The San Diego Chargers recently decided to move their training camp from RIMAC field to a new facility in Carson, Calif. Now there is widespread speculation about whether the team will do more than just make a summer home in Los Angeles.
Guardian
Just over a week ago, the Anschutz Entertainment Group proposed a plan to build a state-of-the-art football stadium adjacent to the Staples Center in Los Angeles — contingent upon a National Football League team moving to Los Angeles to play in it.
A few days prior to AEG’s announcement, the Chargers hired La Jolla lawyer and political advisor Mark Fabinai to spearhead the Chargers’ efforts to work with San Diego City Hall to keep the team in San Diego.
Fabinai told the San Diego Union-Tribune that his job is “”to do everything possible to see that the Chargers remain in San Diego, while remaining economically competitive with the other teams in the league.””
It appears the only way the Chargers will stay in San Diego, however, is to be assured the team makes more money. As far as modern professional sports go, the sure-fire way to make more money is to have luxury boxes — and lots of them.
The proposed L.A. stadium reportedly will have 200 luxury boxes at over $100,000 per season. That figure is far more than the going price for the facilities currently at Qualcomm Stadium — rest in peace, Jack Murphy.
To keep the Chargers economically competitive in San Diego, the team will need more luxury boxes. The Q is maxed out on the luxury box front, so a new faculty is presumably needed.
It is not out of the realm of possibilities that a professional sports owner would ask the citizens of the city to chip in and help build a new stadium; this happens almost monthly across the country.
If San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos wants to move his team north to Los Angeles because he thinks he can make more money, then he should go for it. San Diegans and football fans should know very well by now that the Chargers are just not worth it.
The thinking goes as follows: Tax money could be spent to help pay for the stadium and a new stadium is needed because luxury boxes are needed. But how many taxpayers will actually ever set foot in the luxury boxes? The going rate for luxury boxes at the Q is $5,000 to $14,000 per game and $50,000 to $135,000 for the season. Maybe the owners and players’ agents will use them, but for the most part, the tax-paying citizens of San Diego will not.
Just as the Chargers do not entertain their fans during their eight home games per year, San Diego mayor Dick Murphy should not entertain any ideas for a new stadium built with public money.
It’s not that San Diegans don’t like the Chargers: Everybody loves Junior Seau and generally likes the rest of the crew. But it is time citizens stop putting up with helping to pay for the building of facilities for billionaire owners where millionaire players play and working stiffs like us can barely even afford to park and buy a beer.
Of course, this is based on the assumption that anybody would like to go to a Chargers game in the first place. Except for when the Raiders come to town, games are never sold out because the organization has not put a decent product on the field for a long time.
The positive externalities of having a sports team — principally the collective feeling of pride when the community rallies around the team — do not come close to the fiscal cost of taxpayer support for a new stadium. That money, no matter how little, is best spent by the citizens. If they really wanted to support the team, they could buy tickets, luxury boxes, merchandise, advertising or send money directly to the team.
At least when the Padres wanted taxpayers to split the bill for a stadium, they were winning, which is the secret to persuading a wary public of paying for a new stadium. The Charges have failed miserably in on-field performance and therefore have very little leverage when they say, “”If you don’t build it, we will be forced to leave town for greener pastures.””
If we are going to be taxed, it had better be for something more than a workplace for a losing football team.
We could get more for our tax money, such as better training for the San Diego Police Department in the benefits of nonlethal self-defense for officers. San Diegans are afraid to do yard work — holding branches, rocks, bricks — for fear of being shot dead by police. Over the last few years, the San Diego Police Department has been trigger-happy against inefficiently armed individuals.
The tax money or bonds could instead be used to fix failing schools, the city’s decrepit sewer system and inefficient public transportation.
Even if the Chargers do move to L.A., they will likely not find the fiscal success they are hoping for. First off, Angelenos are not clamoring for a new team. In fact, they know they are lucky to be able to watch the day’s best games on television instead of the local team.
Second, there are more Raider-loving, Charger-hating fans than Charger fans in the area. If the team does leave, we should expect it to pull an Al Davis in 10 years and retreat to San Diego like a 19-year-old Midwestern farmer’s daughter who had her dreams of fame and fortune crushed in the harsh realities of La-La Land.
The Spanoses have done some nice things for San Diego and UCSD, such as financing the athletic facilities north of RIMAC field. However, not asking the citizens of San Diego to foot the bill for building a billionaire a stadium for his millionaire employees would be, by far, the best thing he could do.
Better yet, Spanos could buck the trend of owners holding cities hostage for new stadiums and put his construction knowledge to good use, building the stadium himself.
Now that would be something I would pay to see.
