(Part 2 of a 2-blog series)
"If at the end of 2011 there's no support for a (stadium) financing plan from (San Diego) city leaders, obviously at that point we'd have to look at other options... We can't control what goes on in L.A... We're going to be one of the two or three teams that will be part of this story." With that statement in the books, Chargers spokesman Mark Fabiani has effectively sent a collective chill down the spine of Chargers faithful across San Diego County. The alarm has been sounded and a move to L.A. may soon be inevitable.
Sorry SD Chargers fans but 2011 is shaping up to be the make-or-break year to keep the Bolts from... well... bolting to another city. And no other city is licking their chops more than Los Angeles, who is keeping a close eye on stadium developments from their neighbors to the south.
OK, OK so in my last blog I made a case as to why the Chargers must remain a San Diego asset and I am sticking to those points. But reality is reality and the fact is that the Chargers have been looking for a new stadium in San Diego since 2002. As it now stands, the Bolts can give notice as early as this upcoming February 2012 of their intentions to move to another city and they will have legal, contractual ground in doing so. So what if the moving trucks do, in fact, begin to pull into Qualcomm Stadium after this season? I am going on record as saying I would much rather the team move to Los Angeles than any other city. And believe me, Las Vegas, and San Antonio are cities which have already expressed interest in acquiring the Super Chargers. But let's ponder this for a second... a move 2 hours north on interstate 5 to L.A., or a 4 hour flight to Texas? Duhhh, it's a no-brainer folks! But if it's concrete reasons you want as to why the team must move to L.A., then it's concrete reasons you will get. Let's begin shall we?
STADIUMS, STADIUMS EVERYWHERE!
While the Chargers and San Diego grapple on finding an economically-feasible stadium solution in the 619, Los Angeles offers two very attractive locales with each site housing a billionaire investor ready to cough up the necessary hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to get a state-of-the-art stadium up and running. One location is in the City of industry which is about a 25-minute drive east (with no traffic of course!) of downtown L.A. and the other site is within walking distance of the Staples Center (see the artistic rendering above). But for the sake of saving time let's focus on the downtown L.A. site.
Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) has recently announced plans to build a state-of-the-art $750-million stadium adjacent to the Staples Center, and the company has already worked out a naming-rights deal with Farmers Insurance Group. The stadium, Farmers Field, would open it's doors by the 2016 NFL season and has the potential of becoming a regular part of the NFL Super Bowl rotation. This would be HUGE for Los Angeles, which has been without an NFL team since 1994 when the Raiders and Rams moved shop to Oakland and St Louis, respectively. The Bolts want a stadium and their efforts in San Diego are about to run dry. With artists renderings like the pictures above, what team wouldn't be enticed to move to America's 2nd largest media market?
THE CHARGERS/ LOS ANGELES CONNECTION
Even though the Chargers spent just one season in L.A. (their inaugural year of 1960), they have a much more profound connection to the area than meets the eye. The year was 1959 and their owner Barron Hilton, Paris Hilton's grandfather, conducted a "name-the-team" contest in Los Angeles and a man from Hollywood was declared the winner after coming up with the name Chargers. Soon after completing their first season at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the team moved to San Diego in 1961 and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Chargers-L.A. connection does not end there, however. In a move that was seen as the first major precursor to the team's potential ambition of moving north, the Bolts hired a major Los Angeles marketing firm in January 2009, Wasserman Media Group, to begin marketing the team in LA and Orange Counties. This news, of course, made massive headlines in San Diego and Chargers fans there began to speculate on what the team's true intentions were. But the marketing is no doubt paying off. Every year I see an increasing amount of lightning bolts decorating the backs of various vehicles zooming across LA's numerous freeways, and even CBS 2 Los Angeles has made the Chargers their official home team by broadcasting them over any other team... even over the Raiders. Were (are) the Chargers setting up their relocation efforts by cultivating fan interest in LA? The Bolts, of course, will never give a straight answer on this but if the team does depart San Diego there clearly is no better option than Los Angeles. Raiders fans, though, may pose a potentially embarrassing problem.
L.A. FANS ARE HUNGRY FOR SOME FOOTBALL
It has been 17 long years since a professional football game was played under the bright lights of America's second largest city (and no, the XFL does NOT count). This translates to an entire generation of youth in Los Angeles that has grown up without an NFL home-team. This, of course, means fans here are ripe for the taking and the Chargers can seize the opportunity of exponentially increasing their fan-base by moving here. There is one obstacle the team would have to deal with... L.A.'s Raider Nation. To the groans of many, Los Angeles is still very much apart of it. And while I have witnessed an ever-increasing amount of Chargers fans at various sports bars, from West Hollywood to Montebello, we Bolts faithful are still outnumbered a million to 1 by the Silver and Black fanatics. How will Raider fans in L.A. respond to an arch-rival team moving in to their territory? Will they cross over or will they continue to stand by a team who abandoned them for the Bay Area? This should be very interesting to watch.
Although this would be a minor hurdle for the team, it should not be a deal-breaker for a potential move to L.A. Los Angelinos want some football and for the most part will embrace any team who decides to break the "Curse of Al Davis" by moving here. If the Chargers are unable to find a stadium solution with San Diego officials then we may be seeing Philip Rivers throw touchdown passes in downtown L.A. before we know it. The time for an NFL team to 'run L.A.' is upon us but will that team be the Bolts? We may have an answer this upcoming February 2012.
-Antonio X. Garcia
"We Run L.A."- Ya Boy and Dr. Hollywood
