Chargers’ popularity grows
Forty-five years ago, when the fledgling Los Angeles Chargers packed up and relocated to San Diego after one season, few in L.A. seemed to notice.
The Chargers were greeted with similar indifference a few years ago, when they moved their training camp from La Jolla to Carson. Open practice sessions, which in other parts of the country might draw hundreds or thousands of spectators, were embarrassingly sparse.
“We’d get 50 people, 20 people, sometimes nobody,” fullback Lorenzo Neal said. “If you wanted to get welcomed to a town, you’d hope you’d get more than that.”
But now, as the victories pile up and the Chargers establish themselves as prime Super Bowl contenders, there are subtle indications the franchise is becoming more popular north of San Diego and gaining traction in a marketplace where it had none before.
Winning has a lot to do with that. The Chargers, who play host to Kansas City tonight, have won seven in a row and last Sunday secured a playoff spot by clinching the AFC West title with three weeks to go. That victory over Denver drew triple the TV ratings of typical Chargers games a few years earlier, back when the team was routinely out of the postseason race.
According to the Chargers, there were multiple bidders for the team’s exhibition games, which the last two summers have aired on KCBS/KCAL and are being negotiated for 2007. The Chargers have expanded their regional radio network to include Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, the Inland Empire, the Imperial Valley, Yuma, Ariz., and Tijuana.
With as much as one-quarter of the Chargers’ season-ticket holders living north of San Diego, Amtrak has adjusted and expanded its schedule for fall Sundays to provide service from L.A. and Orange County to Old Town San Diego, where fans can catch the trolley to Qualcomm Stadium. Team officials estimate as many as 1,000 fans from L.A. and Orange County travel to the home games that way.
“As long as there’s no team in Los Angeles or Orange County, it’s a natural vacuum that we’re trying very hard to fill,” said Mark Fabiani, special counsel to the Chargers. “Those are potential fans, business partners and advertisers. We’ve worked hard on and off the field to attract fans from all over Southern California.”
There’s a practical reason for that, beyond ticket and souvenir sales. For years, the team has been angling for a new stadium in San Diego, with the possibility it could relocate if it doesn’t get one. The Chargers, understanding there’s no public money for football stadiums, have proposed paying for the venue themselves in exchange for development rights to the surrounding area.
San Diego’s recent political and financial turmoil, coupled with the public’s resentment of the Chargers over a now-defunct deal that guaranteed the city would buy any unused game tickets, have made getting a new stadium almost impossible. The Chargers have given up on their concept of building on the current site, and are looking into less desirable options in National City and Chula Vista, both south of downtown.
By the Chargers’ estimate, 2013 is the soonest they could get new digs in San Diego, and that would mean getting a stadium initiative on the 2008 ballot and wading through at least two years of litigation before breaking ground. Fabiani said the Chargers, who scrapped the unpopular ticket guarantee in 2004, are making their best effort to stay and don’t plan to exercise their right to talk to other cities after Jan. 1. But he and the Chargers are not optimistic a simple solution is in the offing.
“The city of San Diego is totally dysfunctional and incapable of working with the team on a project like this,” Fabiani said.
Things are going much smoother on the field. The Chargers are averaging a league-high 32.7 points a game -- five points more than the next-closest, the Chicago Bears -- and have the most-valuable-player front-runner in LaDainian Tomlinson, who last Sunday set the NFL’s single-season touchdown record. They are unbeaten at home, where they have outscored opponents, 202-103.
Not only Tomlinson but quarterback Philip Rivers and linebacker Shawne Merriman are among the most popular and recognizable players in the league. And the Chargers could be on the path to their first Super Bowl victory.
The players aren’t looking that far ahead, of course. At least not publicly. They do recognize, however, that their victories are not tabulated solely in the won-lost column.
“Without a doubt, the opportunity we have excites the whole organization,” said Neal, who grew up in Fresno. “For so long, the 49ers and Raiders have represented California. Right now, we’re California’s team. We want to represent California, and we want to be California’s champion.”
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Taking charge
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A look at the recent upswing in popularity of the San Diego Chargers:
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TELEVISION RATINGS
* The Chargers-Denver game last Sunday did a 10.3/25 share in the L.A. market. Four years ago, the Chargers games were routinely receiving ratings in the 3 and 4 range.
* There were multiple bidders for the team’s exhibition games. The last two summers, the team’s exhibition deal was with KCBS/KCAL, and the team is negotiating for the 2007 preseason.
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RADIO
* LaDainian Tomlinson has a regular feature show on ESPN Radio every Tuesday.
* The team has an existing deal with KMPC 1540 and a new one with ESPN Deportes for Spanish-language radio.
* The team has expanded its regional network. There are seven English stations and two Spanish stations. Station coverage includes Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, the Inland Empire, the Imperial Valley, Tijuana and Yuma, Ariz.
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AMTRAK
* Amtrak has adjusted and expanded its schedule for Sundays to provide service from Union Station in Los Angeles direct to the trolley in Old Town San Diego, where fans then can ride to Qualcomm Stadium.
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TICKET SALES
* Of the Chargers’ existing ticket base, 20% to 25% is from the Orange County-Riverside-San Bernardino-L.A. area.
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CELEBRITIES
* Among those who have attended Chargers games: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver, Ashton Kutcher, Pamela Anderson, Teri Hatcher, Ricardo Chadira, Kendra Wilkinson, Dennis Haysbert, Phil Mickelson, Sugar Shane Mosley, Wayne Gretzky, Amy Alcott, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rob Lowe, Christy Swanson, Henry Winkler, Adam Sandler, Ray Romano and Chauncey Billups.
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Source: San Diego Chargers
