The San Diego Chargers have been a part of the San Diego community since 1961. Since that time they have brought great joy to the people in the city of San Diego and its many communities. Recently there has been talk of the Chargers possibly leaving San Diego to play elsewhere and start a new life in another city. The San Diego Chargers are trying to negotiate with the city of San Diego and four other cities to construct a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium that would not only house the San Diego Chargers, but would be available to hold Super Bowl games and the World Cup if built to certain criteria’s. The economic boom in the area around the stadium complex could be incredible. That being said, there are a lot of people that have been in the city of San Diego for some time and still consider it to be a sleepy, navy port city. I tell them to wake up and look around. San Diego is now the seventh largest city in America and one of wealthiest. The Chargers have put together a stadium task force to try to figure out a way to keep the Chargers in San Diego and to see if the city is truly a viable option. The Chargers Stadium task force’s main job is to work with the NFL to make sure that Chargers stay in the city that the Chargers have called home since the early 1960’s. The Chargers originally played in Los Angeles. At that time, they were called the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers moved their franchise south to the county of San Diego in 1961. The Chargers can trace their roots back to as early as 1959, when Barron Hilton met with representatives from five other cities to discuss a proposed football league; this later the American Football League, also known as the AFL. The AFL began in 1960 with eight teams; in that group were the Los Angeles Chargers, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, New York Titans, Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers, Boston Patriots and the Buffalo Bills. Since then, the AFL has disbanded and merged with the National Football League; this entity is now the widely known NFL. The NFL, in my opinion, has become the one of the most successful organizations for professional sports in the United States. The proposed new stadium would house the San Diego Chargers football team. The Chargers would have no need for their current home, the old and outdated Qualcomm Stadium. As early as the 2003 NFL season, the Chargers have been pursuing a way to replace Qualcomm Stadium with a more modern, Super Bowl-caliber football stadium, mainly due to obsolete features of the current stadium. Plus, all the severe maintenance issues with Qualcomm have made it undesirable for Super Bowls. I heard on the radio that Qualcomm stadium costs roughly seventeen million dollars per year to maintain. According to Chargers.com, the official web site of the San Diego Chargers, in the early 1960s, local Sportswriter Jack Murphy began to build support for a multipurpose stadium for San Diego. In November 1965, a $27 million bond was passed allowing construction to begin on a stadium and construction began one month later. When completed, the facility was named San Diego Stadium. After Jack Murphy's passing in 1980, San Diego Stadium was renamed San Diego-Jack Murphy Stadium or simply Jack Murphy Stadium. In 1997, the facility was renamed Qualcomm Stadium after Qualcomm Corporation paid $18 million for the naming rights. The team and city have both attempted to bring other local business partners in on a proposed $800 Million project. These businesses would be located in the parking lot of the current stadium. According to Chargers.com and football.ballparks.com, the venue was to be the state of the art facility. It would not only have the stadium but condos, business villages, more housing, commercial facilities, parks, and easier access for patrons to get in and out of the area. Currently, Mission Valley, the area where Qualcomm was built, is plagued with high levels of traffic. The newest proposal portrays the new stadium being constructed in downtown San Diego, near the new Padres baseball stadium, known as Pet Co Park. The ballpark is a state of the art facility which the San Diego Padres play in, and hosts various other events. The construction of the new ballpark led to increasing development and economic growth in the East Village area of downtown San Diego. I can personally say that it is one of the most beautiful facilities I have ever seen. Currently, after many upon many failed attempts by the Chargers and the city of San Diego need to come to an agreement on the new stadium in its current location, according to KPBS.org; the Chargers organization is being proactive, looking at other areas of San Diego County, notably Chula Vista, Oceanside, and Escondido, and most recently Downtown San Diego. I don’t think downtown will work for the Chargers because the city of San Diego has taken a financial downturn. The city is virtually broke and cannot contribute any money for the project. It looks like the Chargers will be looking for private investors very soon. There is a Los Angeles group that is willing to relocate and build a facility just for Chargers. Based on the effort the Chargers have made to find a new home within San Diego County, I believe that the Chargers would prefer to stay in San Diego with their largest fan base. Secondly, I personally think that Orange County would be a much better option than Los Angeles because its location is midway between the San Diego and Los Angeles markets. Since Los Angeles has not had a professional football team since the Raiders left for Oakland, the Chargers might be able to build a strong fan base in that area. Trust me there are many reasons why the city of Los Angeles does not have a professional football team. First they do not have a facility yet. Second the market is saturated with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Angels of Anaheim, the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers and Kings. Too much already there and the only one team that consistently is sold out are the Lakers. If a stadium was built in Orange County, the Chargers would not only influence the Orange County market, but Los Angeles and the San Diego markets as well. Orange County the market is thin. Only the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and National Hockey League Ducks play it that market. The Chargers may be the perfect fit. What I do not understand is why the people of San Diego don’t have more a desire to keep a team that has brought so much joy and pleasure to community for so many years here. Too me they have the wrong people negotiating with the chargers. To me it seems that the people that are negotiating understood what were are going to lose and what potentially could gain, the stadium deal would be already done. To me it is lack of vision and clarity. I do believe that chargers will eventually work a deal out, but my main question is where. If I could I would raise awareness of what will happen if they do leave. I can tell you that San Diego will not get another team, some people feel we would. They are foolish. Second we will never see another superbowl. The revenue behind a super bowl could get the city of San Diego out of debt in one week. I believe we need vision and foresight moving forward and we need to forget about the past. We need the right people in place to get this negotiation done. The people are negotiating now have no business doing so. Let’s get some people that have business sense and not people that want San Diego to go back to sleepy Navy town that in once was. If we don’t we could be losing much more than just another football team but a true icon of the city of San Diego. This is the current latest rendering of what the chargers would like to accomplish in downtown San Diego. It can help and continue to rebuild one of most beautiful downtowns in all of the United States and create bunch of jobs and an economic boom in the San Diego city surrounding areas. Let’s get this done people of San Diego!
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