Chargers Staying Put?

Hope so.

There were two interesting, and contradictory, announcements coming out of southern California on Friday. First, it was announced that the San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Rams had come to an agreement on sharing a proposed mega-stadium in Los Angeles. Rams owner Stan Kroenke is planning to build a monster of an entertainment complex and he's putting a monster of a stadium somewhere inside of that complex. The Chargers apparently agreed to become a tenant. Both teams would share the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum until the monster stadium is built. Second, not long after news of that somewhat expected agreement was released Chargers owner Dean Spanos announced that he was planning on keeping his team in San Diego for the 2016 NFL season and hopes to come to a long term stadium solution in the city. In the span of what seemed like minutes the Chargers went from San Diego Chargers to Los Angeles Chargers back to San Diego Chargers. It was all so "what the what?" It was nutty. It was very confusing.

But it really wasn't.

Dean Spanos has been trying to get a new stadium in San Diego for years. Every NFL owner that doesn't already have one wants a new stadium. Some owners that have a new stadium want a newer stadium. They see it as the only way to compete in today's NFL since so many teams play in these stadium marvels. When Spanos wasn't getting what he wanted in San Diego he saw the opportunity to get what he wanted in Los Angeles. So did the St. Louis Rams. And so did the Oakland Raiders. The funny thing about all three teams trying to get into Los Angeles is that all three were once in Los Angeles. That little bit of trivia means nothing but the fact that the Rams were in Los Angeles for just about a half century means something. It actually means a great deal to me. The Rams were the obvious choice if one of those teams had to move back to Los Angeles. I feel terrible for the fans in St. Louis just like I felt terrible for the fans in Los Angeles when the Rams moved twenty years ago. It's a damn shame but I think that the Rams ticket out of St. Louis was stamped the day that Kroenke bought the team even though he's from there. The Rams have to find a home and stay there. They have moved way too much. So have the Cardinals. Two teams that once called St. Louis home. But that's another story. The story here is southern California and the Chargers place in it.

I feel like I grew up with the Rams in Los Angeles. I did grow up with the Rams in Los Angeles. Just when I got used to them being in St. Louis they are back in Los Angeles. I could understand the NFL need for one team in Los Angeles but I never understood the need for two. If so many teams found that they had to leave the city once before why force two back into it now? Money of course. The NFL was charging each team a $550 million relocation fee. The league would get $1.1 billion if two teams moved. That's probably why the league's relocation committee recommended the joint stadium proposal between the Raiders and Charges in Carson rather than Kroenke's mega-complex in Ingelwood. In the past, this committee of owners carried so much weight that their proposals are usually rubberstamped when voted upon by the rest of the owners. That's why it is was such a shock that Kroenke's proposal was the one that still stood when the dust cleared. The proposal that orignally wasn't chosen. Spanos wasn't happy about it. Neither was Raiders owner Mark Davis. Personally, I never liked the Raiders-Chargers proposal from the start because I didn't like the idea of division foes sharing a stadium. Despite not getting a relocation fee from two teams, Roger Goodell and his suits must still be thrilled with Kroenke in Los Angeles. He has so much cash that he's likely building his ridiculous city of fun out of his own pocket. The league gets this amazing venue on it's stadium roster. And they get this shiny new building in the sun, glitz, and glamour of Los Angeles. And now they might get the Chargers and their relocation fee too. Win. Win. Win! For the league.

But Spanos might not play that way.

Spanos might be getting tired of these stadium defeats. He's been trying and failing to get a new stadium in San Diego for years. Now, his plans for Los Angles that he thought were a done deal were given the boot by his fellow owners. His only option in Los Angeles was to become Kroenke's sad little tenant. It was all enough to make him try again in San Diego. Big football stadiums partially built with public cash are a touchy thing. The public has to decide how much they want an NFL team of their own. If they don't want a football team bad enough to help pay for a stadium they don't get a football team. It's as simple as that. People often bitch about building stadiums for billionaire owners. In reality there are probably only a handful of owners that actually have the cash to build one of these beauties on their own. In my opinion these stadiums should be joint ventures because they are going to be jointly used. An NFL team plays in their stadium, at most, 13 days out of the year. These stadiums are used far more often than that and the city that helped build them benefit from that. I think that the public should chip in because I'm a football fan. I'd rather have a team to support than not have a team to support. I'd pay damn near any tax to keep my team. I'm not willing to pay that tax so much to build a fancy stadium as I'm willing to pay that tax to keep my team. That might be a minority opinion. If it is there's a real good chance that I won't have a home team to call my own. There are a lot of fans in San Diego that feel the same way. Dean Spanos probably hopes that those fans are now greater in numbers. The contradictory announcements on Friday were a power play by Spanos. He has a very real option to move to Los Angeles in a year. An option so real that he actually has an agreement to do so. San Diego has a few months to keep their team. That's an opportunity that they didn't think that they had as late as last Friday.