For two weeks, this series has examined what the Chargers’ departure meant to people: [the fans who walked away](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/09/11/nearly-10-years-after-the-chargers-left-one-former-fan-has-no-team-and-no-regrets/?share=hnne1fte0rit62noehr0) and [those who remained loyal](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/09/18/were-still-here-die-hard-chargers-fans-carry-on-in-san-diego/?share=tsnaorttsclrii26sw9s).
Now comes the harder question.
What does losing an NFL team actually do to a city writ large?
Across six post-merger markets that lost franchises before San Diego, the answer is less dramatic than the stadium politics.
A 2023 review by economists John Charles Bradbury, Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys examined more than 130 studies spanning three decades and reached a consistent conclusion: Professional sports teams and stadiums generally have limited effects on metropolitan income, employment and economic growth.
One reason is the “substitution effect”: Money not spent on tickets, parking and stadium beer can be spent elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean nobody gets hurt. Losses can be too concentrated to move a regional economy yet still hurt businesses dependent on game-day spending.
Andrew Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods Professor Emeritus of Economics at Smith College and one of the country’s leading scholars on the economics of sports, said another way to evaluate a team’s departure is to examine what happened to the infrastructure: “What the stadium was like when it existed, where was it located, what kind of public subsidization there was.”
Across these cities, that trail is easier to see.
#### Oakland: The debt stayed
Oakland rebuilt the Coliseum to lure the Raiders back in 1995.
The renovation added a towering upper deck nicknamed “Mount Davis” (for owner Al Davis) that enclosed the stadium and blocked views of the hills. It symbolized the deal that brought football — and decades of debt — back to Oakland.
When the Raiders left after 2019, the debt stayed.
Alameda County paid off the last of the Coliseum bonds only last year. Now the 112-acre Coliseum site is slated for mixed-use redevelopment.
#### St. Louis: A tale of two teams
After the Cardinals left for Arizona in 1988, Missouri helped finance the $258 million Dome at America’s Center to lure the NFL back.
The Rams arrived in 1995 and left after the 2015 season, leaving the publicly funded stadium behind. The dome remains part of the convention complex and still hosts events, including UFL football.
St. Louis also received something no other city in this comparison did: a $790 million settlement from the NFL and Rams interests over the relocation process. City leaders say most of the money will go toward neighborhood improvements, transit and downtown projects.
#### Los Angeles: The ‘substitution’ test
The Rams and Raiders left after the 1994 season. The NFL didn’t return for 21 years.
Los Angeles kept growing, the Coliseum hosted USC football and consumers had no shortage of entertainment options.
If losing football caused major damage to a city’s economy, two decades without the NFL should have left an obvious scar. Research has found little evidence that it did.
#### Baltimore: The building kept working
When the Colts moved to Indianapolis in 1984, Baltimore still had Memorial Stadium — and the Orioles baseball team.
Baseball played there through 1991, and the stadium even hosted the Ravens (the relocated Browns) for two seasons after 1996.
Memorial Stadium was eventually demolished and replaced with a mixed-income senior housing project.
Baltimore’s stadium infrastructure found new uses rather than sitting idle, and the city continued generating value from the site.
#### Cleveland: The cost of getting football back
Cleveland lost the Browns after the 1995 season and got the NFL back in 1999 — with a new $247 million lakefront stadium, only about $43 million funded by the league.
By 2021, Cleveland had paid nearly $278 million in principal and interest on stadium construction and demolition debt.
Now the cycle is starting again. Construction is underway on a new domed stadium in suburban Brook Park, scheduled to open in 2029, when the Browns will leave the lakefront venue built to bring the NFL back.
#### Houston: Millions spent couldn’t keep Oilers
Harris County spent roughly $67 million upgrading the Astrodome after Oilers owner Bud Adams threatened to move in the 1980s. The Oilers still left after the 1996 season.
The NFL returned to Houston in 2002 with the expansion Texans and a new $449 million stadium built primarily with public money.
The pattern echoes San Diego: Public investment bought time, but it didn’t keep the team from moving.
#### Looking ahead
Across these six cities, any broad economic damage from losing an NFL team is hard to quantify.
The physical and financial legacy is much easier to see: stadium debt, aging facilities, redevelopment projects and acres of valuable land left to cities to figure out.
But regional statistics can miss what happens one block from a stadium.
When the Chargers left Mission Valley, businesses around Qualcomm Stadium lost the predictable surge of customers that came with NFL Sundays. Football spending didn’t vanish entirely, but businesses that built staffing, promotions and revenue expectations around Chargers home games had to adjust.
Then came COVID-19, disrupting hospitality and making it harder to separate the effects of losing the Chargers from everything that followed.
Nearly a decade later, the same land is being redeveloped around Snapdragon Stadium and SDSU Mission Valley.
Instead of at least eight NFL Sundays anchoring the calendar, the area is being rebuilt around sports, concerts, housing, education, research and year-round development.
Next week, this series examines what the Chargers’ departure meant for San Diego’s broader economy before narrowing the lens to businesses closest to Qualcomm Stadium — including those that partnered with the team and had to adapt to the departure, a pandemic and a changing Mission Valley.
_**Editor’s note:**_ Almost 10 years have passed since the Chargers ended their 56-year run in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles. Over the course of this NFL season, this series will trace the stadium fight and decisions that led to the move, revisit the fans and community left behind, assess the Chargers’ decade in Los Angeles and San Diego’s life without them, and explore whether the NFL could ever return.