Dan Fouts Says Chargers Playing At StubHub Center Is 'Embarrassing'
Dan Fouts is not impressed with the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers temporary housing. The Hall of Fame quarterback and CBS football color analyst said the fact that an NFL team is playing at the StubHub Center is an embarrassment.
Fouts went on KNX 1070 News Radio in Los Angeles on Monday and said the following about the Chargers’ temporary home venue:
"“It is embarrassing, I think, for both the Chargers and the National Football League, to be playing in a 27,000-seat stadium. In fact, the Chargers’ first game ever, when they beat the New York Titans in a preseason game, in the Coliseum, it drew 27,000.”"
Bear in mind, Fouts is a member of the Chargers’ preseason broadcasts, so he’s actually a paid employee of the team for those games. The fact that even he is ripping the StubHub situation is telling. The Chargers sold just 21,054 tickets for their preseason opener against the Seattle Seahawks and improved that to just 21,197 in Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints. StubHub holds just 27,000.
During their final season in San Diego, the Chargers averaged 57,000 fans for each home game. Now they’re struggling to get one-third that many in their tiny soccer stadium home. They’ll be at StubHub for at least two more seasons as the stadium in Inglewood they’ll share with the Los Angeles Rams is slowly erected.
Lets be real here: the Chargers are playing at StubHub not because it provides a “unique environment” they thought would be fun for fans, it’s because everyone with a brain knew they wouldn’t draw enough fans to fill the Los Angeles Coliseum or the Rose Bowl. They are forced to play in a tiny soccer stadium because playing in front of 30,000 fans at either large LA venue would be even more embarrassing for the NFL.
Fouts, who led the Chargers from 1973 to 1987, has not been kind in his assessment of the team’s move. While he blamed both the city and Dean Spanos for not getting a stadium built in San Diego, anyone who knows anything about the process blames Spanos. And rightfully so.
Fouts is just the latest in a long line of voices who find the Chargers’ move to Los Angeles as wildly embarrassing to everyone involved. That chorus isn’t going to quiet down any time soon.