Photo of Qualcomm Stadium, former home of the San Diego Chargers.

Image Credit: SD Dirk (CC BY 2.0)

Los Angeles, California lost both of it’s NFL teams back in 1994 when the Los Angeles Raiders relocated to Oakland, California and the Los Angeles Rams relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. Both organizations struggled with attendance while playing their home games in Los Angeles. And as it appears, things haven’t changed much in Los Angeles with the return of the Rams and the relocation of the San Diego Chargers.

The Los Angeles Chargers are struggling to sellout the Stubhub Center, a soccer stadium and currently the smallest stadium in the National Football League. The Los Angeles Rams are also drawing poor attendances across town at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. According to NFL reporter Don Banks, the National Football League is already discussing the possibility of sending the Chargers back to San Diego. Would the city welcome Dean Spanos and the Chargers back? Cleveland, Houston and Baltimore all seemed to come back around and support their city’s teams after initially losing them. Dean Spanos, on the other hand, would likely need to sell the team if they were to relocate back to San Diego and were expected to thrive. The Spanos family has zero interest in selling off the Chargers.

I can assure you the players would probably much rather call San Diego home. It’s called America’s finest city for a reason. According to reports, the NFL was never 100% on board with the Chargers leaving San Diego either. However, the city struggled to find the funds needed to build a new stadium for the team. Qualcomm Stadium was one of the oldest stadiums in the National Football League and was clearly showing it’s age. We’re still trying to get over the image of the NFL’s first $2 billion stadium (to be completed in 2020) sitting half empty for Rams and Chargers home games. Current events foreshadow that happening.

Of course, the National Football League is now battling an even bigger problem; the declining attendances across the league as a result of the national anthem protests. Will the league ever recover? It’s hard to freshen spoiled milk.

  

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