On Thursday morning, the Chargers confirmed that they will be moving from San Diego to Los Angeles. 
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“San Diego has been our home for 56 years. It will always be part of our identity and, my family and I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the support and passion our fans have shared with us over the years,” team chairman Dean Spanos said in a written statement. “But, today we turn the page and begin an exciting new era as the Los Angeles Chargers. L.A. is a remarkable place, and while we played our first season there in 1960 and have had fans there ever since, our entire organization knows that we have a tremendous amount of work to do. We must earn the respect and support of LA football fans. We must get back to winning. And, we must make a meaningful contribution, not just on the field, but off the field as a leader and champion for the community. The Chargers are determined to fight for LA and we are excited to get started.”
Today’s announcement concludes a lengthy saga for San Diego fans who hoped that, somehow, their team would get a brand new stadium to keep up with the rest of the league. Ultimately, the team and local leadership could not agree on the amount of public funding to be contributed to a new venue.
For now, the Chargers will play their home games at the 30,000 seat StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. The team will reportedly spend the 2017 and 2018 seasons there before joining the Rams in Inglewood.
Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Chargers, via Twitter.
Spanos will continue to fail.
Amen. Chargers lost this previously die hard fan.
FYI Spanos, you have next to no fans in LA
Based on the article from Bill Plaschke in the LA Times, the NFL funded Spanos $300 million. The relocation fee to move to LA is $650 million. He wanted $1.2 billion for the new stadium. Really, he would have only needed $250 based on the above.
The fans don’t want them, the fans won’t root for them, and they’re moving into a soccer stadium for two years. What a dumpster fire.
The fans made their bed now they have to lay in it…I just hate that the Chargers are now moving into what should be the Raiders bed
Sure, blame the fans and not the billionaires. What part of ‘I can afford it but want the city and the fans to pay for it’ do you like the best?
Well if you want a team you vote yes to build the stadium…if you don’t, they move to another city…just saying the fans had their opportunity to make it happen and they didn’t act on it…whether we like it or not it’s a business and the teams are owned by wealthy people…I just don’t really want to hear SD fans whining because they had the chance
An election like that isn’t just for fans. Every registered voter in the city could vote. And every fan who lives outside the city limits, which many do, could not vote.
You beat me to it 🙂
People don’t understand. The argument actually is not as simple as “the fans should have voted to keep them in town.” A major portion of the fan base didn’t get a chance to vote on the measure. Correct, San Diegans wouldn’t have had to pay out of pocket, tourists would have. But, only the citizens within the CITY of San Diego were able to vote on the measure and Chargers fans extend way beyond the city of San Diego (but admittedly not much beyond the county, save south Orange County, the Inland Empire/Riverside County). If it were a county wide vote, I think the measure would have been much more likely to pass. That measure was just a political ploy for either or both the city government and the Chargers to say, “See, we tried.” Both are lame. Spanos knew all along he was moving to LA. Been saying it for 10 years.
The fans wouldn’t have been paying for it unless they all stay in hotels for every home game.
It’s all about hotel bed taxes yet the citizens of SD act like it was coming out of their pockets.
Plus….. the City itself is now going to lose Millions upon millions of dollars in future tax income.
Agreed. This is going to take a large toll on San Diego tourism economy. People always made fun of the fact that the Q was filled with fans from other teams. But, that also showed how much of an impact those fans made on the local economy through tourism.
Chargers aren’t welcome bring the raiders
I agree but unfortunately that ship has sailed my friend
Thanks for the social media notice, wouldn’t even get in front of a mic. Stay classy Spineless, I mean Spanos.
Nobody in LA has respect for anything Bill Plaschke writes. As long as the Chargers win they’ll be welcomed in LA. I’ve never heard of any fans that don’t like winners. The stub hub center would be perfect because any seat would be a good seat in a stadium that size.
Honestly, blame can be put on both the politicians of this corrupt city, or the spineless owner that is Dean Spanos… but i’m sick of people trying to say that this somehow falls on the fans for not voting for a ridiculous measure that was thrown together in a week, not to mention the fact that every charger fan that lives in the county of san diego but not the city could not vote for the measure, and on top of all that, they proposed this right after trying with all their might to escape san diego and team up with the raiders in carson. A losing product on the field because of a foul and greedy owner. Have fun up in LA… Go cardinals!
The Spanos Family is a Disgrace and so is Roger Goodell for allowing this to happen.
Quite frankly, it’s a sin
The stubhub center is a perfect place for this lowly team atleast now they will have a chance to have a majority showing unlike the raiders chargers game
I wonder if the rumors of Rivers not wanting to play in LA are true. Anyone else think they might end up going through a full rebuild at some point and maybe really soon?
I’d love to know how Mr Spanos ” Alex ” , feels about how Dino is messing up what Alex did so well while he was in control!
I’m a Wisconsin sports fan and let me tell you first hand – this is 100% on Spanos.
If he wanted the team in San Diego it’d be in San Diego. Herb Kohl was a sad sack, ultra conservative owner but he was truly loyal. The team was a dumpster fire, fans were so sick of losing and there were billionaires in Seattle getting ready. But Herb insisted, wrote it in as a condition of sale that the team remain in Milwaukee, and they have. Kohl left hundreds of millions on the table in doing so.
So don’t ever EVER fool yourself into believing the fans have any sort of voice or authority here in the Chargers case. Spanos looks like a duplicitous, hypocrite and coward.
But he couldn’t give a flying ¥¥€£?<. He's gonna make more money on this relocation than any of us can comprehend. Ticket sales? Who cares. Fan base? Who cares. It's the NFL. The franchise will be worth BILLIONS in LA.
That's all the motivation we need to consider here gang.
Bad franchise moving to a bad football city and will continue to produce bad results. Not sure why this is news.
This is about as good of a move as when they traded Eli Manning OR wanted NYG to draft
I don’t see how this is a win for anyone other than Dean Spanos. Even then, I can’t see how he will see it as a win, if nothing other than the fact that Spanos doesn’t have to deal with the San Diego government after years of disagreements.
LA doesn’t want the bolts or are seemingly utterly indifferent. And now a majority of SD fans will hate the team since San Diegans generally don’t like LA, period. It would have been a better decision for Spanos to move the Bolts out of state to Las Vegas, which would ultimately give LA their precious love affair with the Raiders. Raiders fans in LA aren’t EVER going to root for the Chargers unless they change their name and/or colors to purple and gold, ala the Lakers. Even if they start to win!
On the other hand, Vegas already held a large contingency of Bolts fans (from what I understand) and it would actually take San Diegans just as long to drive to Vegas as it would to drive to LA. The trade off would be driving long distance vs. hours of sitting in traffic. That’s still only considering SD fans who will still support the Chargers.
Shameful. This is about greed. Both the Rams and Chargers were fully functional, profitable franchises in their prior cities, with loyal fan bases. This is about the NFL wanting to tap into the LA revenue stream, and tearing fans favorite teams away in the process.
Save your “the NFL’s a business first” argument. I don’t care. I see the NFL as a sport first, and a business second. And we treat them that way, with special benefits other businesses don’t generally get, i.e. antitrust exemptions and the like. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if the team was losing money there. Or if the NFL was losing money. But neither are. This is simply about greed, and the NFL is already loaded.
If the NFL will tear teams out of cities and fan bases for money, the only way to solve this is to not give them the money. Refusing to watch games that involve LA teams, by their merchandise, visit their stadiums. The way to change this is to ensure such a move is not profitable.
So Spanos is going to spend $600 million to move to LA and be a tenant in somebody else’s where he gets no income from naming rights or luxury boxes or in stadium advertising while paying nearly 10 times the rent he does in San Diego? To be 3RD CLASS citizens in LA. Yes, the Raiders will always have more fans in LA than the Rams or Chargers. Oh, and play for 2 seasons in a stadium that only seats 27,000. What is going to be funny is when the Raiders move to San Diego when the other owners shoot down Las Vegas.
And he has the audacity to say that it’s because he didn’t want to spend any of his own money on a stadium in San Diego?
Good riddance to the entire Spanos family.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Fuck this guy.