Los Angeles NFL Brands Discussion

[Bruhammydude]

9 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

I'm glad you weren't.

I mean, Green Bay would do anything for the Packers. That's pretty much the only thing that makes Green Bay so notable. An extra 0.5% tax increase means all but nothing to them, because the result is the Packers get to stay in Lambeau. There's a reason why the Packers are one of the highest earning teams across American sports while being in a city that barely has 100,000 people.

[colortv]

18 minutes ago, IceCap said:

@colortv 

You've said that LA is close enough to San Diego that the trip would be like a "weekend excursion" for San Diego fans.

 

You've said that the Chargers' "family friendly" atmosphere would be preferable to the rather sizeable and not insignificant Raiders fanbase already in LA. 

 

We are not talking about hypotheticals though. We've seen it play out for three years. San Diego fans are NOT making those weekend excursions. Families AREN'T flocking to Chargers games.

 

Meanwhile the Rams are leading the Chargers in PSLs $500 million to $50 million. At what point does the empirical evidence we actually see start to win out over your hypotheticals? 

 

1. There's been a fair amount of debate how much the capacity, pricing, and ticket brokering have affected the Chargers at Dignity Park. Sofi's sheer size will alleviate some of that. By the way, the Chargers have still sold out their tickets consistently, opposing fans or not.

 

2. You don't judge a business move involving billions of dollars that will play out over decades based on the first couple of years.

[colortv]

 

[Quillz]

The thing I've gathered is that a lot of people just want the ram head and wordmark swapped (i.e. the ream head becomes primary). I agree that that alone would be an improvement. The logos themselves could always stand for revision but I guess that will have to wait for five years.

[Pa02]

21 minutes ago, colortv said:

 

That sounds like we could get a change.

[AndrewMLind]

32 minutes ago, colortv said:

By the way, the Chargers have still sold out their tickets consistently, opposing fans or not.

I mean, it should be pretty easy for an NFL team to fill a 27.000-seat stadium, and the fact that the opposing team’s fanbase takes up most of those seats is 1. Not helping your argument, and 2. Likely to only continue and be even more exaggerated in a larger venue.

[Quillz]

5 minutes ago, Newport said:

That sounds like we could get a change.

Nah, it's just PR speak for "we heard what you have to say but don't really care, what's done is done."

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, colortv said:

 

1. There's been a fair amount of debate how much the capacity, pricing, and ticket brokering have affected the Chargers at Dignity Park. Sofi's sheer size will alleviate some of that. By the way, the Chargers have still sold out their tickets consistently, opposing fans or not.

Sure, tickets sold are tickets sold. Still, you're claiming specifically that San Diego fans will still travel north to support the team and that they'll attract the family crowd. And NEITHER has happened so far.

 

1 hour ago, colortv said:

2. You don't judge a business move involving billions of dollars that will play out over decades based on the first couple of years.

The Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix and became the Coyotes in 1996. It's 2020 and they still have yet to have a profitable season. Just saying.

[CaliforniaGlowin]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

@colortv 

You've said that the Chargers' "family friendly" atmosphere would be preferable to the rather sizeable and not insignificant Raiders fanbase already in LA. 

 

With their new look, I can see this happening.  Kids would love the bolt emoji face.

[IceCap]

2 minutes ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

With their new look, I can see this happening.  Kids would love the bolt emoji face.

Absolutely. It's one reason I praised it. It's a good move on their part.

[Gothamite]

11 hours ago, Bruhammydude said:

I mean, Green Bay would do anything for the Packers. That's pretty much the only thing that makes Green Bay so notable. An extra 0.5% tax increase means all but nothing to them, because the result is the Packers get to stay in Lambeau. There's a reason why the Packers are one of the highest earning teams across American sports while being in a city that barely has 100,000 people.

The Packers were never going to leave, and it was insulting to hint that they would.
 

And it’s precisely because they are one of the highest earning teams across American sports (in a relatively-depressed region) that they should pay for their own damned palace.  They’ve got the money.

[Gothamite]

11 hours ago, colortv said:

1. There's been a fair amount of debate how much the capacity, pricing, and ticket brokering have affected the Chargers at Dignity Park. Sofi's sheer size will alleviate some of that.

 

Or make it much worse.  

 

Quote

By the way, the Chargers have still sold out their tickets consistently, opposing fans or not.

In no small part because the supply is so limited.  I’m not sure this one is any better defense of them.

 

Quote

2. You don't judge a business move involving billions of dollars that will play out over decades based on the first couple of years.

 

Of course you do.  Relocations are always most popular in the first years, with all the excitement of the new.  They have a natural marketing advantage.  Once the bloom is off the rose, a relocated team loses that advantage and is subject to the more fickle market forces.  It’s years three, five and eight that should be the problem, not Year One.

 

New teams don’t always have to win to sell tickets.  Initial market penetration is easy; laying deep roots is trickier.  So if the Chargers can’t sell tickets now, it’s going to be challenging to sell them in five years unless they’re contending for the Super Bowl year in and out.  

 

Now, it’s not necessarily beyond redemption.  A botched relocation can absolutely be salvaged.  It’s just much harder when you waste those initial opportunities, and I’m not sure we’ve ever seen the Spanos family do anything to indicate they’re nimble enough to change course.

[Ridleylash]

12 hours ago, IceCap said:

The Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix and became the Coyotes in 1996. It's 2020 and they still have yet to have a profitable season. Just saying.

I mean, the Coyotes were actually doing somewhat well attendance-wise to start off with; it's not really until 07-08 that they hit rock bottom in attendance and get stuck there for a while. Perhaps not coincidentally, the spiral in attendance also correlated with a lot of missed playoffs and bad teams; things that generally don't help with attendance figures. Had the Coyotes not gotten trapped in Executive Hell for a while, I don't think it's unrealistic they would have maintained course and been a profitable, if middle-of-the-road in attendance, team instead of a bankrupt laughing stock.

 

The Chargers have NEVER done well in their three seasons in Los Angeles, they've been bottom of the NFL in attendance since Day One of the LA experiment. And unlike the Coyotes, they'll always be a laughing stock in LA behind the Rams and Raiders.

[Bruhammydude]

And it doesn't help that this season (if it even happens) seems to be a rebuilding year for the Chargers.

[SportsLogos.Net News]

Los Angeles Rams COO Kevin Demoff Reads Mean Tweets About New Logo

April 4, 2020 - 17:23 PM

Los Angeles Rams chief operating office Kevin Demoff promised to read mean tweets about the team’s new logo if fans raised more than $2 million during their virtual telethon on March 24. Fans exceeded that goal and raised over $2.3 […]

Read More...

[Cujo]

[doctorpeligro]

There are a lot of people on this message board overstating how important/popular the Chargers were in Greater San Diego.  I was a season ticket holder at Qualcomm, and there was always a large contingent rooting for the visiting team.  San Diego had its opportunity to keep its NFL franchise, and the voters rejected that opportunity at the ballot box.

 

The Chargers will be fine.  Will they be the #3 team in the region?  Probably, but I suspect the Rams are going to "struggle" as well (i.e., make less profit), especially in years when the Raiders are competitive (I agree with the suggestion that the Raiders are the most popular team in Southern California).

 

Based on the ruling of the other team owners, the Rams were always going to have to share their stadium.  They should think of it as a territorial rights fee.  They should also consider themselves lucky that their tenants are the Los Angeles Chargers and not the Los Angeles Raiders.

[hawk36]

18 minutes ago, doctorpeligro said:

Will they be the #3 team in the region? 

Not even close. Middle of the pack among NFL teams at best (probably more like bottom 1/3). And as teams, the Galaxy and LAFC have more support in LA than the Chargers.  

 

20 minutes ago, doctorpeligro said:

There are a lot of people on this message board overstating how important/popular the Chargers were in Greater San Diego.  I was a season ticket holder at Qualcomm, and there was always a large contingent rooting for the visiting team.  San Diego had its opportunity to keep its NFL franchise, and the voters rejected that opportunity at the ballot box.

That was my point a few pages back. Ownership and their lack of care for the fans turned many away. But, I'd say San Diego was still a huge Chargers town, just one in hiding. If, like happened in Seattle, a local fan friendly owner bought the team, there would've been thousands deep waiting lists for season tickets. 

[Ridleylash]

1 hour ago, doctorpeligro said:

There are a lot of people on this message board overstating how important/popular the Chargers were in Greater San Diego.  I was a season ticket holder at Qualcomm, and there was always a large contingent rooting for the visiting team. 

 

The Chargers will be fine.  Will they be the #3 team in the region? Probably, but I suspect the Rams are going to "struggle" as well (i.e., make less profit), especially in years when the Raiders are competitive (I agree with the suggestion that the Raiders are the most popular team in Southern California).

#3 is generous. I'd argue that pretty much every other professional sports franchise in the market is more popular then the Chargers are in Los Angeles, given how pitiful their attendance is regularly. The Chargers have done basically nothing to endear themselves to Los Angeles, a city where you have to bring your A-game to be the talk of the town since the city has so many things to do.

 

And that "contingent rooting for the visiting team" happens in most southern markets because (shockingly) lots of snowbirds will flock to southern areas in the winter and bring their fandom with them. You see fans of visiting teams even in successful southern markets, it's kind of the nature of the beast. The problem isn't the contingent of visiting fans, it's that the Chargers are consistently the worst-attended team in the entire league since moving to Los Angeles.

 

I don't think pulling a Jets/Giants is going to miraculously make people in Los Angeles give a about the Chargers. They simply don't have that draw that the Rams or Raiders do with their extensive history in Los Angeles. The Chargers had one year in LA and then 50+ years in San Diego. The Chargers are San Diego's team, not Los Angeles'.

 

For reference? The Rams' total attendance this past season, combining home and road games, was 1,063,995. The Chargers' was 760,644. The team above the Chargers is the Bungles, with a total attendance of 907,640. The Chargers aren't drawing either at home or on the road.

[IceCap]

58 minutes ago, doctorpeligro said:

 

The Chargers will be fine.  Will they be the #3 team in the region?  Probably, but I suspect the Rams are going to "struggle" as well (i.e., make less profit...

The Rams have sold $500 million worth of PSLs. The Chargers have sold $50 million.