl. Stl is itching to stick it to Kroenke and show him up about leaving so if you could put a decent product out there, it'd go over.

Only problem is the market size

[notorious]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

{facepalm}

That they do, sir. That they do. But hey - they get pretty good crowds right! So see, I've been proven right already!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll kindly go kick my own ass.

And they've been to two Super Bowls the last 15 years.


Sigh.

[notorious]

Mexico City.


That is the only city other than SD that can draw enough people.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by O.city

If I were a billionaire and the opportunity arose, I'd buy the chargers and move them to stl. Stl is itching to stick it to Kroenke and show him up about leaving so if you could put a decent product out there, it'd go over.

Only problem is the market size

St. Louis market size is fine. Saints are a team that will be in play in the near future.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by SuperChief

What about Omaha? I know, I know, low population, blah blah. But there's a LOT of money in that town and a ton of football passion in the surrounding area. Would be interesting.

The loyalties of most NFL fans here already lie elsewhere, plus they would be competing with the Huskers, plus the taxpayers here wouldn't be willing to foot the bill for stadium since we are already paying for the $130M atrocity that Mike Fahey foisted onto us that is only used 2 weeks a year.

[InChiefsHeaven]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

The loyalties of most NFL fans here already lie elsewhere, plus they would be competing with the Huskers, plus the taxpayers here wouldn't be willing to foot the bill for stadium since we are already paying for the $130M atrocity that Mike Fahey foisted onto us that is only used 2 weeks a year.

Indeed. It's already been proven that the UFL couldn't survive here, no way an NFL team could with all the requirements that would come along with it. If you live in Omaha, you watch college, specifically the Huskers. Friday nights are dedicated to HS football. Ain't no room for a NFL team, we just aren't big enough.

That UFL deal was done so stupidly, I still think it could have worked but the owners were dumb as hell.

[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.

[Barret]

Originally Posted by notorious

Mexico City.


That is the only city other than SD that can draw enough people.

This!!

They are still in a North American time zone and they are not that far away to fly to. It puts a check mark in the "We need to go international" check box.

For some reason, the NFL keeps trying to get into Europe just like they think LA wants a team. How is NFL Europe working out? Oh wait that tanked in 2008.

Mexico City has a stadium named Azteca that will seat 87,000 people. Currently it is a soccer stadium but still if you can make in roads into Mexico with a rabid fan base wouldn't that excitement spread to the rest of Latin America? 10 to 15 years have an NFL North America and NFL South America.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by Barret

This!!

They are still in a North American time zone and they are not that far away to fly to. It puts a check mark in the "We need to go international" check box.

For some reason, the NFL keeps trying to get into Europe just like they think LA wants a team. How is NFL Europe working out? Oh wait that tanked in 2008.

Mexico City has a stadium named Azteca that will seat 87,000 people. Currently it is a soccer stadium but still if you can make in roads into Mexico with a rabid fan base wouldn't that excitement spread to the rest of Latin America? 10 to 15 years have an NFL North America and NFL South America.

Rename them the "shakin quakes."



Ooops, too soon?

[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?