The Governator showed up at the NFL owner meetings in Texas, asking for not one, but two teams in the Southern California area.
After meeting with a group of NFL owners, Schwarzenegger said he was there to make sure “we’re getting not only one NFL team to the Los Angeles area, Southern California, but to actually get two teams. That’s why I came. Why limit it?”
“There’s enough room and enough audience to have two teams,” Schwarzenegger said. “We just have to all work together and make it happen.”
Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest television market, has been without an NFL team since the Raiders and Rams both left after the 1994 season. When the NFL expanded in 2002, the new team went to Houston after Los Angeles leaders and supporters couldn’t reach an agreement with the league.
I live in Newport Beach, and while I want an NFL team in the area, two teams is a very bad idea. There are so many transplants in Southern California that there isn’t a sense of hometown pride with regard to sports teams like there is in other areas of the country. Throw in the fact that there are ton of different entertainment options – making it less likely that fans will stick with a team throughout a series of losing seasons – and what you get is an area of the country with a ton of frontrunning fans. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely hardcore fans of each of the sports franchises in the area, but the passion doesn’t run as deep as it does in Green Bay or Cleveland, so teams aren’t going to sell out games after a couple of losing seasons.
L.A. definitely needs a football team. But let’s start with one and see how it goes. The last time the area had two teams, both franchises left, and if that were to happen again it would be disasterous.
