Editorial (December 17, 2018) – In the last weeks, news has come out regarding the LA Galaxy stadium name and secondary revenue sources. The StubHub Center will be changing names next season and beginning in 2020, the Galaxy will have a new roommate to replace the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.
Maximizing Their Options: LA Galaxy Stadium Revenue Sources
The Galaxy currently have a secondary tenant at the StubHub Center in the Chargers, who will be there through the end of next season. In exchange for letting an NFL team play games in an MLS soccer-specific stadium (which is still hilarious), the Chargers have contributed to stadium upgrades to the press box, suits, as well as extra seating in the north end of the stadium.
What host the Chargers has done:
The Chargers have also had to make their home game schedule work with the MLS schedule. Combined with stadium and parking limitations on week nights associated with the venue being on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Chargers have been unable to schedule a Thursday or Monday night home game.
As such, the schedule has been pretty straight forward. In the fall, the Galaxy play their home games on Saturdays (for the most part). The Chargers play on Sundays. It’s much easier to convert a Saturday soccer pitch into a Sunday gridiron football field overnight than the other way around.
Basically the Galaxy have had a roommate move in and pay for a kitchen and bathroom renovation.
What’s my name again?
Beginning in 2019, the StubHub Center will be renamed the Dignity Health Sports Park. It will be the third name for the Galaxy’s stadium since opening in 2003, originally being known as the Home Depot Center. The club did not disclose the details of the deal, but these have historically been multi-year and multi-million year contracts.
The Galaxy made this change probably because the deal was the best available. Perhaps StubHub didn’t want to renew their naming rights contract or maybe the deal wasn’t as good in terms of length and cost. Undoubtedly, the Galaxy have upped the benefits and payments with each new naming rights contract.
The XFL is moving in:
The XFL will be making a comeback in 2020 and has already announced several cities they play to have teams play in for that summer. One of those cities will be Los Angeles, with a possible rebirth of the 2001 champions Los Angeles Extreme (the only in XFL history).
It’s already been announced that the franchise yet to be named will be playing at Dignity Health Sports Park. Just months after the Chargers move out, the XFL team will move in. It’s still a ways out, but it looks like the XFL 2.0 will follow a similar schedule and format to the 2001 iteration of the league. The season will have 10 regular season games with a two week post season. In 2001, the XFL began play on February 3 with the championship game being played on April 21.
If this similar format is followed, the impact to the Galaxy’s season won’t be significant. The MLS regular season started the first weekend in March in 2018. There have been rumors that the league will be moving the season up, but still. In all likelihood, the XFL will play games on Sundays as it did in 2001.
Just like now with the Chargers, that means the Galaxy will play their home games on Saturdays and the XFL LA team will play on Sundays. There will only be five home games in the regular season so the Galaxy could easily request that the schedule be staggered so they don’t play back-to-back games.
Now, the XFL most definitely won’t come with as much money as an NFL team. But as long as they’re paying rent and that money supersedes the cost of field maintenance, it will be a gain for the club. The facility has enough practice fields that they won’t be sharing with the Galaxy or even LA Galaxy II. The only concern will be the upkeep of the stadium field.
Net outcome TBD if you ask me.
