There appears to be growing momentum to build a new stadium in San Diego to keep the Chargers there beyond the 2016 season, and Roger Goodell has added fuel to that fire.
The NFL commissioner was in San Diego on Saturday at the invitation of Chargers chairman Dean Spanos to speak to a rally of 4,000 fans who were attempting to gather signatures backing the effort to build a new stadium. Goodell told the assembled fans that if the Chargers get a new stadium, the league’s owners would likely be on board with bringing the Super Bowl back to San Diego for the first time since 2003.
“I’m confident that if they can get a stadium built here, the owners will want to support it with a Super Bowl,” Goodell said, via Eric D. Williams of ESPN. “I think that’s what this community deserves, and we’re all going to work to try and find a solution.”
If the new $1.8 billion stadium and convention center garners over 66,000 signatures in support, it will be passed off to the city council to either be voted on or put on the ballot in November.
“I think the Chargers belong in San Diego,” Goodell said. “I think this is a great community, a great fan base. Everyone has acknowledged that we need a new stadium.”
Even Spanos, who publicly flirted with a move to Los Angeles in 2015, sounded cautiously optimistic.
“We’re committed to follow this thing through,” Spanos said. “I’m optimistic and obviously overwhelmed today. I’m encouraged, but we still have a long ways to go.”
Perhaps Spanos’s assertions about staying in San Diego weren’t all talk. Maybe all this optimism will quiet some of the tensions between players and fans as well.
