The San Diego Chargers sent a letter to Mayor Phil Hardberger on Friday to inform him they are not pursuing relocation sites outside of San Diego, the city's newspaper reported.
The Chargers' announcement last week that they would not ask San Diego voters to approve a football stadium proposal in November led Hardberger to say Thursday he "wouldn't be surprised" if the team considered San Antonio as a relocation option.
But Chargers spokesman Mark Fabiani said the team has not analyzed the South Texas market.
"We're not exploring San Antonio, and we've had no contact with anyone in San Antonio," Fabiani told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Of course, if you run that through the NFL coachspeak translator, it means the Chargers have their bags packed and airling tickets reserved for a move up the coast to Los Angeles:
Sports consultant Dean Bonham said relocating a professional sports franchise is not easily done. In most cases, he said, a team contemplating a move decides to stay put after analyzing the costs and benefits.
Bonham said the Chargers don't have many relocation options. The Los Angeles-Anaheim area, San Antonio and Norfolk, Va., are the top potential sites, he said.
"The NFL is already in substantially all major markets that could support a team," Bonham said. "Los Angeles is the most likely candidate for the Chargers."
Personally, I still think the best course of action for the NFL is to seriously start planning for a two-team expansion in the 2010-15 timeframe. Anything else is merely ignoring the obvious, and encouraging these team movement rumors to crop up ever couple of months.
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