The San Diego Chargers potential departure from the southernmost California city may not be as imminent as we thought.
The team announced this weekend that an initiative to approve taxpayer money for a new stadium in San Diego received enough signatures to be put on November’s ballot.
“The entire Chargers organization is grateful to all of those who helped qualify our initiative for the November 2016 ballot,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos said, via the team’s official website. “We gathered more than 110,000 signatures in less than six weeks, an extraordinary result that demonstrates the high level of community interest in a new multi-use stadium and convention center facility downtown.”
Getting it on the ballot is one thing. receiving enough votes for the measure to pass is a completely different thing.
This is only magnified by the fact that it might require a two-thirds majority vote for the Chargers to receive public funding (more on that here).
Asking for public financing has long been a major debate around the NFL world. We’ve seen certain players speak out against it in the past. And in reality, cities in the United States could use the money elsewhere.
Though, San Diego is in a unique economic situation, one that could potentially lead to this initiative passing. The city is among the top 10 in the United States in job growth with the average annual income currently sitting at $66,000.
If this bill were to pass, the idea of the Chargers moving to Los Angeles would likely be thrown out the window, setting into motion a scenario where the Oakland Raiders join the now Los Angeles Rams in Inglewood.
If it were to fail, the Chargers will likely opt in to the offer the NFL made for them to join the Rams a bit further north.
It’s definitely going to be a high-stakes election cycle in San Diego, the presidential election notwithstanding.