The Chargers’ move to Los Angeles has a calamitous feeling about it thus far. Leaving their fans in San Diego to become the second NFL team in the city in two years and following the Rams is one thing. But instead of playing their games in the Coliseum until a new stadium can be built, the Chargers are being forced to play in the StubHub Center.
Of course, the StubHub Center was built as a soccer-specific stadium in 2003 as the home for the LA Galaxy with a capacity of 27,000 people. The stadium been used for other events in the past, but that has been its central purpose until now where it’ll also temporarily host the Chargers. It’s supposed to expand to 30,000 for Chargers games… but the StubHub Center may not even need to hold that many folks.
And already, the Galaxy have a feather in their cap to hold over their new co-tenants. Over the weekend, the Galaxy drew over 25,000 fans for their home game against NYCFC. The Chargers then played their first preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks and only drew 21,000 fans.
attendance announced at 21,054…#LAGalaxy had 25,667 last night. Galaxy wins
— Kevin Baxter 🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017
If an effort to continue attendance thread, lemme say #LAGalaxy sold out its 1st game (27,000) here in 2003 and averaged 21,983 in 1st year
— Kevin Baxter 🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017
Both figures, obviously, better than what Chargers got in their opener. It is a preseason game. But it's also the first in their LA return
— Kevin Baxter 🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017
Ouch. That may be worse than the result for the Chargers, where they lost to the Seahawks by a “this should be impossible in the preseason score” of 48-17.
There’s a lot of things working against the Chargers here. They’re trying to take on a completely new market in an already crowded sports scene in Los Angeles that has historically been rather ambivalent towards the NFL. The team has struggled on the field in recent seasons and seems on the verge or in the midst of a major rebuild. And they have to play second fiddle to the Rams after showing up late to the party.
Now in fairness, the NFL preseason might be the biggest ripoff in sports, asking fans to pay huge ticket prices to watch their favorite star players stand on the sidelines wearing baseball caps. But to not even fill a stadium that would be the 108th largest stadium in college football? That has to be incredibly concerning to the Chargers, who right now don’t look like they could fill the Rubber Bowl in Akron.
How do the Chargers plan to make up for all of that lost revenue? By charging egregiously high ticket prices that will be the highest in the league at an average of $192 per ticket. With the economics of supply and demand, you might think that makes sense with the smallest NFL stadium we’ve seen in decades. The only thing is, there has to be demand for that theory to work.
