The Chargers are definitely moving from San Diego to Los Angeles. The team made that official last week when it notified the NFL of its intentions.
But that might have been the easy part. Dozens of Southland moving companies are banding together in an effort to make the physical relocation as difficult as possible, or even impossible.
Ryan Charles, a lifelong Chargers fan and vice president of marketing at Oceanside startup HireAHelper, started the website wewontmoveyouchargers late last week.
“They can’t move to L.A. without a mover. So what if all the movers in San Diego refused them?” Charles told the San Diego Union Tribune. “That was the idea behind it.”
The site declares, “Dear Chargers, we won’t move you to Los Angeles,” and currently features the names of 24 San Diego-area movers and 12 others from around L.A. that have joined the protest.
“We’re continuing to add more companies every hour,” Charles told USA Today. “We’re still actively calling companies, and companies are signing themselves up through the link on that site. So yeah, I think it’s definitely had an impact.”
He said that many of the companies aren’t necessarily run by Chargers fans but by folks who just want to stand up for the people of San Diego. And he knows these businesses are sacrificing the chance at a huge payday in order to make this stand.
“If you’re just talking strictly about their offices and their practice facility, that alone would be well over six figures — $100,000 or $150,000,” Charles said. “Then once you add on the individual moves of the staff, team officials and players — let’s say you moved all of them — it could be $5,000 a person. Not one company is going to get all of those moves, but that kind of gives you the idea of how big of a move this could be.”
Charles realizes this movement probably isn’t going to prevent the Chargers from moving. But he’s glad that he has been able to do something on behalf of the city and his fellow fans.
“This campaign has sort of kept my hopes afloat,” Charles said. “I’m so caught up in this right now and trying to do this for San Diegans and Chargers fans as sort of one last stand.”
