After the official announcement on Jan 12, the former San Diego Chargers had to pack up their things and move north to join another returning LA team, the Rams, making the “City of Dreams” a two-football team city once again.
This move was met with a lot of controversy, mainly from the loyal San Diego fans that have called the Chargers their own for 56 seasons after they moved south after only playing one season in Los Angeles.
The disgruntled die-hard San Diego Charger supporters felt betrayed, lashing out in a magnitude of ways, including burning jerseys and taking to social media to express their disappointment.
The now LA Chargers weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms and it was very apparent that their fan base in LA was something they were going to have to work for, unlike their new roommates, the LA Rams.
When the Rams returned to LA after spending some hard time in St. Louis they had a fan base already in place for them.
The Rams called Los Angeles their home for 47 years longer than the Chargers, so when they returned, it was apparent how much the city of LA missed them, even if it was just for nostalgia reasons or family history.
Conversely, the Chargers, only made a quick one season appearance in LA from 1960-1961 before leaving just as quickly to start building their own fan base in San Diego.
Most LA fans didn’t even realize they left and never had the opportunity to fully commit to a team that stayed for only one season, plus they had other football teams to worry about and unfortunately Los Angeles is a very “out of sight, out of mind,” type of city.
If you don’t stay relevant and especially if you don’t win and win a lot, your stock starts to plummet and sadly you will start to see locals sporting more team fan gear for whatever team is winning at the moment than from the LA/Southern California home teams.
This is why, regardless of who was in LA the longest, it will all come down to who wins the most and the fastest.
LA as a whole is drawn to winners, just like during the 2000-2002 Kobe and Shaq era of 3 consecutive championships when everyone in LA was a Lakers fan.
In recent seasons the Lakers started to lose a lot and now where are their fans? Staying in their seats but watching a different LA team instead, just swapping their gold and purple jersey for a red and blue one.
Battling to be the “Kings of LA football” has just begun and as long as there continues to be more than one NFL team in town, battles will be won but the war will never be over.
