The Los Angeles Chargers Failed To Fill Their Temporary Mini-Stadium For Their First Preseason Game

Chargers announce crowd of 21,054 in 27,000-seat StubHub Center.

— Jim Trotter (@JimTrotter_NFL) August 14, 2017

attendance announced at 21,054...#LAGalaxy had 25,667 last night. Galaxy wins

— Kevin Baxter (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017

If an effort to continue attendance thread, lemme say #LAGalaxy sold out its 1st game (27,000) here in 2003 and averaged 21,983 in 1st year

— Kevin Baxter (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017

Both figures, obviously, better than what Chargers got in their opener. It is a preseason game. But it's also the first in their LA return

— Kevin Baxter (@kbaxter11) August 14, 2017

What's funny about​ this is the fact that the people that most reserve the right to find themselves offended by this string of tweets are soccer fans. Seriously, the most popular sport internationally...and it's being used to analogously make light of the laughable lack of interest in a city's second newly transferred American football team in as many years? Galaxy fans should be way more upset with this unnecessary comparison than whatever fans the Chargers still have left. Why did the remarkably loud and proud footy fans have to get dragged into this? What did they do deserve being made collateral damage in the argument against rushed, repetitive relocation? If they moved to a place where they felt they would be more appreciated then they have hundreds of thousands of people lining up for season tickets in South America, so can we let teams that are helplessly trying to grow an unpopular sport in the United States do so free of insults by association? 

In all seriousness, I'm not sure this should be considered all that surprising. Los Angeles' sports fans have done such a good job front-running their way through the history books that they have put Usain Bolt's track record to shame. Showing up to a meaningless exhibition game for a team coming off a terrible season that they absolutely no connection with whatsoever seems as predictable as Mrs. Rivers peeing on a stick two weeks after her and Philip's anniversary. In the last two decades she's spent less time not bearing child than the wishy washy fans of LaLa Land have spent rooting for a team with a losing record. So no, I wasn't exactly expecting them to sell out the 'StubHub Center' for a franchise whose most loyal supporters are currently napping the pain away on their surfboards while trying to ignore the existence of the organization that decided the grass was greener on the more populated side. Even if that grass was barely surrounded by enough seats for a team that plays a sport that's widely less prominent locally.