Spanos is paying a $650 MM relocation fee to the NFL to drive two hours up I-5/405 to eventually Inglewood. He could not build his own stadium in San Diego for that money?
Spanos and the NFL wanted to extort almost a billion taxpayer money for a new stadium downtown, where there is no room for it. If the voters approved that, the Chargers were not guaranteed to stay anyway. They wanted an option to stay. Get out and take Joe Barsdale with you. Get out of town and don’t come back.
Apparently not.
Besides, despite the late Jack Kent Cooke, the NFL — even more than other professional sports leagues — frowns on owners building their own stadia.