Source:The New Democrat
This is probably the best and most accurate report I’ve seen so far about the NFL coming back to Los Angeles via the Oakland Raiders or San Diego Chargers, St. Louis Rams. Or some other club that doesn’t play in one of the big NFL glam markets, lets say. Meaning they are not in Washington, New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, to use as examples. Even though this report comes from The Onion. But keep in mind, The Onion’s reporting is just as accurate as Fox News. For all of you right-wingers who think The Onion makes things up.
Putting the NFL back in Los Angeles, even though it is the second biggest city in America and the second largest market in America and the biggest county in America, is about one thing and one thing only. The color green, meaning money of course. Commissioner Money Bags otherwise known as Roger Goodell sees a market of fifteen-million people and a city of four-million people. That currently doesn’t have an NFL franchise and hasn’t had one for twenty-years now. And sees all the potential for network TV money if there’s a franchise in Los Angeles. Thinking if LA has a team all the people there, or a lot of them will watch the team or teams there, plus the other football game there on Sundays.
What Commissioner Money Bags doesn’t understand is, is that Los Angeles is not exactly crying or even asking for another NFL franchise. Especially someone else’s that isn’t doing very well right now. Like the Raiders or Rams, two clubs that use to be in Los Angeles and Anaheim before they moved to Oakland and St. Louis twenty-years ago. Los Angeles, already has the NBA Lakers, MLB Dodgers, NHL Kings, that won the Stanley Cup a couple of years ago. They have both USC and UCLA football that is very popular there. So why would Los Angeles want to build a new seventy-eighty-thousand seat football stadium with hopes of drawing 40-50 thousand people a game and seeing the people shut out from watching their team on TV. Which is what happened to both the Raiders and Rams the whole time they were in the LA area.
If Commissioner Money Bags and the NFL was truly interested in making the NFL succeed in Los Angeles, they would think and act small and build on the progress that they make.
Start with preseason games in LA, neutral site regular season games between other teams like with the regular season kickoff or something.
Play the Super Bowl there again before LA gets another team.
Put a USFL spring team there and see how that club does there in the spring and summer.
And the last two things that are just as important as everything else. Put an expansion franchise in Los Angeles after everything else goes well. Instead of taking someone else’s team. So the people there can grow up with the new team and call it their own.
And only put one NFL franchise in Los Angeles. Because LA has never been a two-team NFL market and probably will never be one.
Los Angeles is Los Angeles and not New York. The cultures and people there are very different. LA is not as sports-crazed as New York or even Philadelphia and Chicago. And has a hell of a lot other things to do and keep them occupied outside of sports. Similar to San Francisco and Las Vegas. So for sports to work there, you have to think outside of how big and wealthy the market is. You have to plan and market sports very well there for them to succeed.
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