Chargers, Raiders will jointly pursue an NFL stadium in Carson

LA Times ^ | February 20, 2015 | Sam Farmer

[C19fan]

On the field, the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have had as bitter a rivalry as any in the NFL but in a sense, they’re now partners.

The teams will officially announce Friday that, while they work on stadium deals in their current cities, they will jointly pursue a shared, $1.7-billion NFL stadium in Carson as an alternative.

While theirs might seem to be an unlikely pairing -- the Silver & Black and the Powder Blue -- the Raiders and Chargers have actually been closer over the years than many people might think.

[C19fan]

Part of this is to put the heat on Oakland and San Diego taxpayers to pony up for new stadiums.

[Gay State Conservative]

It's amazing that the second largest market in the nation has been without a team for decades.I suppose that if the Jets and Giants can share a stadium so could the Raiders and Chargers.

[centurion316]

The Giants and the Jets are in different conferences. These two teams are in the same division. I would think that someone would need to shift.

[ilgipper]

LA could not support 2 teams last time and lost both. They need one, not two. This would be bad all around. Hopefully this gets San Diego and Oakland motivated to do something. Or at least San Diego. I could care less about the Raiders or Oakland.

[Autonomous User]

I think it is very apropos that the future site of the stadium sits on a polluted toxic landfill. A nice home for two sh*tty teams.

[Michael.SF.]

It really boils down to one simple fact: Los Angeles fans do not constitute a "strong" (in terms of team loyalty) sports base. Three primary reasons:

1) Divided loyalties - Go to any Dodger, Angel, Laker or Kings game and observe the high number of fans rooting for the visiting team.

2) Distractions - There are so many other things to do, that pro sports are too far down the list.

3) Fair weather fan base - When LA teams are winning, that team is the hottest ticket in town, when they are losing, stadiums are half full.

The above points do not even include how the LA Coliseum Commission (in the past) screwed the pooch by losing: Lakers, Kings, Rams, Raiders, UCLA (Football) and USC (Basketball).

BTW: I was born in LA, left when I was 39 years old and have attended games at every venue and for every team mentioned above (except for the Kings). I saw the Dodgers at the Coliseum and the Lakers at the Sports Arena.

[jjotto]

Don’t forget that some huge percentage of the LA metro area are foreigners with little interest in the NFL. The number of NFL fans there might be more similar to the number in someplace like Dallas.

[Dilbert San Diego]

To me this begs a giant question.

And that question is, why is it necessary to build stadiums in their home cities with public money involved? This Carson proposal would be for a privately funded stadium. How is it that the Chargers and Raiders would be able to arrange for a privately funded stadium in Carson, but, can’t do the same in their home cities? What am I missing?

[ChronicMA]

Most remember that the Raiders used to be the LA Riders, not as many remember that the Chargers used to be the LA Chargers.

[Michael.SF.]

Good point.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Excellent points.

Isn’t another factor on the L.A. sports scene, that lots of people in L.A. relocated from somewhere else, and still are bigger fans of teams from their old hometowns than they are fans of local L.A. teams? I know that’s true in San Diego, that so many people relocated from elsewhere, and never quite adopt the Chargers or Padres as their “home” team.

[nascarnation]

The beauty of this concept is that the new sports palace would get used for 20 NFL games a season rather than 10.

A serious improvement in value I’d think.

[Dilbert San Diego]

And I think it’s great that this would be privately funded, privately built, privately paid for. It’s crazy, in my opinion, that these profitable pro sports teams just expect their cities to build them stadiums.

I hope that the Chargers and Raiders both can stay in their home cities. But, from a private business point of view, if they can make this work, none of us can say anything. It’s capitalism at work, if this project pencils out for the teams.

Oakland and San Diego would lose their teams, but, would gain financially in some ways, due to not having to pony up hundreds of millions of taxpayer money to keep the teams.

[Michael.SF.]

True. That was what I intended to refer to when I mention “divided loyalties”. Thanks

[nascarnation]

The idiot former Democrat mayor here in Indy built a 725m stadium for the Indiana Irsays, even tapping into counties outside his jurisdiction for tax money. And they get most of the profits from non-football events held there. Absolutely outrageous.

Nothing inspires a politician like the computer generated view of the field from his new "comp" tickets in a luxury suites.

[Foolsgold]

For San Diego this is no win situation. San Diego is #28 national media market LA is #2 TV revenues are exponential. If they build a new stadium to NFL wants, even more games will be blocked out.

[barefoot_hiker]

It’s just a ploy to get the dolts (fans and city council) in San Diego to throw a bunch of tax money at them. Can’t believe they would seriously want to move to Carson and share a stadium with the Raiders. But if so, then good riddance.