Going, yes. But are the Chargers gone for good?
Probably, sure, duh. And yet, I’m still not quite convinced they won’t be back someday, if only behind the scenes to kick on tires, even if they in fact go to Carson and play a season or two there.
And, to a greater degree, I’m not quite convinced the Chargers will spend many seasons in the Kroenke Dome that’s to open in 2019.
What’s more, I’m not entirely sold they’ll play even a single game on the stupid fake grass that the dopey NFL will unveil in this go-around in L.A.
The whole Los Angeles Chargers shtick still appears a bit forced.
For all of the public displays of I Love L.A. that Team Spanos inflicted on San Diego on Thursday, the lovefest had the sterile feel of corporate stagecraft, like someone’s insisting that two plus two equal five.
There’s still an underlying status quo, I say, that argues against a long-term Chargers-L.A. marriage. Los Angeles doesn’t want the Chargers. And the NFL doesn’t want the Chargers in Los Angeles. I am convinced the NFL actually wanted them in San Diego.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke, to whom the League is indebted, is better off with the the Chargers elsewhere as he tries to rebuild the L.A.-centric Rams brand.
And, people familiar with the thinking of the Spanoses insist that the family has viewed Inglewood as anything but a garden spot.
So, while the L.A. lodging does provide the Spanoses stability, what more-attractive end game could emerge?
Orange County, possibly.
Anaheim is said to intrigue Chargers thinkers, who, as the Stadium Game has unfolded in recent years, seemingly spoon-fed stories to the Orange County Register. And, Anaheim now may be more of a potential destination, someday, than when the Chargers were contractually bound to San Diego, strange as that may seem.
It’s fuzzy how the NFL divvies up marketing rights in the Southern California region, but by acquiring and exercising the L.A. option, the Spanoses are said to have improved their leverage in Orange County, vis a vis Kroenke.
Also, Team Spanos has a potential O.C. ace up its sleeve in Bob Iger, the Disney CEO with whom Owner-Chairman Dean Spanos partnered on the Carson plan that lost out to Kroenke’s far more expensive bid for Inglewood.
Powerful guy, Bob Iger, and not only because he’s the rare California bigwig whose admirers include President Donald Trump.
A Chargers-Disney collaboration on a stadium in Orange County, though not now, could make sense, though the NFL would have to facilitate it. It’s seen as a not-crazy scenario among some who understand how the ever-shifting Stadium Game works.
San Diegans, unlike the mooks from afar who tell me it’s no big thing to go to Inglewood to see the Bolts, understand that San Diego is distinct in outlook and sensibility from Los Angeles and Orange County, but if the entire Southern California region is viewed as one economic pie for carving up, it makes more sense for an NFL team to dwell in or near Orange County, in effect ceding L.A. to the Rams, than to have two teams in Inglewood.
Of course, being in Orange County didn’t work out so well for the Rams, who had stadium issues of their own and took a sweetheart deal to go to St. Louis.
Difference now is, there are two, not three NFL teams in Southern California.
It was slimey for Spanos to exit San Diego in the fashion that he did, but so long as all cash is green, there’s reason to believe neither he nor the NFL is writing off the whole San Diego market.
Remember, it’s a market that Kroenke, in his relocation paper, ranked 12th in appeal in the 32-team NFL.
Would the Anaheim Chargers rekindle patronage of Chargers fans who’ve sworn off Team Spanos? Wouldn’t the Bolts fans who will still watch the telecasts, or even go to Carson, be somewhat piqued by the less tedious commute to Anaheim?
Or, how about something farther south in this potential O.C-San Diego, regional play? Say, Escondido or an Inland Empire property where land may be cheaper and the red tape thinner?
Interesting times are ahead when the legal teams of Kroenke and Spanos pursue their agendas on how to build their team brands within the same region.
And, without raising false hope (or is it dread?) of a potential return to San Diego, where the “good riddance” tone can be felt through even the best noise-cancelling headphones the NFL and Spanoses wear, it’s only logical that at some point before 2019 that feelers are sent out regarding, yep, getting a Chargers stadium built in downtown San Diego. Feelers, mind you.
Stranger things, my friends. The L.A. card had to be played in this goon sport. Now it has.
I, for one, would’ve preferred that Spanos had fallen in love with the idea of building a 45,000-seat stadium in either the East Village or Mission Valley.
That would take creative thinking and salesmanship — not strong suits of Team Spanos judging by its drab 32-year performance in San Diego — but an intimate venue of that scope, along with turning Chargers tickets into a hot property, would cut the construction cost by at least 30 percent off the 65,000-seat proposal the team planned, however disingenuously, for the East Village.
That’s a lot less money, and, unlike the bloated, imperiously presented project the team proposed, more in line with San Diego’s economic limitations.
Spanos, who is far more Mr. Magoo than Mark Cuban, can’t be accused of having strong entrepreneurial and charismatic qualities.
He doesn’t bring to mind the can-do savvy of John Moores and Larry Lucchino, the former a software tycoon from humble beginnings, the latter a sharp sports exec who owned Super Bowl and World Series bling when he alighted on San Diego.
Together, the two former Padres bosses, abetted by the 1998 World Series run, persuaded San Diegans to pledge $300 million toward a new ballpark.
However, be it Spanos or his stadium-chess captain Mark Fabiani, who, in getting the Chargers out of their San Diego stadium lease, understood how to meet NFL bylaws that require demonstrating an “exhaustive” (if phony) attempt to remain in the home market, the Chargers have positioned themselves to cultivate Orange County, which, probably not coincidentally, is also home to the team’s planned headquarters.
Of course, the biggest piece would be a stadium, built if not near Mickey Mouse and friends, any number of miles to the south.
So, this may not be entirely over. And, yes, this is all tiresome.
It cannot be said enough that the Stadium Game is a nasty business, played by billionaires who are sheltered by anti-trust exemption and appear out of touch with thousands of fans who, if my Twitter feed and e-mail inbox are representative, would gleefully send the Spanoses and their stadium operatives, one and all, north not to just L.A., but on to the North Pole.
Wearing only flip flops and shorts.
Tom.Krasovic@SDUnionTribune.com; Twitter: SDUTKrasovic
