This is when you know your franchise is in a mess

[crixus]

Nothing new here, this franchise has been a mess for at least the past three years.

[Weddle46]

Originally Posted by guerro619

Cause they don't use hindsight like the CMB does.

How is it called "using hindsight" for firing Norv after last season?

Isn't it pretty obvious that fans were mad and irritated by the Chargers after last season so they wouldn't go buy tickets to watch the same or similar thing next season?

Or did Spanos think that us Charger fans are stupid and will blindly spent $100s of dollars on the Chargers?

Hopefully he loses a lot of money this season and will learn his lesson and fire Norv & AJ and hire some legit replacements!

[batgeek]

Originally Posted by Weddle46

Isn't it pretty obvious that fans were mad and irritated by the Chargers after last season so they wouldn't go buy tickets to watch the same or similar thing next season?

using this logic, we would have had all home games blacked out. well except for the home opener...because it was the home opener, and it was against the Raiders.

[flwelshman]

There are really three big problems that cause the blackouts, and IMO, a fourth less spoken about that is directly related to the first three.

One, is the record. 8-8 year after year, and likely not that this year gets to be hard to go to. This is especially true in southern CA where there's plenty to do.

Second, is the local economy which hasn't picked up as quick as other parts of the country are starting to pick up now.

Third is the Chargers ticket prices. Even though Spanos didn't raise prices, the Chargers are 7th in the NFL in the average cost for it's fans to watch in person. They were 5th, but a couple of teams jumped over them with ticket increases of their own, but when you combine missing the playoffs and having a top of the line ticket cost, you can't expect to fill the stadium when there's other things to do.

The fourth thing, IMO, that's hurt the Chargers is our ownership. The year McNeil and VJ held out, Spanos dropped our payroll from 119 million the year before, to 108 million. The 119 million was actually in what I call the "sweet spot" for bankrolling a contending team. The Pats spent 118 million that year, and they've been consistent. When we hit that sweet spot, it's an aberration. We were actually in the bottom third of the league that year for payroll...much closer to the Bengals than the Pats. Hopefully, the new CBA will eliminate the disparity there, and with a good front office we should be okay. Then again, if you're manning the FO with family, like might happen in the not too distant future to us, again they can save a few million dollars.

IMO, the Chargers should drop prices by 10% as a show of goodwill to the fans for the upcoming season. That should put more fans in the seats and more revenue in their pockets, vs. having so many blackouts at the prohibitive cost for the product they've produced, along with a sluggish local economy.