(10-12-2014 09:47 PM)adcorbett Wrote: (10-12-2014 05:31 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote: As a native Angeleno nothing would make me happy than having an NFL team in L.A. as long as it's not the Raiders. When the Rams left, I wished them nothing but the best because I understood why they left. The Raiders? They can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned.
Any chance you care to elaborate? I was under the impression both excite serfs for the same reason?
(10-12-2014 08:41 PM)_C2_ Wrote: It's unique...Texans sound bland, uncreative and certainly unoriginal. I know Texas pride is huge but it still sounds mundane. Apollos would go right along with the other nicknames in the city and be something no one in sports ever had and likely wouldn't duplicate above a semi-amateur (college) level.
They should have dug up the old negro league baseball name and gone with the Houston Colt 45's.
I was never a big fan of Al Davis (just like I'm not a big Jerry Jones fan even though I'm a convert Cowboys fan). I remember the year the Raiders and Rams left (1995) because it was the same year my family moved to Dallas. I was a teenager back then but I remember the L.A. media not giving two craps about the Raiders. They were mostly sorry the Rams left but the consensus was that the Rams and even the Raiders had no choice but to leave.
That doesn't means Al Davis was always wrong and the city of L.A. was not at fault. The L.A. Coliseum was not up to NFL standards even in the mid-90's. If I remember correctly, the NFL warned L.A. that the 1993 Super Bowl in the Rose Bowl was going to be the last one (and it was the last one since the rule is to have an NFL team in order to host the SB) because the stadium lacked the amenities other NFL stadiums offered. The irony is that L.A. being known as a liberal bastion has refused to finance taxpayer money for an NFL stadium. Other places that are known as conservative strongholds like Glendale, AZ and Arlington, TX have financed public money for the Cardinals and Cowboys. Houston got the expansion team when L.A. couldn't come to terms of the new stadium.
Would an NFL team have any effect on USC and UCLA? Not at all. Look at UCLA basketball being shadowed by the Lakers and to some extent the Clippers and still being relevant (especially during the 70's and 80's when the Lakers were the team to beat). What most people don't understand is that California sports culture as a whole is different than in other parts of the nation. You have to be either a native or live in California for a long time to understand what I'm talking about. Californians for some reason like to support multiple sports while here in Texas, it's football and nothing more. I remember my HS in L.A. was a football powerhouse and the fan support was from mediocre to average. But fan support was good for softball or swimming games. While here in Texas, the HS I graduated from had great fan support for a football program that didn't make the playoffs for more than 20 years and when they finally did make the playoffs in 1995, they even had a parade on Main St. The rest of the sports attracted just a few people on the stands.
The point I'm trying to make is that an NFL team in L.A. will not break any attendance records (maybe the first year because of the novelty but I still doubt it). USC and UCLA should be fine since L.A. is huge enough to have multiple sports fans (Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, Galaxy, Chivas USA, Kings, Ducks, Pac-12).