Chargers Rams face an uphill battle to w
SHUTTLING BETWEEN COSTA MESA AND IRVINE, Calif. -- The battle for the hearts and minds and, most importantly, wallets, of Southern California is on, between the (who just moved from San Diego and have mounted "Fight For L.A." signs all over this area, adopting it as an official marketing campaign) and the , whose arrival here predates them by a Khyri Thomas Jersey year but who it's fair to say are still struggling to establish a real foothold in Cali.As both teams practice in temporary training facilities and play in temporary stadiums for several years awaiting the completion of Rams owner Stan Kroenke's football Taj Mahal in Los Angeles proper (Inglewood, to be precise), the stakes certainly seem high enough, both financially and in terms of branding, public relations and overall relevance in this glitzy media market. As for their on-field product, both teams are in the rebuilding proce s -- certainly in the case of the Rams -- or at least the re-tooling phase, when it comes to the Chargers, and it would behoove both to start winning football games ASAP.It's fair to say, at least in the short-term, that this "fight" might be more about mitigating lo ses than anything else, as declaring either franchise an actual victor may misinterpret the realities of these surroundings. Having spent the better part of a week recently in these parts going to practices, talking to fans and soaking up the atmosphere, neither club was exactly creating a steady buzz or moving the meter. Seems to me both face an immediate uphill climb.Off-field wins could be marginal and somewhat fleeting as they try to convert generations of fans accustomed to getting their in-person football fix on Saturdays at USC or UCLA and who have found myriad other ways to pa s lazy Sunday afternoons; who already have allegiance to an out-of-market or their own fantasy teams, or were wedded to being able to see the best games on TV Jerami Grant Jersey with LA going 25 years without a team of its own before two were suddenly thrust upon them. On one particular sun-soaked, late afternoon August day, however, the "fight" seemed decidedly one-sided. For the second joint practice between the combatants, the Chargers have bused five miles up the I-5, from their camp base in Costa Mesa to the Rams' headquarters on the UC Irvine campus. The darker blue side of Orange County? Anyway, on this afternoon thousands of die-hards have braved the constant threat of traffic to show up. For a few hours at least, the energy is electric.Rams Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson is being mobbed by fans in one tent. The tennis courts nearby on campus are overflowing with fan groups who have set up tables. The stands stretching around the field are packed and pulsating. With a DJ pumping tunes throughout drills and the beer garden packed and wine flowing, it feels more like a night at the club or a banging happy hour than a training camp. But that's L.A., I suppose.Rams fans are yelling at and heckling Chargers players, the teams are literally engaged in fisticuffs several times during the two-plus-hour se sion, and the chants are lively and at times, inspired. "Go back to San Diego!" "You spelled San Diego wrong!" "Whose house? Rams house!" "Chargers suck! Chargers suck!" And, perhaps most to the point, cutting to the Chargers step-brother status when it comes to the stadium being built: "Pay your rent! Pay your rent!" Yet just the day before the Chargers had practiced in relative obscurity, the interactive fan activities they set up at their camp basically ignored, the food cart lines maybe three people deep at peak lunchtime, the large stands they set up perhaps a third full, with a few hundred fannies in the seats. And in the coming weeks the Chargers would play two preseason games at StubHub Center, a soccer-specific stadium at its construction, and could barely fill three-quarters of the beyond-modest 28,000 capacity, drawing a collective yawn (at best) from the locals.And two days after the spirited Rams-Chargers joint practice I rolled back to Irvine for another late-afternoon Rams practice, and the campus had become a ghost town. You could count the number of fans with an abacus (and that includes all the players Louis King Jersey ' family members a sembled that day); those fancy hospitality tents were full of lonely beer taps waiting to be pulled, the parking lots were empty. Even the media presence was limited.These teams Blake Griffin Jersey met at the L.A. Coliseum for a nationally televised in late August, and all the headlines were about the dismal ratings it provoked (lowest since 2004 was the consensus). They did combine for a total of nine wins in 2016, after all. Then a week later the got a hold of -- some costing le s than a nice house would have back in St. Louis -- and, well, Kroenke better get all of his friends in Malibu to pitch in to the cause. This won't be a cheap ticket; will there be sufficient demand for it over the long haul? There had best be plenty of Ws sprinkled in the standings for both of these teams, the sooner the better. Merely playing football eight Sundays a year probably isn't going to be enough. Simply building a state-of-the-art stadium might not be enough, either.Of course, you'll find no shortage of executives and officials from either club who will intimate this is all being gro sly overblown. Surely a market this ma sive, with so much collective wealth and with so many corporate headquarters nearby, can support two franchises. Even if they're middling, I a sume. Any notion of competition for fans is quickly poo-pooed by both clubs -- even despite those ever-present "Fight For L.A." signs and the Chargers' social media videos speaking directly to this very competition for fans' attention -- and surely they are going to make for perfect bedfellows once they are actually sharing a stadium (despite the natural tension that will arise over construction and securing the best dates and schedule and sharing suites, etc.)."Well I think from Ventura County to Orange County and everything in between and the Inland Empire is like what, 16, 17, 18 million people," Chargers general manager Tom Telesco said. "So I think there's enough of a market that we can flourish and the Rams can flourish, too. For us it's just about trying to battle for wins on the field, and not really so much about battling for market share. I think if you put a good product on the field and you win some games people will notice. "There are a lot of people in this area that have grown up without a team here and who have kids, and those kids grew up rooting for other teams. So there are a lot of families here looking for a team to root for and to follow and support, and there's millions of people who live here, so through USC football and Rams football and Chargers football I think there Luke Kennard Jersey 's plenty for everybody."Rams coach Sean McVay sounds as if he may have been privy to similar talking points."I think the biggest thing for us is just focusing in on ourselves. I've got a lot of respect for (Ch