[snackdaddy]

Judging from the way the Rams are playing right now, I think we can expect to see more of that this season.

[LARams_1963]

There are probably more Whiner fans in SoCal than any other team except the Raiders, Packers and Rams. It was about a 60/40 mix Rams. Last year for Green Bay I would say it was close to 50/50. Every Whiner game since we've been back has been this way, but now that they're winning, there's even more of the bastages.

[St. Loser Fan]

Posted with no bad intentions.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/sto ... mOrPZTXGP0

Column: NFL’s failure to understand L.A. is hurting experience for Rams and Chargers fans

By ARASH MARKAZICOLUMNIST
OCT. 14, 2019 5:48 PM
The first time my name appeared in the Los Angeles Times was Oct. 17, 1997. I was a student at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, and Bill Plaschke had come to our fourth-period U.S. history class a couple days earlier to pick our brains for a column.

He wanted to know what it was like growing up in L.A. without an NFL team. The Raiders and Rams had played their final games in the L.A. area three years earlier when we were in grade school, and he asked us whether we missed the NFL.

We hadn’t.

Most of us were more interested in Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers or Mike Piazza and the Dodgers than we were in yearning for teams that had left town when we were kids.

“Are you listening, NFL?” Plaschke wrote. “This is the sound of future ticket and merchandising dollars slipping away with every year you stay away. This is a generation that is being lost.”

The NFL didn’t listen. The league neglected a generation of fans before finally returning to Los Angeles in 2016 — 21 years after leaving — and it’s still paying the price for its absence.

By the time the Rams moved back in 2016 and the Chargers moved here the following year, the generation they had lost had all grown up rooting for other teams in other cities or simply had no interest in the NFL.

We were fine. While the NFL was gone, the Lakers won five NBA championships, the Kings won two Stanley Cups, the Galaxy won five MLS Cups, the Sparks won back-to-back WNBA titles, the USC football team won a couple of national championships, the UCLA men’s basketball team played in three straight Final Fours, and the Clippers became a perennial playoff team. Fans in Anaheim celebrated the Angels winning their first World Series and the Ducks winning their first Stanley Cup. With the rise of fantasy football and the NFL RedZone channel, no one in L.A. was heartbroken about not having a real hometown team. Their fantasy football teams more than made up for it on Sundays.

The league didn’t do much to maintain a good relationship with the city after leaving town. It actually did everything in its power to fracture what was left of it with each passing year. During the 21 years L.A. was without a team, 22 new stadiums were built for 23 teams, many using the leverage of possibly relocating to Los Angeles to get public money to finance those stadiums. During that time, L.A. was nothing more than a pawn. We were shown enough artist renderings of failed NFL stadiums to fill the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

From 1995 to 2015, the NFL staged 31 preseason and regular-season games around the globe in the hopes of cultivating interest in the league in cities such as London and Mexico City. Do you know how many games the league held in Los Angeles to cultivate interest in the country’s second-biggest market? Zero.

The end result is a home-field experience for the Rams and Chargers that still feels very much like an NFL international game in London or Mexico City. Walk around the tailgates at the Coliseum or Dignity Health Sports Park and you’ll see plenty of people wearing the opponent’s colors, but you’ll also see jerseys of random teams such as the Cowboys, Patriots, Raiders and other teams that aren’t playing anywhere near L.A. There are plenty of NFL fans in L.A., they just might not be fans of the teams that now claim the city as their home.

This past weekend marked the final time the Rams and Chargers play at home on the same Sunday. Next season, they will both move into the new $5 billion SoFi Stadium being built in Inglewood. Not only did both teams lose, dropping their combined record this season to 5-7 after combining to go 25-7 last season, but their fans were outnumbered at their home stadiums. It was closer to 50-50 for the Rams-49ers game and probably 90-10 in favor of Pittsburgh for the Steelers-Chargers game.

Both teams expected as much going into Sunday and project it will be just as bad for their next home games when the Rams face the Chicago Bears on Nov. 17 and the Chargers take on the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 3. The “get-in” price for Sunday’s 49ers-Rams game was $135, while the cheapest ticket for the Steelers-Chargers game was $250. The cheapest ticket for the Packers-Chargers game is $300.

To put that into perspective, the Chargers are selling season tickets next year for as low as $50 per game. In other words, a Chargers fan could pay off their season tickets for next year in the new stadium by reselling just the Steelers and Packers games this season. It was a deal apparently too good to pass up for most Chargers season-ticket holders.

It’s a bad look, but it’s one the NFL created by looking the other way for more than two decades when it came to the Los Angeles market. It’s not an indictment on Los Angeles as an NFL city but rather an indictment on the NFL’s failure to understand Los Angeles.

Diehard fans who are going to pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket and thousands of dollars for a seat license aren’t created overnight. That type of loyalty and fandom is built over generations, and the NFL robbed this city of a team for an entire generation. It would be foolish for the league to think it could make up for that in a couple years.

It takes time, but if the NFL thinks it can fast-forward that process, it would simply be its latest miscalculation when it comes to understanding a city that has no problem treating the league the same way it was treated for years.

[ramsman34]

Watching on TV, it's usually not that bad. Yesterday it was that bad. From the middle of the 3rd quarter on, I started lowering the volume on the TV. By the middle of the 4th quarter, I had it on mute. Who needs Dick Stockton, anyway? He's the worst.

And is there a more obnoxious coach than Robert Saleh? Kyle Shanahan didn't bother me, he was just coaching. Robert Saleh bothered me. Our coaches don't do obnoxious stuff like that.

So fuckin spot on bro. And, Goff has to go to a SILENT COUNT AT HOME in the second half. SMH

[Elvis]

[ziggy]

I’m going to counter...
Rams fans aren’t particularly good fans.
I get selling tickets for a profit, but doing it for major rivalries like the 9ers is weak.
Sorry.

Agreed, but I'll counter your counter and say that Kroenke and organization hasn't done a whole lot build a good fan base.

On the other hand, I've heard nothing but good things about LAFC and their fans.

Win, win, win... or of you can't do that.

Free towels? Send the team superstars out to more community and fan events. Engage the fans, not just put them on an untouchable stage.

Did you see the 9ers run up to their fans at the coliseum to pump them up?

Do you see how the ball boys ALWAYS ask for the game ball back when they fly out to the stand. Rams ALWAYS keeps the game balls, so McVay can hand them out, I guess?

I think there are dozens and dozens of other things that the Rams could do to build up the fan base that they do not do.

I think they have done a FEW things to both win and also build their fanbase, but its not enough.

[St. Loser Fan]

I’m going to counter...

Rams fans aren’t particularly good fans.

I get selling tickets for a profit, but doing it for major rivalries like the 9ers is weak.

Sorry.

It's going to take someone inside the Chargers and/or Rams organizations to say "no more".

The Nashville Predators hockey team is notorious for the level of butt hurt they have over visiting team fans. They limit sales to central Tennessee zip codes, cancel season tickets and make opposing fans change clothes at the front gate to plain white shirts they give out. The team president even proudly announced he'll take empty seats over visiting fans.

The problem is that the NFL and teams get a cut of that resale. When you sell your tickets for $300 to a Packer fan, part of that profit goes to the shield.

[Mr. Sparkle]

Will it ever end? No solutions. Only complaints. What does the writer want? Sorry to posters above, but when my Packer ticket cost me $110 and it was going close to $500, and I have two, its easy to sit at home and criticize fans for selling their tickets. I didn't by the way but was very tempted.
Point is what the hell did anyone except? Instant blind loyalty for fans that were never Rams fans to begin with? And when they do, its all "band wagoners!" or "fair weather fans!". You can't win. Frankly speaking, IT IS NOT THAT BAD. But when the Rams gave us fans NOTHING to yell at after the first drive the 9ers fans stole the show. We were plenty loud at the beginning but the blue just started leaving early.
It also doesn't help that the seats are all red now.

In my total unprofessional experiance, Rams are and will be fine. Their fan numbers are growing, their PSLs are selling fine, and they will have a kick ass stadium. But they WILL suffer what EVERY other warm nice city faces with transplant fans. Tampa Bay, San Diego (before), Miami, Jacksonville, Arizona, etc.. And thats fine. They pay the same price for tickets, often more. Buy the same beer and food. etc...
It WOULD be a problem if there were almost zero fans for your team. But that is not and has never been the case for the Rams. Chargers are a different story BUT their stadium is so small it may be masking things.
Everyone go do some beer or bourbon therapy for 9 more months and lets bring up this topic... again.. at that time once in the new stadium.

For now, if you want to be part of a dime a dozen fans of big macaque teams, that wont be changing any time super soon.

Next game I'll see if I can take some pics or even video to make my point.

[Elvis]

A lot of factors at play.

For one, there will always be plenty of opportunity for opposing fans to attend a Rams game at the Coliseum. It's really up to demand, how many are there, how much do they want to go?

It's not like all 70k+ seats are owned by Rams fans. Especially this year when a lot of ST holders sat out 2019 to help pay for SSLs in Inglewood. And then there are brokers, casual fans, businesses, etc.

I think a substantially higher percentage of the Inglewood seats will be owned by actual fans but i'm not certain about that. It will be interesting to see how it goes in Inglewood...

[Mr. Sparkle]

Furthermore the old saying "Winning cures all" is really true. I read someone mention they turned off their TV as they could not stand watching the game by the end. That means they were not at the stadium. Imagine that person had been. Would they have stayed? It sucks more worse in person with 9ers fans there too. I stayed. My son made me but it was hard. Had the Rams been lighting it up, the 9ers fans would have flooded out and it would have been an entirely different story today. But they didnt. So the 9ers fans stayed and had lots to cheer about.