The Chargers will have a new home in 2017: The franchise could announce as early as Thursday that it’s moving from San Diego to Los Angeles, reports ESPN’s Adam Schefter (Twitter link). In doing so, the Chargers will end their 55-year run in San Diego and join the Stan Kroenke-led Rams, who departed St. Louis for LA last winter.
The Chargers and Rams agreed in principle to a deal last January to share a stadium in Inglewood, which is currently under construction and set to open in 2019. Chargers owner Dean Spanos could have headed to LA then, but he instead kept the franchise in San Diego for 2016 in hopes of working out a new stadium deal there.
Spanos was unable to make anything happen in San Diego, however, as the money the city, the county, the Chargers and the league had combined to commit still fell $175MM short of what a Qualcomm Stadium replacement would have cost. Spanos had until Jan. 17 to strike a deal in San Diego and avoid relocation, but he is abandoning that possibility less than a week before the deadline.
It’s unclear where the Chargers will play the next couple seasons as they wait for the Inglewood facility to open. They could share the Los Angeles Coliseum with the Rams and USC Trojans, though the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., has also come up as a potential stopgap. However, that stadium is only capable of holding 27,000 people. The Chargers called the Coliseum home in 1960, their inaugural season, before relocating to San Diego the next year. That partnership worked out for five and a half decades, but now the Chargers are headed back to where they began.
With the Bolts’ future now known, all eyes will turn to the Raiders, who could also go elsewhere – Las Vegas – by next season. The Raiders were an outside possibility for LA, but that’s now officially off the table. The franchise has until Feb. 15 to file for Vegas relocation, and the league’s 31 other owners could vote on its fate sometime in March.
Wow. Didn’t see LA
Four teams, two biggest markets. The NFL greed machine chugging along.
I guess since the Rams finished second in attendance despite being pretty terrible, the NFL decided it could leave a city larger than Dallas or San Francisco with only one major sports team. Once the novelty of a football team returning to LA wears off, people have got to stop coming to Rams games, right? Eventually, the attendance will be poor for the Rams or Chargers if they can’t win, regardless of location. They’re just alienating thousands of fans for a few years’ worth of extra attendance.
St. Louis has TWO major sports teams now- the Cardinals and the Blues
He was talking about San Diego.
st l is a cow pasture.
The chargers are not welcome. To many raider fans here
You do realize that the chargers were in LA long before the raiders came to town in 1982 right?
Chargers not welcome, Too many raider fans here. GTFO CHARGERS
Dumb…they will have a hard time filling the seats…the Raiders would’ve been the best bet for Los Angeles
Put the chargers in Orange County
Dumb move by Chargers.
Rams are definitely not happy to now be in a deflated market. No one wants to share.
The Rams were already in a deflated market, there are more Raiders fans here anyways
No. Rams reign in LA.
Do you live in LA? The Rams are definitely not the favorite team of this area
Raiders fans about to cry again as their team just cannot find a permanent home. Oakland. Then LA. Then Oakland again. Now Las Vegas? That team alienates everyone lol – no loyalty to fans.
Kind of funny coming from someone who is a Ravens lover after what they did to Cleveland…the Raiders actually have tried very diligently to get a stadium deal done in Oakland, LA and then Oakland again but Al didn’t come from money like most owners, he was a self made man so he couldn’t foot the extra bill
It wasnt nice of the colts to leave over night either
They will be a tenant not a partner.
The ratings for Ram games were higher in St. Louis than in L.A. This is stupid.
Having once lived in San Diego, Charger fans come out in droves – if they’re good. If they’re not, there’s so many other things to do, they don’t. If they really wanted the team, they would’ve found a way. But the majority of fans don’t care enough. Moving up the road 90 miles, they can establish a fan base between San Diego & LA. It’s not as if they’re moving to St. Louis or something…
Have fun in LA Dean Spanos. We want an owner who cares about his fans here in San Diego anyways. You are about to make the Chargers like the Clippers use to be in LA during the team’s Donald Sterling era. And we all know how that ended for him…
With a couple playoff appearances? Just kidding.
Good! Spanos is a joke
From what I’ve read Spanos loves SD and has seemingly tried to get a stadium deal done…when the voters keep shooting it down its kind of hard to make it happen…I wish they would’ve it’s the Raiders city, they should’ve been the ones in LA…by THEMSELVES
The people of San Diego voted no! They are the idiots… I am surrounded.