Because of the severity of their defeat in this month’s stadium referendum, the San Diego Chargers believe their best option is to move to Los Angeles before next season, CBSSports.com reports.
It is not necessarily the fact the Chargers lost in their latest effort for public funding for a new stadium that’s spurred this thinking — it was the way they lost, according to the report. Chargers owner Dean Spanos spent over $10 million on the campaign, yet only about 40 percent of the votes were in his favor. The Chargers needed 66.7 percent for the measure to pass.
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NFL owners close to Spanos believe this was the final straw that will prompt him to take his team north, where it would join the Rams in an under-construction stadium in Inglewood and essentially be a tenant of Rams owner Stan Kroenke. The Rams are playing at the L.A. Coliseum through 2018.
"If Dean stays, it's not because he thinks he can get a stadium in San Diego," one ownership source told CBS Sports. "It's just because he doesn't want to take the deal in Inglewood."
While the Chargers could ask for an extension of their January deadline to inform the NFL and the Rams of their desire to move to L.A., that’s not an option they’re likely to pursue. Since the team got so little support at the ballots, the thinking around the league is that pushing back the deadline would not have much of an effect.
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"I guess you could stay and wait around some other option to emerge, but I'm not sure that's very feasible," another source said. "Where else is he going to go? London? San Antonio? I can't see that."