Why did the Chargers leave San Diego?
A stadium deal never happened. Measure C, the 2016 ballot measure to fund a downtown stadium, got 43.64% of the vote. The team announced its move to Los Angeles on January 12, 2017, after 56 seasons here.
- Announced
- January 12, 2017
- Measure C result
- 43.64% yes
- What it needed
- More than it got
- NFL in San Diego now
- None
After 56 seasons here
Certified, Nov 2016
Short of even a simple majority
Nearest is Inglewood
The short version
- The Chargers announced their relocation to Los Angeles on January 12, 2017, after 56 seasons in San Diego.
- Measure C, the November 2016 ballot measure to fund a downtown stadium with a hotel-tax rise, failed with 43.64% voting yes.
- No second NFL owners' vote was needed — a January 2016 vote on the Rams' move had given the Chargers an option to join the Inglewood stadium.
- The franchise actually began in Los Angeles in 1960 and moved to San Diego for the 1961 season.
- There is no NFL team in San Diego today; the nearest is SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, roughly 120 miles north.
The short version is that a stadium never got funded. The longer version involves a ballot measure, a tax threshold and an option the NFL had already granted a year earlier — and it still comes up in conversation here a decade later, so it is worth getting the facts right.
How it actually happened
The decisive vote was the NFL's in January 2016, not anything that happened in 2017.
Measure C, and the numbers people misquote
Measure C would have funded a combined stadium and convention centre facility in the East Village by raising the city's transient occupancy tax — the hotel tax — from 10.5% to 16.5%, folding in an existing 2% tourism-marketing assessment. The Chargers put the total project at about $1.8 billion, of which $650 million would be privately funded.
43.64%
Voted yes
237,597 votes
56.36%
Voted no
306,887 votes
544,484
Votes cast
Certified December 8, 2016
Why there was no dramatic owners' vote in 2017
This is the part most people misremember. On January 12, 2016 — exactly a year before the announcement — NFL owners voted 30–2 to approve the Rams' return to Los Angeles at Inglewood. The league's relocation policy requires approval by three-quarters of clubs, or 24 of 32. That same decision gave the Chargers a one-year option to join the Inglewood project.
So when Measure C failed in November 2016, the machinery was already in place. The Chargers exercised the option and announced the move on January 12, 2017. No second full relocation vote was needed.
What's there now
There is no NFL team in San Diego, and no serious prospect of one. The nearest is SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, home to both the Chargers and the Rams, roughly 120 miles up I-5 — a drive that on a Sunday can be anything from two hours to considerably more. The old stadium site in Mission Valley is now Snapdragon Stadium; see what happened to Qualcomm Stadium.
SOURCES
Everything above traces back to one of these. Follow them — if one has changed and we haven't, that's our mistake, not yours.
County of San Diego Registrar of Voters · Certified December 8, 2016
The certified Measure C result: 237,597 yes (43.64%) and 306,887 no (56.36%), and the failure of Measure D.
City of San Diego, Office of the Independent Budget Analyst · 2016
The proposed transient occupancy tax increase from 10.5% to 16.5% and the project's funding structure.
NPR · January 12, 2016
The 30-2 owners' vote, the three-quarters approval requirement, and the one-year option granted to the Chargers.
NPR · January 12, 2017
The date of the relocation announcement and the length of the club's San Diego tenure.