The Chargers Are The Best Team No One Cares About
I’m not gonna lie. When the Chargers moved to LA I was pretty bummed out. Partially for San Diego and their fans. But also partially because I expected the move to pan out anyway.
I’m a huge cynic and despite the obvious signs that the Chargers would have issues finding fans I still expected it to more or less be fine because the NFL, despite the problems, are still absolutely huge. LA has a metric fuck ton* of people in it, I figured they’d still find enough of a fanbase because life is cruel and people are stupid. But it’s turned out even worse than I anticipated. The Chargers may as well be homeless and play arena football because despite the fact that they are a fairly dominant 5-2 team, no one cares. No one.
The Chargers always faced an uphill battle to get media attention. Rivers has been criminally underrated his whole career. It took LdT and some deep playoff runs to get people invested and as soon as that vanished they dropped off the national map. It got worse when Spanos started to screw over the city. Then the loyal locals had to choose between getting boned by bullshit stadium taxes or keeping a major part of their sporting identity and the attendance got worse. Now they are in a city that isn’t even interested in an exciting Rams team (another thing I’m surprised about) fighting for any scrap of relevance and they won’t get it.
They were watched by 82 thousand people in London, but that number honestly doesn’t count towards anything. London games look crazy busy but it’s easier to stack a stadium when you are essentially putting on a novelty show and all the NFL fans in the area have to buy tickets because it’s the only game they’ll get.
I still say “San Diego” when referring to the Chargers. I accepted LA Rams pretty fast, but this still feels wrong. No one cares about this team. The stars toil away playing great football for a bunch of visiting fans and a small smattering of loyalists. It’s honestly depressing. I can’t imagine how rough it would be if the Chargers were bad. They can’t get even close to 27 thousand people to show up for them. I figured they’d find some successful business because it was being handled by businessmen and I don’t know a damn thing about business, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now it seems clear the obvious arguments are all panning out. If they stay in LA they’ll always be second fiddle to a team the city has already struggled to embrace fully. They’ll always be that “other” team that gets ignored. They’ll never have their own identity.
If they don’t give SD their team back maybe the Chargers should move to London. Maybe then they’d get coverage and people would care about a team that deserves better. Maybe though, we should just continue to shun the team and make it clear they don’t belong in LA. Sacrifice a few years in complete and utter irrelevance just to make it clear to the NFL that Spanos should get kicked out and the team should go back to where it belongs.
TONS conversion rankings:
Ton
10 Tons = 1 Butt Ton
10 Butt tons = 1 Shit Ton
10 Shit Tons = 1 Fuck Ton
I didn’t think the move would work out for the Chargers *or* the Rams. The Rams moved to LA as NFL Champions, and they *NEVER* had a strong fan base. The Raiders, one of the most popular teams in the NFL at the time, moved to LA and their attendance was *terrible*. Los Angeles is simply not a football town. It never has been. It’s not in the city’s DNA, and while you have a ton of people there, you have a ton of people who are really spread out, and who have attitudes too laid back to get super invested in rivalries, and you *need* that. LA has no geographic rivals– it doesn’t base its identity on being compared to anyone. It has great weather, pretty much all the time, and is a stadium-drive away from deserts, mountains, and the ocean. It’s a city where the cost of living is so damned high, that free entertainment just beats dropping $400 on a football trip. There’s *nothing* going for it as far as being a football town.
But Badell thinks the NFL is bigger than everything.
I was one of the biggest football fans I know of. I devoured stats, and looked past obvious trends to try to find out what they mean. I had multiple university level research projects involving the NFL and it’s impact on society on social and economic levels. And I was prepared, at the time I wrote them (and persuaded 3 professors along the way that I was right), that the NFL was a net positive for America.
I say “was”. In the last two years, I’ve watched one and a half games. Both Super Bowls. Half of my wardrobe is Broncos gear; I wasn’t even aware they played this last Thursday.
Some of it’s the Kaepernick thing, not gonna lie. Not because it’s the Kaepernick thing, but because it’s political at all. Which means it’s not just the Kaepernick thing– that was just another thing in a long line of things. But most of those other things were externally forcing the issue. And this one brought in so much *hate*, from both the right and the left. It was disgusting. To be clear: it’s not because of Kaepernick or his position; I disagree with him, but I disagree with a ton of people and don’t care. It’s because of the hate that boiled out from it, and the rage surrounding it. Football was an escape from politics for me, and as that got eroded, my passion for the game waned.
But what disgusted me the most w as that Badell refused to take sides on it. He has tried, so damned freaking hard, to stand in the middle, because he’s so terrified of losing any of his fanbase.
Also, there’s the issue that as entertainment has grown cheaper and easier to obtain, he has been trying to squeeze every possible penny out of every fan. As a fan of a non-market team (I live in the Seattle area, but I’m a Broncos fan), it’s been impossible for me to (legally) watch my team. I couldn’t get DirecTV at my home, so Sunday Ticket was out for a long time, besides the fact that I simply do not, and never have as an adult, watched much television. Paying for the NFL? Sure, I’d do that. Pay for 10,000 channels I’m never going to watch… but that my kids will get sucked into instead of living their life? Hell naw. Because sure, I can (and do) push them away from screen media a bunch, but… it’s easy to fall out of that level of self-discipline. My wife appreciates not having cable– she’s repeated that frequently. For a long while, we had none. She wrote, she gardened, she did a ton of things. At one point, we moved into a home that had cable provided, and *voomp* she instantly stopped doing all those things that she loved. It destroyed her health. So… yeah. Not interested in having that stuff in my home.
And now… the NFL’s mostly out of my system. And I don’t particularly want to go back. They aren’t an organization right now that I feel are worthy of me, and so they aren’t worthy my support. Some of the viewing issues have gone away, and the cost of getting my Broncos in my home is easier, but it’s just kind of too late.
You’re my last vestige of interest in the game, and I’m here because you regularly make me laugh, not because I’m particularly interested in your subject matter any more. Not that I encapsulate all of LA, but… when you look at the NFL’s numbers over the last 3 years, it’s not at all encouraging. They’re going to have to move away from their television contracts model, and far more to merchandise, or they’re going to die. And I don’t think Badell can make that transition, because there just isn’t enough good in the NFL for it to survive off of people’s good will.
I always hated the idea of shipping the Chargers to LA because I feel pretty strongly that LA just plain doesn’t deserve a football team. The Rams and Raiders both left LA the same year because so few people gave a shit back then, but here we are twenty years later and everyone seemed to forget that fact. I’m happy that the teams aren’t getting asses in their seats because to me it means it’ll be that much sooner that LA once again goes from two to zero teams. I am, however, unhappy that good teams are getting shit on and ignored. That sucks, especially for Rivers, who I also feel has been horribly underrated.
D’oh, forgot one point. Why didn’t the Chargers just move to a town near SD like the Gnats and JEST? They’d have been able to keep their fans despite SD giving them the boot. I’m going to assume it’s because no one else out there wanted to deal with Spanos.
You’re not kidding. They’re dead last in total attendance and home attendance. That’s sad.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/attendance.htm
You do have to at least take into account that they play in a small soccer stadium.
That they can’t even get to capacity unless the Raiders are in town.
Butt-Ton? I know you love your imperial measurement nonsense over there, but we’re all about the Metric Ass-Ton now, man.
1 metric butt-ton = ~1.2 imperial assloads
I just want them to get out of LA. I mean the move was inevitable from the beginning, after trying to screw everyone in San Diego with more taxes. You want some taxes with those taxes? But when I first heard about the move and I was gong into the 5 Stages of Grief.
1. Denial. After seeing that the move was finalized, I pretty much told myself that it wasn’t true. Or that something would happen and that the move would be cancelled. Yet, nothing changed. Of course it didn’t.
2. Anger. First of all I was pissed at Spanos. Literally gave 0 effort to even try and keep the team in San Diego. I mean he did talk with the mayor of the city but I highly doubt he tried to do any convincing. I’m sure at this point he was already prepared for the move. At that point I just wanted to punch a wall and burn all the Chargers crap I owned (which is like 25% of all my stuff). And it was during the summer too so it ended up bringing my mood way down throughout the next few weeks. Probably months.
3. Bargaining. At this point I was trying to weigh out my options. I could, at this point, just abandon the team. I’ve only followed them for 3 years at that point and their records were 7-9, 4-12, and 5-11, so it’s not like I’m going to miss anything special. But I fell into that “I’m not quitting on this team” phase, were you just stick with it. I was also trying to see if, again, they could move back. Or anywhere else. Dear God were fucked until this contract ends. When does it end again? Oh 20 years. 20. Years. We technically can’t leave the city till 2037. And if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, no, Spanos won’t get out of the contact because he’s committed.
4. Depression. Not even going to lie, I’m still in this phase. After everything going on, there really isn’t a reason to be happy. They can’t sell out the smallest profession stadium in this era, they still can’t make the playoffs, the owner is trash, the stadium is trash, the management, coaches, injuries, all trash. And hey, were 5-2. FINALLY A GOOD RECORD. Let’s see who they beat. Bills, 49ers, Raiders, Browns, Titans. Whelp, none of those teams are good. And we also lost to Chiefs and Rams. Understandable, since they’re both the best teams as of now, but still can’t even beat a good team, a playoff team. We’re going to end up like the Bills aren’t we. End me.
5. Acceptance. I’ll accept the move when they move out of LA.
Here, let’s cry together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whNOfvyPpaM
Wow…this made me sad reading it. This is how I imagine every Chargers fan in San Diego felt and still feels. Bad news though…..there are Baltimore fans who still hate the Colts, and despite what they went through, some of them have embraced the Ravens. Which in turn, Browns fans will likely always hate them. Well…hate is a strong word for the Browns to use. But anytime a team leaves a city, it sucks. I like the Titans (even when they suck) but I hate that they moved from Houston. At the end of the day, the owners are running a business and they’re way more concerned about themselves than they are the fans that follow their team. As sad as that is. My advice, find some form of peace and try to find some way to enjoy the game.
Yeah you’re right. There’s talk about the Chargers moving again, but all of that seems unlikely, nearly impossible. I really don’t want it to be true, but I guess I just have to live with this. The Chargers are finally good again, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last.
I just want this team to have some fans. This team plays 16 away games and that’s just tough.
I recall when the NFL gave Los Angeles about every opportunity to win the expansion team that eventually became the Texans and the LA group could never get anything close to a workable stadium or financing plan presented. It told me a lot about the football culture of the city.
“I accepted LA Rams pretty fast,”
Well… yeah. They were the LA Rams for a long time before they moved to St. Louis. It took me a little while to get used to calling them the St. Louis Rams.
While you are right the Rams used to be LA, for pretty much my entire football comprehending life they were St Louis. They were always St. Louis to me.
They will always be the Cleveland Rams to me.
theyll always be the baltimore redwings to me
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they manages to win the SB in the near future since something about San Diego seem to jinx their sports teams. I mean after Bochy left the Padres, the certain team formerly known as the N.Y. Giants didn’t have that much more talent than the mid to late 1990s Padres had and he won three titles. I know the competition is different but still it’s something to think about. Also part of the reason I’m posting this was to make a joke about the fact that there used to be two N.Y. Giants which made you wonder how many kids got confused during that time.
So who is the best Giants of all time? Willie Mays or L.T.?
Taylor still the GOAT
But I love me some Willy. I have his autograph
“But I love me some Willy.” Uhm, phrasing.
No one cares about this team because they do this every year:
1. Everyone talks them up during the off season. This team is loaded, Rivers is magic, they’re gonna go 12-4, they’re the AFC West champions, and they’re going to the Superbowl.
2. The inevitable season ending injuries happen before the season starts. Everyone says “They’re still a great team, they have a lot of depth”. No one takes back their optimism.
3. They come out riding the hype wave, get beat up by KC, perform well against really good teams, but usually lose. Then everyone eats a little crow and says maybe they’re not as good as we expected.
4. Then they beat up on a couple bad teams, and frankly, underperform against them. But they start stacking up wins. Everyone starts to look their direction.
5. They go to KC (or other division rival) with the AFC West division on the line and shit their pants. Because Rivers always chokes in the 4th quarter when the games really matter.
I guarantee that when they play KC later this year their playoff hopes will be on the line, and I would bet good money they lose.
This is pretty spot on except I don’t remember any hype this off-season. They didn’t even manage that this time.
I did hear a few talking heads here and there touting them as a serious Super Bowl contender. Some even picked Rivers as MVP. The talk wasn’t as big this year but it was there. I think they’re good, but c’mon…..Chargers gonna Charger…
LA likes winners. The Rams are an SB win away from getting a seat at the table.
LA population: 4 million
Average American male weight: 195.7 lbs
Average American female weight: 168.5 lbs
Combined: 182.1 lbs
Metric ton: 2204.623 lbs
Fuck ton: 1000 (metric) tons
4,000,000×182.1=728,400,000
728,400,000÷(2204.623×1,000)=330.397
Los Angeles actually has over 330 metric fuck tons of people in it…and *still* nobody cares about the LA Chargers.
Thank you for this
168.5 is the average female weight?! Those must be some husky females! I thought the average would be around 145. Maybe the heifers are really huge and tipping the scale (pun intended) in the higher number’s favor, cuz most chicks I know aren’t anywhere near that. I guess you can be super over weight, but not super underweight. I mean, is 450 pounds really that much more than 350 pounds?
It’s probably more helpful to look at the median than the mean.
braVO
It also doesn’t help that Rivers has one of the most punchable faces of all time (the PFOAT!). He even beats out Stafford here. When you found out that Rivers is a notoriously good person you feel aweful for judging his douche face.
I hate all the unnecessary moving of teams over the past 2 decades. It’s done so much psychological damage.
– The Cleveland Browns’ history is now technically, in the eyes of the NFL, a team that was founded in 1944, played 51 or so seasons of normal football, then just happened to not do anything for three years and started back play again with an entirely new roster, staff, and ownership. Meanwhile, a “new” team, the Ravens, just happened to start play in 1996 with most of the Browns roster somehow.
– The Houston Oilers don’t exist. For basically no reason. Every time I see the “Texans,” it seems like a fake team still. The oil derrick logo was awesome and special. The Texans’ logo and colors are kind of boring and their nickname isn’t really conducive to attracting out-of-state fans.
– No team in St. Louis, no team in San Diego.
– Back to the Oilers, just a question to think about: are you rooting for a team whose name will permanently cease to exist a decade from now?
– Just seeing what’s going on in another league, in the NHL, I see the Carolina Hurricanes are bringing back the sweet Hartford Whalers logo for a few games or something since they used to be the Whalers. Don’t know why they ever had to change their name just because they moved. Took an awesome logo out of circulation and replaced it with a much more common generic one. At least the Charlotte Bobcats did the opposite.
Just a hypothesis, but maybe they wanted to get rid of the “Whalers” name due to the negative connotations hunting whales has now among a non-insignificant part of the populace–and when you combine that with the fact that Carolina isn’t known for its whalers, it probably made sense to change the name.
As far as the Texans’ name goes, there were three variations on “Bulls” that finished ahead of “Texans” in the fan poll conducted by the Chronicle (Toros won), but Bob McNair liked Texans so he wet with that.
A Butt is a kind of cask/barrel as is a ton. That’s what I thought was funny.