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With the exuberance of a come-from-behind win over the top ranked Kansas City Chiefs, the Los Angeles Chargers are feeling great right now. Their faith in their players has been rewarded with one of the greatest games of the 2018 season. Even if the 2 point conversion at the end of the game wasn’t converted, it would have been a game worth remembering for ages.
Speaking of ages, it seems like ages ago that the Chargers were simply fighting for their viability to play for and in Los Angeles, but the debate that roiled the franchise was only two months removed. The Chargers have changed their 2018 narrative, and in stupendous fashion.
On the heels of this incredible victory, a story has been released that will certainly affect the Chargers in 2019 (and many other teams as well): StubHub Center will be renamed in 2019 to Dignity Health Sports Park, according to AEG (the owners of the stadium).
Name changes are not terribly uncommon, but this change does come as a surprise to most, because StubHub has certainly received their money’s worth when the NFL unexpectedly came to town in 2017.
@StubHubCenter to become Dignity Health Sports Park in 2019: https://t.co/ItJunfK7AI pic.twitter.com/2DP9UiIE1k
— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) December 13, 2018
The Carson complex, which opened in 2003, was called the Home Depot Center until 2013, when a deal with the home-improvement chain expired. It then signed a shorter, six-year pact with StubHub, the online ticket exchange company owned by eBay. Evidently StubHub and AEG were unable to reach a new agreement, so the San Francisco-based healthcare conglomerate happily stepped in.
Terms of the Dignity Health deal were not disclosed, though other teams have made big bucks from their stadium naming-rights deals. More than a year before playing its first league match, LA Football Club inked a 15-year, $100-million stadium naming-rights deal with Orange County lender Banc of California. It would be reasonable to assume that this new deal is not for 15 years, but probably hovers around a similar annual cost of $6.6 million.
Either way, in 2019, the Chargers will have to get used to playing in Dignity Health Sports Park before they move to Inglewood Stadium in 2020. There is a good chance that that stadium, too, has a new name by that point.
-Jason “You clicked it and you liked it. Don’t lie” Michaels