More of the Same

Check out what Tim Sullivan in the UT wrote today about the prospect of the Chargers skipping town. Now, I've corresponded with Sullivan on a couple of occasions and the one thing I can say about the guy is that he is a true fan. He likes the Padres and the Chargers. He doesn't seem to have some special relationship with AJ, he's a pretty genuinely good guy who has a very respectable knowledge of sports. And you can tell he's a fan, because when you read this article it's apparent that Sullivan wants to believe the Chargers won't leave.

First off, he uses the old Colts comparison, saying there is no way the Chargers are packing up the trucks in the middle of the night and skipping town like Art Modell did to the city of Baltimore so many years ago. Well, Tim, I don't think anybody who's been following this situation ever believed that's how the move would go down. The team has a window during which it can negotiate with other cities every year and their payout to the city drops by millions every year they wait. If they make a deal with L.A. it probably won't happen until this next offseason or the one after that. And then they have to actually wait until they have a place to move into before they bail. So no, they aren't leaving tonight or tomorrow, but the wheels are in motion merely with the mention of a deal with AEG. Haven't you ever heard that where there is smoke, there is fire?

Then he quotes media sources in L.A. as saying it's unlikely that the town could come together and approve a facility for the Chargers anytime soon. But Sam Farmer's article in the L.A. Times doesn't claim the Chargers won't move there. Again, it only claims that it won't be today or even tomorrow, but sometime down the road. As far as the people being unlikely to come together and approve of a Chargers facility, the facilities proposed in L.A. have all been classified as multi-purpose, meaning they could house anything from football games to Olympic events. That might be more appealing to the people of L.A.

The truth is, though, this isn't about what the citizens want. The NFL doesn't care about the fans, they only care about getting a team in one of the nation's largest advertising markets as soon as possible. The television revenue an L.A. team would deliver to the league is enough to make me believe that if all else fails the NFL could step in and put money down for and L.A. stadium themselves, and if that ever happens look for the City of San Diego to be the scapegoat.