It was only a matter of time.

I’ve wondered about how to do an LA comic for a long time but I wasn’t sure how. I decided to wait until we actually had news, because it really was inevitable. Having the second biggest media market in the entire country have no team was kind of insane. Frankly if it happened I was hoping it would be the Rams or Raiders, because of prior Los Angeles history. I really don’t want the Chargers in LA, that’s just gross, even if they do have history there and the fanbase wouldn’t have to go real far (less history, but history).

But it’s hard to watch this happen to the existing fanbases. It’s hard to watch Stan Kroenke manipulate and screw St. Louis. The Rams may have struggled to fill seats but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a loyal fanbase that deserved to have this happen. If we had a perfect life both cities could be happy, but this isn’t perfect and honestly from a financial standpoint it makes sense why the Rams are moving. They’ve only been in St. Louis for 20 years. They were Los Angeles when I was a wee kid, and they were there for a long time before they moved. One generation of fans is losing their team. Kroenke still did it in a scummy backhanded way that didn’t give the city much of a choice, which is what I would be mad about as a fan.

I feel worse for the Chargers. That team has been there so long. A lot gets made of the fact that the team tried to work with the city for a new stadium for a long time and many people blame the city and the fans for giving up on them. That’s kind of bullshit. If you know how owners screw city taxpayers over to get their giant luxury stadiums there is no way I can blame the residents of San Diego for not voting to have an incredible tax increase to fund a team when there are so many other, more important things to fix. These fans love the Chargers but this is real life and the Chargers/NFL had enough money to get a stadium without gouging SD. Having the Chargers in LA is going to feel wrong.

As for the Raiders, who knows. They have to move or get new digs and Mark Davis might be the only owner who can’t straight afford new digs himself. It’s also not like Oakland is rolling in dough. I have no idea what is going to happen with the Raiders. Davis got out-businessed by Kroenke and lost their chance to share. The rest of the owners probably don’t like Davis. Where could they move? San Antonio? …St. Louis? Don’t say Portland. The only people who argue for Portland don’t live here. I live in Portland. This city is not supporting an NFL team.

Bottom line is this whole process felt inevitable and hurtful. It was going to happen, it happened painfully, and we aren’t completely done with the nonsense yet. Worse now, at least to me, is that the NFL will just find a new city to use as stadium bait. Now instead of threatening to go to LA, it’ll be London. You know it’s true, and it’ll be terrible.