There will now be two losing NFL teams vying for attention in Los Angeles at a time when national interest in pro football is arguably declining.
The long-anticipated announcement on Thursday morning was something of an anticlimax. Chargers owner Dean Spanos made the announcement via a letter posted on the team’s website. Within minutes, someone egged the team’s headquarters in Murphy Canyon.
Mayor Kevin Faulconer said Spanos will live to regret his decision to join the Rams in Inglewood, arguing that San Diego didn’t lose the Chargers, the Chargers lost San Diego.
Hurt feelings aren’t surprising. San Diego came up with a workable plan to completely renovate Qualcomm Stadium, but Spanos rejected it, seeking instead a far-more expensive downtown edifice that voters were certain to reject and did. It turns out he always wanted to be in Los Angeles.
Amid the sadness, however, there’s a tremendous opportunity now for San Diego to move on and embrace a 21st century vision for spectator sports.
While television ratings are down for National Football League games — a whopping 24 percent decline this year for Monday Night Football — they’re up for college football, soccer and many other sports.
Let’s start with college football. San Diego State University is nationally top ranked, UC San Diego is advancing to Division I and Cal State San Marcos — the fastest growing university in California — is moving up to Division II. A carefully renovated Qualcomm would be an excellent venue for many of these schools’ most popular games.
In contrast to the National Football League, attending college games is actually affordable by ordinary citizens, and Qualcomm has excellent trolley access. (Ironically the new stadium being built for the Chargers and Rams lacks rail access — another barrier to ordinary fans.)
After college football comes the world’s most popular sport — soccer. San Diego, with its Millennial population that grew up on the sport and proximity to soccer-obsessed Mexico, would be an excellent location for a major league club. Qualcomm has already hosted major exhibition games, and could even become a World Cup location.
And a new sports vision doesn’t have to stop at the stadium parking lot. Our beaches and nearby mountains can be host to world-class events in sports as diverse as surfing, sailing, golf, tennis, running, hang gliding, biking and even the latest extreme events.
Pro football was 20th century. As a city already considered one the the world’s smartest, we can create a new paradigm for sports in the 21st century.
As City Councilman Scott Sherman aptly put it at a Thursday morning news conference, “San Diego will move on and be better without them.”
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego.
