There’s been a lot written about the problems with the Chargers’ move to Los Angeles (technically, for now, Carson), from fan resentment to poor logos to poorly-considered letters to price hikes to attendance struggles to local officials’ apathy. And many have wondered why the second team to join the Rams was the Chargers rather than the Raiders, another relocating team with more fans and history in Los Angeles. Well, those two threads are colliding this week, with the Chargers set to host the Raiders Sunday at StubHub Center (seen ahead of last week’s game against the San Francisco 49ers). And they seem already quite aware that it’s effectively going to be a road game:
Practice notes: Chargers piping in crowd noise to prep for Raiders. WR Travis Benjamin has a pink cast on his right foot today. RT Joe Barksdale and LT Russell Okung out there.
— Sam Fortier (@Sam4TR) October 4, 2018
Joe Barksdale and Russell Okung are back at practice for Chargers. Team playing crowd noise during practice in preparation for Raiders’ takeover of StubHub Center.
— Eric Williams (@eric_d_williams) October 4, 2018
Yeah, that’s not great. And sure, that isn’t the case for the Chargers every week, as not every team comes with the Los Angeles fanbase the Raiders have. But this does help to illustrate how poor things are for the Chargers on the fan side, and how many struggles their facing. But hey, at least the Raiders’ fans will be annoyed about not being able to drink as much as they want?
The Chargers will allow only one beer per transaction and will stop serving beer at halftime for this week’s game against the Raiders. The team has put restrictions like this for home games against the Raiders only since at least 2009. pic.twitter.com/GzCz6iIlff
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) October 4, 2018
This is all fine, and moving the Chargers to Los Angeles is totally great. Good job, good effort, everyone.
[Sam Fortier on Twitter]
The solution SHOULD have been for the Raiders to move to Los Angeles and the Chargers to move into that shiny new Las Vegas stadium. But the Raiders have actual fans that are a little too inconvenient for the sorts of bourgeois rich white people that buy luxury boxes, so they never had a chance. Vegas will be the least Raiders-y place they could have moved to.