Can the NFL Survive in Los Angeles?

And it pains me to say this, it would be a lot better for if the relocated team was the Chargers. As the only team in SoCal, there’s already tons of fans in LA. You can count those fans in to buy tickets. Of course, you also can count in the many corporate tickets and tickets from general NFL fans. And also, eventhough a lot of San Diego fans will be jilted and swear off the franchise forever, a good amount will remain loyal and stick with the team if they make the move north.

You won’t get the same level of support from any other team.

I went to some Chargers games and they seem to attract the trash of SD.

Clearly he never went to any Raider games at the Colosseum.

We already have two big college teams and the NFL brings nothing to the table.

Except for being the most popular sporting league in the country.

As an LA native, I will admit it: its a town full of bandwagon jumpers. Yes, there are plenty of hardcore fans, but just like most towns (San Diego included) interest and attendance swell when the team is doing well. This is true of the Dodgers, Lakers, Kings, Bruins and Trojans.

If an NFL team, including the Chargers, got a brand new stadium in LA and put out at least a decently competitive product, people will come. The Stadium will sell out the necessary 10 times a year, people will watch on TV (mostly by default, since every game will be broadcast locally), and they’ll buy enough stuff to make it worthwhile for the team. Throw in some playoff runs or a Super Bowl and they would be the toast of the town. Simple human nature.

First, this is my initial post on BFTB and if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I love the site.

I live in Maryland but grew up in SD before moving for college and staying here afterward. I can say for a fact that Maryland can pull down 50k when they are doing well, but they will NEVER be a big time college team because you have the Redskins and Ravens in the backyard. If its not the Skins or Ravens, the support is fickle for my Terps, at best.

So its a very good point that the storied teams of USC and UCLA would certainly at least pull some “base” support from the NFL. By “base” I mean the people who are passionate enough to attend a live football game (a demo that is waning every season, thank you HD). They are not going to plunk down season tickets for both Saturday and Sunday. I’m talking about the chumps like you and me who are going to sit in the upper deck to cheer on the team from the thin air. Remember, no sell out, no TV. This isn’t the price of a hockey/basketball/baseball game. The NFL taint a cheap ticket, folks. They’ve only got 10 games to rake in gate, not 41 or 82.

Yeah, you’ll have corporate boxes and suites and the like, but I guess it will be a franchise that is dead from the inside. Maybe that’s business as usual for a city with the Dodgers, Clippers, Duck and Kings.

I’m going to be so bitter when this happens.

One that I doubt that the NFL is asking themselves in their rush to get into the second largest media market in the United States.

My guess would be that attendance would likely be a constant problem for any NFL team in the LA area, but with proper marketing they could still make a fortune on corporate sponsorships, suite sales, and retail sales of licensed apparel.

Get the local populace to identify with the team and, more importantly, the brand, and revenue will not be an issue.

And may I digress just long enough to say that this is not the first time I have heard/read the comment from an LA native that there is less to do in SD than there is in LA, and each time I hear/see it I want to break something. It is so clearly some half-assed way of covering for their own laziness or agoraphobia that I just want to grab them and shake some damn sense into them!

I went to college in LA, and I can’t think of one recreational activity I did there that couldn’t be replicated in some manner in San Diego.

Seriously grinds my gears.

i like what i hear

Come one, the Lakers are by far the most popular team in LA. Not even close.

The thing about the distance issue is a little moot in LA, I think. I was a student at UCLA, and I went to exactly ONE home game at the Rose Bowl. Why only one? Because it took THREE HOURS in traffic to get there! From UCLA to the “home stadium.”

My point: the 20 minutes of proximity isn’t really that close. 15 minutes of LA driving could be done in 5 minutes in SD. The closeness of the franchises won’t matter so much.

Does that mean LA will care… I don’t know. I’ve lived her for 5 years, and I’ve only met as many fellow charger fans as I can count on ONE hand.

Is a big mistake all the way around. I don’t post here as often as I’d wish to, so if this has been brought up already I apologize, but Los Angeles was and still largely is a Raiders town and people continue to neglect that. It’d be a shame to move the Chargers to Los Angeles and have them be the second team in town in their own league as well. The fact that they play the Raiders twice a year and the Raiders are sworn rivals as it is doesn’t help matters either.

That’s just one thing. The whole idea that the league needs Los Angeles is stupid regardless. I think the media wants this more than the citizens of Los Angeles do and it’s a shame they’re willing to take a team from a fan base to do it. They had two teams and failed to support either sufficiently. Why do they think it would be different now?

I hate it.

also the comments by everyone are good points and you can really see that it will be a controversial couple of years to come with the LA stadium issue. Are the SD Chargers good for that city? Will they get the support needed to compete with both UCLA & USC? Will the already there Raider fanbase reject (immediately) a Charger team it knows entirely as a rival?

If only we knew.This situation really has me feeling sick about my team.I hope they don’t move,let alone move to a city where it might and has the possibility to fail.What will happen to our city as well? I know a lot of ppl who have said that if the team moves to LA they will stop rooting for them period,no matter how much it hurts. I’m talking about real hard core fans,that’s how much animosity there is between SD and LA. We have ourselves quite a dilemma folks.