Chargers, Raiders and Rams all apply for relocation to L.A.

OC Register ^

[Zeneta]

Sad but true.

Not long ago there was this young black guy I worked with that said,”The Cleveland Browns name was racist”. He was dead serious. Dumb as a rock and while I tried to set him straight it took another black guy with a smart phone to reduce the tension.

[TruthWillWin]

Lambs, Traitors, and Bolts. What a mess.

[doug from upland]

Gee, whom do we want? Georgiana expects us to welcome the Rams back after leaving the city with no team. The Chargers basically suck. The Raiders games will bring out gangbanger thugs and not be a place to take the family to the game.

[The Pack Knight]

Bring back the Cleveland Rams!

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Agreed - and of course the Rams rivalry with the 49ers goes back to the old All-American Football Conference of the ‘40s. That’s one that should be kept.

[Falconspeed]

I agree 100%.

Just as Peter Theil wants to build a high-tech stadium for the Giants in San Jose (which got rejected by Giant ownership), so too Sergey Brin from Google could build a sweet stadium for the Raiders in Fremont.

Sadly, the loyal fans to the Chargers, the rowdy fans of the Raiders and the casual fans of the Rams get ignored in the process.

[MinorityRepublican]

Sergey Brin from Google could build a sweet stadium for the Raiders in Fremont.

Not a bad idea, Fremont is still in the "Bay Area".

[Defiant]

I am aware that the Chargers were in LA for the 1960 season the year the AFL started before moving to San Diego for the past 55 seasons. Your point? That LA has a claim on the team? Seriously? The AFL was like Arena League football for the first few years. But they got better, and exposed the NFL’s failure to expand the fan base sufficiently. Pete Rozelle, to his credit, figured that out and made the NFL the national pastime.

[Defiant]

I don't see London or Tokyo working out-- too far to travel. But they seem to want to try it. I do believe that if the league lets the Chargers into LA with another team (Raiders or Rams) they will become the town joke, and no one will go to their games or root for them. You are right, the stadium will be empty. It doesn't help that the team has such lousy management, and the Chargers are not going to be good anytime in the next 4 or 5 years. Too many pieces of the puzzle that have to be added to even get into the playoffs. And Rivers is on the downhill slope, so they don't have time to put together a team he can carry. It will be ugly in LA for them.

It was a shame that Cleveland and Baltimore left. The league does a better job now of controlling the process, but they are not managing the LA market very well. Politics between the owners is dictating who gets to do what, instead of what is best for the product that the league tries to sell.

[Defiant]

I did like the old Baltimore Colts and Cleveland Browns. Sad what was done.

[Falconspeed]

Yes, brilliant plan.

[Defiant]

Those early years of the NFL, it was like MSL is now, or maybe even Arena Football. Major League Lacrosse, perhaps. College football was HUGE, but there was not much interest in watching the best players after college. So the better ones tried to hang on, and a few entrepreneurs put out the dough, and they would set up in a town. Sometimes it worked and a lot of times it didn't. They moved from town to town and tried over.

The 50s were when professional football began to take off. Historians of the game credit television and a post-war masculinity for the increase in popularity. Maybe it was just that the number of players who played in high school reached critical mass 50 years after the game first started being a high school sport, and those players liked watching the very best.

Whatever it was, the league took off, and franchises became a stable business, creating rivalries that last to this day, and which are part of football's attraction. Tinkering with that hurts the game. There have been no franchise moves that I can recall that needed to be made because the team could not make money in a city. The Cardinals moved from St. Louis because everyone hated the owner who had no interest in winning, not because people in St. Louis wouldn't support football. Oakland moved the first time for greed, then didn't get a big stadium and moved back. The Rams moved to St. Louis because the widow of the owner wanted to be popular with her high school friends. I don't remember why the Oilers moved, but it can't be because of the town, since the Texans are doing just fine. Jacksonville may be a stretch as an NFL town, I don't know. But other than that one, I can't think of a single team that needed to move for lack of fan interest. Teams that never do well are supported year after year (Chargers, Detroit, Philly, Cleveland.) The owners are greedy bastards, and they are taking a big chance with the golden goose.

[Bender2]

Gadzooks, dogg-- Are you ready for the Los Angeles... Gangbangers?

[SevenofNine]

AH Raiders do have sliver and black colors I do see that but going be silly on Rams and Charger logos

[TBP]

There aren’t any rivalries in football that can match the Yankees-Red Sox or Giants-Dodgers. Cubs-Cardinals is pretty hot, too.

[TBP]

There aren’t any rivalries in football that can match the Yankees-Red Sox or Giants-Dodgers. Cubs-Cardinals is pretty hot, too.

[TBP]

I guess it was racist of Paul Brown to have that last name.

[Defiant]

Not sure about that. There are some pretty heated football rivalries. But Baseball ones are older.

[Gil4]

Is that an actual new rule or your proposal?

[Perdogg]

That is the rule.