Random NFL Support

(originally posted in 2016)

Since the Rams have moved back to Los Angeles I thought this was a fitting article topic. After the two NFL teams left Los Angeles in 1994 this is what we did here for over the past twenty-two years.

There were a few paths to take after all the NFL teams left Los Angeles: Keep supporting the old teams who played here the Raiders and the Rams, Follow only local college football USC and UCLA, Follow the nearest NFL team the Chargers, Pick a new team. Most people who picked a new team picked the Cowboys since they had won the Super Bowl in 1993 and 1994.

 I will address each path.

The Raiders; since they were still in California and moved back to where they were originally from; Oakland. They even had preseason games shown on the local tv channels and for a while they were showing their programs Behind the Shield and The Silver and Black Show; which my dad was a faithful viewer of. Once he even got up at like three or four in the morning to watch the show. There were even some Raider stores in the Southern California area named The Raider Image. There are also some of those stores up in Northern California. After I thought about it maybe they should try to rebrand themselves as the “California Raiders”. 

The Rams; were a little less accessible than the Raiders or Chargers; since they had moved all the way to St. Louis Missouri. From 2005-2007 KCOP showed Rams’ preseason games.

The Chargers; the nearest team to Los Angeles. A lot of people got on board with them while looking for a “new” team. They even got their show The Chargers Insider to air on a local channel in Los Angeles. You would get ready to watch a local preseason Raider’s game while a message scrolled at the bottom of the screen saying that the Chargers have market preference in Los Angeles, and that the game would either be shown at midnight or the next day. Since CBS carries the AFC games when you watched an NFL game on that channel it was mostly Chargers games unless they played Sunday or Monday night or they did not sell enough tickets. They were always running ticket package commercials here in Los Angeles during the summer. One of my favorite ones was after the Broncos got Manning as a quarterback, and they were advertising that they were playing the Broncos that season. Huh? They play the Broncos every season. Twice! Once at home and once away. They are in the same division; AFC West. They also play the Raiders and the Chiefs twice a year too.

The Cowboys; it was not uncommon to see lots of Cowboys merchandise around in the area; hats, shirts, backpacks, jackets, sweatshirts, etc. You wanted to jump on the bandwagon of a winning team especially a team who won two Super Bowls back to back in 1993 and 1994.

College football USC and UCLA games; the appeal of this was that there was still football in the area to watch even if it was not professional football. Another selling point for this was that you could see people before they went pro. This was a very big deal when USC had won all those championships.

Welcome back Rams! Let’s hope Los Angeles welcomes you back with open arms.