Well, damn. The inevitable finally happened.
The San Diego Chargers are no more. Instead, welcome the Los Angeles Chargers.
There’s so much to say I don’t even know where to begin.
After spending one year in L.A. at their inception, the Chargers spent 57 years in San Diego. Dan Fouts, Junior Seau, LaDanian Tomlinson — all Hall of Famers who are entrenched in San Diego’s Culture. I could write an entire piece on why the team is being moved, but I’ll spare you, only explaining that it was a matter over corporate greed – a billionaire owner who tried to get the city to publicly fund a new stadium and didn’t get his way. So instead, he’s spending $500 billion (give or take) to move his team up I-5 to L.A.
Feel free to go to the Los Angeles Chargers Facebook page and read the comments. They’re about what you’d expect.
The Big Lead’s Ryan Phillips had a great love letter to owner Dean Spanos today as well. That article will explain more about why this move to L.A. is so gross and doesn’t make any sense at all.
A letter from Dean Spanos pic.twitter.com/rTNIvrsN1A
— Los Angeles Chargers (@Chargers) January 12, 2017
Not only is the move expensive, the Chargers will already play second-fiddle to the Rams, who just moved to L.A. last season and had abysmal TV ratings. The Chargers will share a stadium with the Rams once their new palace is built in Inglewood in two years. Until then they’ll play in the 30,000 seat StubHub Center in Carson — an absolute joke.
And what makes matters worse is the “new” logo — something that looks created yesterday by my 8th grade brother.
I don’t have an 8th grade brother, but I’m sure he would actually do a better job than this.
Yes, that’s actually the new logo. This is real life.
As you can imagine, Twitter went insane. Below are just a couple of my favorite memes.
And some were quick to point out that the new “logo” looks exactly like the spawn of the LA Dodgers and Tampa Bay Lightning logos.
Hilare.
Of course there were burnings as well.
The best take came from Fox Sports 1’s Colin Cowherd, who essentially said the release of the new logo hours after the announcement of the move is like a slap in the face — like showing off your mistress before the divorce is finalized.
San Diego lost the Clippers to Los Angeles as well, but losing the Chargers really hurts. It’s a franchise that’s called the city home to multiple generations. And no matter how hard Spanos tries to spin this move as a business decision, it’s simply over bitterness and jealousy.
The best thing current Chargers fans — if there are any left — can hope for, is the same thing that happened to the Browns went Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. Hope there is a complete name change and re-branding and that the NFL awards your city with a new expansion team with the city’s old team name.
Whether it’s through expansion or a new owner, don’t be surprised to see the Bolts in San Diego some day again. There’s no way this move will work long-term.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports.
