49ers Leaving San Francisco - or just posturing?

With all due respect, Idaho, the majority of people in LA and OC do not care about the NFL.

If it were such a pressing issue, politicians would be out front leading the charge. The mayor of Cleveland was on the steps of City Hall the morning after the Browns left, demanding another team. The people of Cleveland paid for the stadium, of course.

I've talked to politicians in LA and OC. They talk to voters and commission polls. If the people indicated they wanted a team, the LA and OC politicians would be leading a charge. The NFL does not come up as an election issue. No one cares. One guy told me 95% of the people didn't care and, of the 5% that did, 95% wouldn't pay a dime of tax money for a stadium.

Ticket sales would be good, I'm sure. But, in the decade it has taken the NFL to realize it must pay for its own stadium, the league has turned off one generation of fans and lost the next, and all the while the estimated stadium costs have jumped from $500 million to $1 billion.

If an NFL team announced today it would move to LA, the majority of the people in LA and OC would yawn.

 

In fact, it's the SoCal politicians who are leading the charge now. Villaraigosa wants a team and has entertained the NFL in trying to secure Coliseum or Rose Bowl upgrades. But Pasadena -- as I said before -- would absolutely revolt. They do NOT want a team there. ... And the Coliseum, meanwhile, is not a viable NFL stadium.

Ides, I'm sure season tickets would sell out very quickly if a team came in to the SoCal area ... for about 3 years.

Then, when the team kept on losing and costs to attend the games kept rising, people would stop going to games. Just as they stopped going to Rams games -- Ms. Georgia did get a kitsch deal with St. Louis, but the Rams played in front of a lot of empty seats the last couple years at the Big A. Their games were being blacked out on local TV. They didn't have the support. Leigh Steinberg (the agent) was the one who led the Save the Rams movement, not the fans.

So sure, tickets would sell out for a year or two. But then, it would be same-old, same-old.

 

Again, point taken. It's been a few years since I lived out that way. Man, I miss SoCal, or Cal in general. I lived in Laguna Niguel and worked in San Juan Capistrano. Great place, although a lot of Orange County is not my speed.

 

The Rams played in front of empty crowds at Anaheim Stadium because they were a horrifically dull team for the final five years of their stay.

A Cowboys-Raiders game drew 90,000-plus in 1992. People will come, if you give them something exciting to watch.

 

I personally don't give a shit if Los Angeles ever gets a team back, and I don't think the majority of NFL fans do much either, but it's time to set aside the notion that L.A. has too many cool toys to be bothered with the benefits pro football would bring to that city. There are as many quality things to do, in my humble opinion, in the Tampa-St. Pete-Orlando corridor as there are in Los Angeles, and pro football is entrenched in that region. And pro football would give Angelenos yet one more opportunity to pursue their favorite pastime: Being seen, and being seen with other cool people in a cool setting. Once upon a time, both the Rams and Raiders offered that in spades.

You want a team, you don't want a team ... somebody tell your doofus governor so he gets it straight. Because he wants two of them.

 

Lee, no one cared about the NFL in Tampa until Rich McKay and Tony Dungee built a decent franchise.