LOS ANGELES _ The Chargers are not moving to London.
Dean Spanos did his best profanity-laced impersonation of Leonardo DiCaprio from "Wolf of Wall Street" Tuesday as he shot down an internet report that it could happen. The team's official social media accounts actually posted the famous "I'm not leaving" scene, complete with middle fingers and bleeped-out expletives.
As far as denials go, that's about as emphatic as you're going to get. It's no surprise. London isn't the answer to the Chargers' problems in Los Angeles.
The Chargers are the second pro football team in L.A. In London, they would be 14th _ behind the 13 professional soccer clubs that call the city home. They might actually be lower on the totem pole if you include the dozens of semi-professional clubs and hundreds of amateur clubs there. NFL games in London are a well-attended novelty. American football is a niche sport. You'd be hard-pressed to walk into a pub or pick up a newspaper during the season and see any mention of the NFL.
It makes sense, considering the league's biggest games _ on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights _ kick off around 1:20 a.m. the following morning in London.
The Chargers didn't move from San Diego to Los Angeles hoping to reverse the trend of opposing fan takeovers. They moved to Los Angeles so they could play in a brand new $5 billion stadium in the country's second-biggest media market. They're not going to pull the plug on that months before the stadium opens.
But, although the Chargers are committed to staying in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future, that doesn't solve their problems here. It's going to be an uphill battle to win their self-described Fight for L.A., but here's my five-step plan to give them a fighting chance.
