The Chargers are struggling. Last week, there were even a few rumblings that the NFL hasn’t taken “forcibly sending Dean Spanos’s public-money-grubbing ass back to San Diego. (It was phrased slightly differently, unfortunately.)
The Chargers are currently playing at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, home of MLS’s Los Angeles Galaxy. Stadium capacity: 30,000. (The next smallest stadium, in Oakland, features a 53,000+ capacity, so it’s a sizable gap.)
Take a look at the stadium configuration for today’s Chargers-Eagles game, thanks to Les Bowen of The Philadelphia Daily News:
https://twitter.com/LesBowen/status/914559768051687424
They had to cover sections of seats in a 30,000 seat stadium! For a real, live, regular season NFL game! Teams cover those empty areas up for optics purposes, and also to get around potential blackouts. If there are never seats available for a game, that means you’re selling out every time, am I right?
If you’re perhaps thinking “Well, hey, fall in Los Angeles is a nice time of year, people might have other things to do, here’s a pic from a September 2016 Los Angeles Galaxy match, featuring that exact same area of the stadium:
If you’re wondering when the StubHub Center replaced that berm with the bleachers that are now covered, let’s refer to this Los Angeles Times article from August, which now reads like one of the saddest things:
The bleachers in the second deck on the east side of the stadium were replaced by tip-up seats and moved to the berm on the north side, adding 1,000 seats. A new section of upper-level bleachers, which will seat 330, was erected in the southeast corner of the stadium.
They added those bleachers they’ve already had to cover up! It’s Week 4!
It gets even sadder. Here’s Melvin Ingram, on the atmosphere the Rams were expecting:
Several players raved about their new home after last Saturday’s joint practice with the Rams, which attracted about 8,000 fans to StubHub. They could only imagine how the place will feel and sound when it’s packed.
“The atmosphere was amazing,” defensive end Melvin Ingram said. “It feels like everybody is so close. … The fans are even more stoked than we are. When you come out here and see them so hyped, I have no choice but to lay it on the line for them.”
That hurts double when you see pictures like these of the actual fans in attendance:
Notice anything odd about the crowd today in Carson, Ca.? pic.twitter.com/vj1h86yzqH
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) October 1, 2017
Another random shot, I promise I'm not looking for green, this is the crowd: pic.twitter.com/OIBWR12N5p
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) October 1, 2017
But hey, at least those Eagles fans will be the benefactors of the StubHub Center’s commitment to concession accessibility:
Katie Pandolfo, the facility’s general manager for 13 years, said most NFL stadiums have a ratio of 120 fans to one concession-stand point of sale.
“We tried to get even lower than that,” Pandolfo said. “We’re at 112 to one.”
That ratio might be inverted, based on the pictures.
It’s funny, while owners immediately freak out over what players protesting racial inequality might do to the bottom line, they seem to be much slower to react when their own greed leads to sights like this one.
Wonder what the difference is.
[Image via Les Bowen on Twitter]
