Play (Professional) Football

By Kelly Kinas ‘17

With everything that has been going on with USC football this season, I sometimes wish Los Angeles had a professional football team in the NFL. I still love the Trojans and will always support them but having an NFL team would be really sick. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this way. There has been a lot of talk about bringing an already existing NFL team to Los Angeles. Plans have been made to build a football stadium close to or in Downtown Los Angeles. Would this be a good thing for LA? Does Los Angeles need another professional sports team? Here is my list of pros and cons of Los Angeles having an NFL team.

First off, let’s give the public some information. Los Angeles has tried to have professional football teams in the past but it just hasn’t worked and the teams have moved (See: Oakland Raiders) but a lot of people think this time it will be different. Apparently everyone is pretty happy about this being a possibility: LA, the business community, and the NFL.

An article on ESPN LA states, “Farmers Field, a proposed $1.5 billion downtown football stadium connected to an expanded Los Angeles Convention Center, is ready for construction.” This would make the football stadium less than a mile away from the Staple Center and Downtown Los Angeles. 

According to NFL.com, there are 5 teams that could be moving to Los Angeles in the near future. They are the San Diego Chargers, the St. Louis Rams, the Oakland Raiders, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Buffalo Bills. For me, the only ones I would be okay with are the Rams and the Jaguars. Raiders and Chargers already tried Los Angeles and I don’t think it will work better this time. The Buffalo Bills just sounds too good for them to Los Angeles. 

Another question is whether the team that does move would need a makeover. If the Jaguars end up here, they’ll be their blue and yellow and Jaguar-y in LA. That could work because none of the other teams in LA have those colors. The Bills would have some trouble with the Clippers but other than that most of these teams would be safe color wise. These are important things to think about because if the team that moves here has a similar color scheme to one of the pre-existing teams, it will be harder to differentiate between them and for them to marketing individually. 

Here are my pros:

• More teams, more opportunities to see the teams that I like. I love the Packers and if there would be a possibility that I could see them in Los Angeles, I would HAVE to go.
• I’ve grown up with football and have never had a team. I would support it, even if I won’t switch my alliances. 
• A possibility of lower tickets prices all around. If the Kings are gonna charge $100 per ticket to a Friday night game and this football team only charges $50, the Kings are gonna lose my business. I’m a college student, man.

Here are my cons:

• This could take away from college sports here. If there’s a USC game the same night as a professional football game, the Trojans will probably have a lower attendance. This is expected but it would be sad to see USC spirit around Los Angeles go down because of a professional team (I also recognize that other cities have both but we are starting later in the game).
• We have the Clippers, the Lakers, the Kings, the Dodgers, and the Angels. Do we really NEED another team? I need to save some money for when I need to pay rent

Obviously from the length of my pros and my cons, you can see I think it would be positive for Los Angeles to have an NFL team. I have no idea what team it will be or even if it will get before I leave. All I know is that I like watching professional football and if a team came this year or the next, they would have a least one person in attendance. 

Fight on!