Alliance Of American Football Franchise Coming To San Diego
The Alliance of American Football league is putting a new franchise — its sixth — in San Diego. Starting next year, the team will play at San Diego County Credit Union Stadium, formerly Qualcomm Stadium, which used to be home of the Chargers, ESPN reports.
The AAF is a startup football league announced in March. A number of former NFL managers and players are organizing the league. Bill Polian, who was vice chairman of the Indianapolis Colts from 1998 to 2011, is heading the new league.
The San Diego team — which does not have a name yet, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune — joins teams in Atlanta, Orlando, Memphis, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. Play is scheduled to begin the weekend after the 2019 Super Bowl.
The long-term fate of the stadium site is unclear. In November, two competing measures will be voted on by San Diego residents. One plan has been proposed by San Diego State University to redevelop the area into parkland, a stadium suitable for both football and soccer and housing.
A competing proposal, known as SoccerCity, would see the site become a sports-and-entertainment district with a new stadium for Major League Soccer and football.
The Chargers played at the stadium from the time that it opened in 1967 until the team decamped to Los Angeles in 2016. The Padres played there from 1969 to 2003, when the team moved to Petco Park.
Currently the stadium is used by the San Diego State Aztecs football team of San Diego State University. As a football stadium, it has a capacity of more than 70,000.
