Right as Ryan: NFL seeks more riches in L.A.

Ryan Chae, Sports Editor

Congratulations Los Angeles, you just picked up your second football team in the last two years! Now with the Rams and Chargers, you’ve got two struggling teams in a town that has no need of  a football team.

Does a city with so many professional and collegiate teams really need another dying franchise? New York would be the only other city with more sports franchises, but N.Y.’s football teams play in different states as the New York Giants and Jets play in New Jersey.

Los Angeles has more than enough teams to cover multiple states. It has two NBA teams, two MLB teams, two hockey teams, two powerhouse colleges with multiple sports teams, and now, two unnecessary football teams.

While the Chargers have been slowly dying in San Diego, it wasn’t the city that was the problem. It was the management. In the last ten years, the Chargers’ management has been one of the worst, firing head coach Marty Schottenheimer in 2007 after he had built a team that went 14-2 and pushing numerous star players to leave the team such like future Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson. And in the last 15 years, the management has been unable to agree to a new stadium with the city, pushing them to move to L.A.

But why Los Angeles?  Is it the desire and passion of the fans? Or is it maybe the lack of football in the City of Angels? Well I have yet to hear of people exclaiming their love for “their Chargers” in L.A., and we certainly have enough football here in the Rams, albeit they’re one of the worst teams in the league.

It’s quite simple why the Chargers want to move to L.A.: the money. Once again, the NFL reaffirms that this is a business, not a pee-wee league for free fun. The league doesn’t care about its fans, only about making as much money as it can, and what better way to increase its revenue than by moving another team to the second largest market in the U.S.

In the NFL, if teams don’t have a huge market like the Giants, can’t afford a new stadium like the Minnesota Vikings or are a  historical team like the Pittsburgh Steelers, they’re in danger.

However, the Chargers are not the only team that is greatly affected by this unpopular move.

The Oakland Raiders have finally reclaimed a spot as a dominant force in the league. However, that dominance in Oakland looks to be on its way out as the Raiders have just recently filed for a relocation to Las Vegas.

This is just disrespectful to the Raiders fans. They have had some of the roughest times in the past few seasons and as soon as they finally found some glimmer of hope, owner Mark Davis had enough of waiting for a new stadium and decided to relocate to Vegas, a place that has no established sports teams or fanbases.

In the end of all of this, only one party is being hurt: the fans. In the last two years, potentially three fanbases will have lost their teams to cities that have yet to even establish any sort of football fandom. The last time Los Angeles had a football team with some dedicated fans, Kobe was still a senior in high school!

If the league successfully votes on the Raiders in Vegas, the NFL has proven themselves, again, to be the evil, money grubbing corporation that we’ve grown to hate. So to the new Los Angeles Chargers and the potential Las Vegas Raiders, I hope two stadiums were worth the hearts of your fans and the history of San Diego and Oakland.