Editorial:
The talk of the town is all about the San Diego Chargers. Will they move? Will there be a new stadium? How will a new stadium be paid for? Everyone seems to have an opinion and so we decided to add our opinion to the conversation.
No matter what, the Chargers will always be our team. We will enjoy them today and tomorrow in the same form and fashion as we have usually watched them – from the comfort of our couch, with the barbeque chicken cooking, the beer and soda on ice, in the company of our friends and family.
That is the problem with the discussion on the Charger’s football stadium. As a family, we have never been able to afford the luxury of attending a game at Qualcomm Stadium. The day runs $400 – $500 for a family of 4!
The stadium only holds 70,000 seats and for a county where over 3 million people live, 70,000 seats only account for sliver of folks in the big picture. We don’t know for sure, but our best guess is at least half of those 3 million folks are not even football fans.
The 70,000 fans that do attend the games are, in general, the same fans at all 8 games. A new stadium is a big deal for them, they want that stadium in San Diego so they can continue their enjoyment of watching a game live with the camaraderie that goes along with a stadium full of fans yelling for their team.
For the rest of us, Qualcomm Stadium looks great on the big screen!
Depending on who you listen to, you can get completely opposite points of views on the value of a pro football team to a city.
There are economists who say that the economic impact to a city like San Diego is minimal. At the other end of the spectrum you will have city leaders that state the economic value to a city is invaluable. We are pretty certain that somewhere in-between these two diverse opinions lays the truth. One thing we know for sure is that when the Chargers win on Sunday we feel pretty good on Monday and when the team makes the playoffs it seems that the whole city is pretty excited!
The problem boils down to how and who will pay for a new stadium. For the past thirteen years, city leaders and the Chargers owners haven’t figured out the answer to that question. Now, in the next three months, they are supposed to solve this problem?! In looking to solve this question of how to pay for a new stadium, we keep hearing about the “success” of the Padre’s stadium deal. Herein lies the other problem.
The Padre deal was good for downtown San Diego interests and it was very, very good for John Moores the then owner of the Padres. The Padres deal was not so good for the taxpayer: infrastructure suffered, the poor for whom the Redevelopment funds were earmarked suffered when those funds went to build the stadium, and the stadium has hastened the gentrification of Barrio Logan.
The taxpayers built a ballpark for the Padres and the city gave Moores extra property around the stadium and on Otay Mesa. It was a sweet deal for Moores who greatly benefitted from the generosity of the city leaders. Later when Moores sold the San Diego Padres for almost a billion dollars did Moores pay back the city for at least a portion of the outstanding debt? Not that we know of….
Charger’ owner Dean Spanos has probably looked to the deal Moores received and was probably thinking, “Why can’t we get a deal like that?”
The Padre deal burnt out the taxpayer and they vowed not to make the same mistake twice. That is probably why whenever a poll is taken asking the question will you support a new stadium with higher taxes the resounding answer is NO!
If a deal is done to build a new stadium, or a re-build of Qualcomm Stadium, which we think is the right thing to do, it will have to be without new taxes! City leaders throughout the county and corporate captains need to come up with a creative way to finance a plan to keep the Chargers in San Diego. Short of this we will continue to support the Los Angeles Chargers from the comfort of our couch!