Los Angeles Goes From Zero To Two Football Teams In One Year
Call them the San Diego Chargers no more — the NFL franchise is moving to Los Angeles.
The team is expected to officially announce the move today, ESPN reports, almost exactly one year after the Rams moved to the City of Angels.
The move's been under discussion since 2015, when the Chargers, Rams and Raiders all filed for relocation to Los Angeles. The league chose the Rams and offered a $100M incentive for the Chargers to stay in San Diego, but left the door open. Last January, the Chargers and Rams signed a lease to split revenue from Inglewood Stadium if the Chargers moved.
San Diego taxpayers did not approve a measure to publicly fund a new stadium in the city, and the Spanos family, which owns the Chargers, turned down a 99-year ground lease for its current, 166-acre stadium site, for $1/year. Instead of privately financing a large chunk of a huge new stadium, the Spanos family elected to pay the NFL $550M to $650M just for the right to move to LA.
The Chargers started in Los Angeles in 1960 but moved to San Diego one year later. [ESPN]
