NFL leaves San Diego as L.A. adds 2nd team
LOS ANGELES — The Chargers are leaving San Diego for Los Angeles, owner Dean Spanos announced Thursday in a letter on the team's website.
“After much deliberation, I have made the decision to relocate the Chargers to Los Angeles beginning with the 2017 season,” Spanos wrote. “San Diego has been our home for 56 years. It will always be a part of our identity, and my family and I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the support and passion our fans have shared for us over the years.
“But today, we turn the page and begin an exciting new era as the Los Angeles Chargers.’’
Spanos did not need approval from league owners to move.
After the NFL's twodecade absence from L.A., the league took the unprecedented step of allowing the Chargers and Rams to return to the nation's second-largest market in the space of a year. Though NFL owners have remained adamant in public that L.A. can support two teams, some have expressed reservations in private about how enthusiastically the city will embrace two franchises that have struggled on the field in recent years.
The decision comes a day after the NFL extended a Jan. 15 deadline for the Chargers to exercise their option to relocate to L.A. by two days.
Spanos informed NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and several owners Wednesday of his plan to move the team, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
Out of deference to the league, Spanos waited until the NFL's finance and stadium committees finished meeting Wednesday at league headquarters in New York to make a final assessment of his options, the person said.
When no last-ditch effort by the NFL to persuade Spanos to remain in San Diego materialized from that meeting, the owner moved forward, the source said.
The drawn-out decision-making has tested the patience of NFL owners and agonized a San Diego fan base that has cheered the team since its arrival from Los Angeles in 1961.
“Relocation is painful for teams and communities,’’ Goodell said in a statement. “It is especially painful for fans, and the fans in San Diego have given the Chargers strong and loyal support for more than 50 years, which makes it even more disappointing that we could not solve the stadium issue.’’
The Chargers, who will owe a $650 million relocation fee to be split among the NFL’s other owners, unsuccessfully sought a new stadium in and around San Diego for the last dec- ade and a half. They wanted to replace the aging Qualcomm Stadium, built in 1967 and widely considered one of the NFL's worst venues, but a series of proposals failed for reasons that included the city's fiscal crisis, lack of political support, site issues and little appetite for public financing.
A November ballot initiative on a combined stadium and convention center in San Diego received a 43 percent favorable vote, when two -thirds was needed to proceed.
The Chargers’ decision to move 120 miles north allows the Rams to start selling personal seat licenses, suites and naming rights for owner Stan Kroenke's $2.6 billion stadium at the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack. The Chargers, who will pay $1 a year as a tenant, will help finance the project with a $200 million NFL loan and the proceeds from sales of personal seat licenses.
Until the stadium is complete, the Chargers will play at the 30,000-seat StubHub Center in Carson, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer.