Hey, La La Land, what’s going on?
It may already be time to wonder if the NFL made a big mistake by putting two teams in Los Angeles
It took more than two decades for the National Football League to make its return to Los Angeles. The league’s explanation during much of that time was that it wanted to make certain that when it did go back to L.A., it did things in the right way to ensure lasting success there.
It took all of two weekends into the first season with two franchises back in the L.A. market to make it fair to wonder if the league’s decision to permit the Chargers to join the Rams in Los Angeles was misguided.
“No one is covering what a massive mistake that the league and Chargers have made by moving this team to LA,” Joe Banner, a former executive for the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns, wrote this week on Twitter.
The concerns bubbled to the surface after the Chargers drew a crowd of just 25,381 to the Stub-Hub Center in Carson, Calif., for last Sunday’s loss to the Miami Dolphins in their home opener. It’s one thing to play in a tiny, 27,000seat temporary home. It’s another thing to fail to fill it.
The Rams drew 56,612 to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for their defeat last Sunday to the Washington Redskins. That made for a combined attendance of 81,993 for the two NFL franchises in Los Angeles last weekend. The USC-Texas game last Saturday at the Coliseum drew 84,714.
“Did we do the wrong thing with the Chargers? It’s probably way too early to say that,” a highranking executive with one NFL team said. “Let’s see how it plays out. Let’s see how they both do when they get into the new stadium. But I guess it does make you start to think a little bit.”
The league likewise is taking a long-term view.
“They knew going in this wasn’t a one-game or one-year solution where they could turn a light on and get the support they expect to get moving toward the opening of the new [stadium],” Joe Lockhart, the NFL’s executive vice-president of communications and public affairs, said during a conference call with reporters this week. “We remain confident the city of Los Angeles can support two franchises and committed toward making that happen.”
The $2.6-billion stadium the Rams and Chargers will share in Inglewood, Calif., is scheduled to open in 2020 after its unveiling was pushed back by a year due to weather-related construction delays. It is clear that in the meantime, the Rams and Chargers have work to do.
The owners voted in January 2016 to allow the Rams to move from St. Louis to L.A. and gave the Chargers the option to join them. Some within the sport viewed that option was granted as a consolation prize to Dean Spanos, the chair of the Chargers, by owners who respected Spanos but preferred the Inglewood stadium proposal by Rams owner Stan Kroenke to the Carson project put forth by the Chargers and Oakland Raiders. The Chargers exercised their L.A. option in January of this year after failing to secure public funding for a new stadium in San Diego.
But was the NFL simply leaving San Diego because it could not secure a stadium solution there, rather than putting a second team in Los Angeles because it actually believed that was a good idea? It’s an interesting question. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, told the Dan Patrick Show this month that he would have been fine with the Chargers remaining in San Diego and the Rams being the lone L.A. franchise.
“We embrace any team that comes,” Garcetti said in that radio interview. “We’re certainly happy to have the Chargers in L.A. But I think we could have been happy with just one (team), too.”
The Chargers have another chance this Sunday when they host the Kansas City Chiefs at StubHub. The biggest number to come out of that game won’t be quarterback Philip Rivers’s passing yardage or pass rusher Joey Bosa’s sack total. It will be the attendance figure.
“We know going into this new market, it’s going to take time to really authentically ingratiate yourself,” John Spanos, the Chargers’ president of football operations and a son of Dean Spanos, said in training camp this summer. “It’s something that’s going to take time. And that’s something that we plan to do. And we also know that in an L.A. market, nothing’s ever given to you.
“We don’t show up expecting a red carpet, expecting anything to be given to us. We know that anything we gain, we have to earn. And so that’s our approach. We have to work hard and earn the community’s respect and earn their trust, and we look forward to doing that.”