This is very bad news for those fans of football in the town of San Diego. It looks like the San Diego Chargers will have their home opener blacked out on local TV. As of earlier today they still had 7,000 non premium seats left unsold. According to NFL rules if a team does not sell out its non premium seats 72 hours before kick off the game will not be broadcast on TV within 75 miles of the stadium. In these situations the team has two options, they can apply for a 24 hour grace period to try and sell off the remaining tickets or they can buy them themselves for 34 cents on the dollar.
That means the Charges would have to spend at least 192,780 dollars to get the game on local TV. That is based on the average ticket price of 81 dollars for Qualcomm Stadium. While that is a lot of money for a NFL team it is not that big of a number, especially since that figure would be a right off for the team come tax time. This looks like ammunition for the Charges either to leverage a new stadium out of the taxpayers of San Diego, or relocate to Los Angels when the new NFL stadium there is completed.
Since taxpayer dollars being invested into new stadium construction is a shell game that leaves the citizens holding the bills and the owner of the sports team making all the profits of the stadium the good folks of San Diego should not build this team a new stadium. San Diego is and will remain a tourist destination with or without the San Diego Chargers.
If the team is unhappy with their current deal, and is unwilling to build a new stadium themselves then while painful the Chargers fans living in San Diego should reconcile themselves to the team moving north to Los Angeles. The worse news here is around 10,000 tickets remain for the next Chargers home game October 3rd against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Related Links:
• San Diego Chargers news and notes • The Business of the NFL •MTR Football
