What is the obsession with the Chargers?

[fyo]

LA has the rebuilding rams and the chargers .. the NFL is desperate to push Herbert to pull in as much money as they can from that market.

If you look at the local ratings for regular season games, the potential for an increase in viewers is clearly there in LA, but it's a bit of a myth that people in NY will watch their teams even when they suck.

I don't have numbers for the 2022 season, but if you look at 2021, the Chiefs, Bills, Packers, and Saints all brought in greater than 40% viewership ratings. The Steelers were (are) in a bit of post/late Roethlisberger slump, which knocked them from the top group into the second tier of teams with ratings around the 30% mark, along with the Patriots, Browns, Seahawks, Cowboys etc. From there it's a slow decline through the likes of the Vikings, Bengals, Ravens, Titans, Broncos, Eagles (2021, remember), with the Colts finally bringing us below 25%. After that it's a fairly predictable decline all the way to the worst single-team NFL city, Miami, with less than 12%. Finally, we get the two double-team cities, with LA leading (10.5% and 8.5%) followed by NY (8.4% and 7.1%). No points for guessing which franchise is the lowest.

Anyway, even if you added the ratings for both teams in each of LA and NY, they would both be in the bottom third of the league, so there is clearly A LOT of potential for improvement.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Anyway, even if you added the ratings for both teams in each of LA and NY, they would both be in the bottom third of the league, so there is clearly A LOT of potential for improvement.

That's because there is lots more to do in NY than watch sports, like visit museums, go to restaurants or be stabbed in broad daylight while people film it for Twitter.

[Spider-Dan]

I understand that Houston and Chicago are "big" market teams .. with "big" very much in air quotes.

They are dwarfed by LA, it's the difference between boston and NYC .. sure boston is "big" .. but it's tiny compared to NYC.

Now, are NY and LA bigger than every other US market?  Sure.  But if Chicago and Houston don't qualify as "big" markets, then you're basically just saying there are exactly two big markets in the country: NY and LA.  And it's hard to believe that the NFL values the LA market that much more than Chicago, Houston, Dallas, etc. when they allowed the LA market to have no NFL team for 20 years.