{"id":153041,"date":"2025-08-17T12:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153041\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T12:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:09:14","slug":"whose-house-rams-and-chargers-fans-debate-which-team-is-the-alphas-of-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153041\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose house? Rams and Chargers fans debate which team is the ‘alphas’ of L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"

Tangled shades of blue flooded the SoFi Stadium<\/a> concourse. Powder blue jerseys brushed past royal blue horns in burger lines. Bolt-painted faces mingled with fans in throwback Rams gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhose house?\u201d blared the stadium announcer.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRams House!\u201d much of the crowd replied.<\/p>\n

Though in pockets of powder blue, the response came with a shrug, or with nothing at all.<\/p>\n

That question \u2014 whose team truly owns the Los Angeles pro football market \u2014 lingers nearly a decade after the Rams<\/a> and the Chargers<\/a> settled into the city\u2019s football landscape.<\/p>\n

The Rams, who won a Super Bowl title in 2022, sport a polish that no argument over fan bases can scrub away. Meanwhile, the Chargers\u2019 growing base insists this is just as much their town.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Rams mum on whether Matthew Stafford worked out: Takeaways from preseason win<\/a><\/p>\n

During the Rams\u2019 23-22 victory<\/a> Saturday, the score felt secondary to the fans staking out territory.<\/p>\n

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Jerry Quinones, 59, is a four-year Chargers season ticket holder. A retired first responder, he rarely misses a home game. But even from his usual seat in section 330, he acknowledged the nuance between the teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cRams got more of a family base,\u201d Quinones said. \u201cI wish the Chargers [would] have it, but they don\u2019t. They got cheerleaders, we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three levels below, on the field-level patio behind the end zone, Rams fan Gill Marquez, 25, yanked proudly at his Britain Covey jersey and repeated, \u201cWe run L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot to be a Rams fan,\u201d Marquez said. \u201cI feel it deep down in my soul. We brought a championship to L.A. and that made a great point that we\u2019re the real team here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rams<\/p>\n

Rams fan Gill Marquez, left, and Chargers fan Eric Robles show their support for their respective teams during a preseason game at SoFi Stadium on Saturday. (Ira Gorawara \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Not every Rams fan put it quite so forcefully. Bob Gerard said he moved to L.A. from Chicago and hitched onto the Rams when they returned<\/a> in 2016. The 58-year-old, who donned a Puka Nacua<\/a> jersey, joked that he\u2019s fine letting the Chargers crash at SoFi \u2014 so long as the arrangement isn\u2019t mistaken.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s actually the Rams’ house,\u201d Gerard said, \u201cwe just kind of Airbnb it out to [the Chargers] every other weekend.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase Hay, outfitted in a palm-patterned Hawaiian shirt splashed with Rams logos, cut a looser figure while chatting with Chargers and Rams fans at the field level bar. For Hay, 36, the Rams are a family tradition more than a rivalry \u2014 a team he stuck with because of his grandfather, and one he believes can share the city without losing its roots.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> With Chargers back in San Diego, players hope to win back their traditional fan base<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing NFC and AFC, there’s a lot of room to coexist with both of us here \u2014 until we’re playing each other,\u201d said Hay, a marketing professional. \u201cBut I don’t see the Chargers as a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Eric Robles, 22, said his answer to \u201cWhose house?\u201d comes from two hours south. The San Diego native, wearing a Justin Herbert<\/a> jersey, stood as Rams fans cracked jokes around him, his lifelong allegiance rooted in the Chargers\u2019 past \u2014 and Herbert, who he said is the team\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Herbert, the Chargers’ star quarterback, is a resounding reason for Chargers fans to trust in the trajectory of their club.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Quentin Johnston carted off after big hit: Takeaways from Chargers’ preseason loss<\/a><\/p>\n

Ed Kim had a powder-blue flag wrapped around his shoulders, the Chargers\u2019 lightning bolt stretching across his back.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re the greatest organization in Los Angeles right now,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Rams are the Clippers of Los Angeles \u2014 they\u2019re second fiddle to us. Because we have the greatest quarterback in Justin Herbert. So basically, we\u2019re the alphas.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Kim brought conviction, Angel Herrera brought theater: he was dressed in a gleaming blue-and-gold luchador mask, a flowing Chargers cape and a thick chain of metallic beads in Chargers colors. A heavy WWE championship belt hung over his No. 97 jersey.<\/p>\n

By halftime, he had posed for close to 30 photos with young Chargers fans.<\/p>\n

\"Chargers<\/p>\n

Chargers fan Angel Herrera says L.A. is a Rams town, but is hopeful Justin Herbert can lead the Chargers to greatness. (Ira Gorawara \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cHonest truth, L.A. is more of a Rams town \u2014 only because they recently won,\u201d Herrera said. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be a long route before more Chargers fans come around, but it\u2019s gonna happen. We got Herbert, so it\u2019s not gonna be that long.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As fans streamed out of the stadium, the debate continued. Some might point to Super Bowl banners and shout, \u201cRams House!\u201d Others might shake their heads, trusting San Diego roots and Herbert\u2019s promise.<\/p>\n

For now, it\u2019s a house divided, but one with room for all.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/b> Rams aren’t just trying to win over L.A. They strive to be ‘the world’s team’<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tangled shades of blue flooded the SoFi Stadium concourse. Powder blue jerseys brushed past royal blue horns in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[89636,1582,276,7151,89634,29334,2961,224,5337,89635,7138,7137],"class_list":{"0":"post-153041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-britain-covey","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chargers","12":"tag-eric-robles","13":"tag-justin-herbert","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-puka-nacua","18":"tag-rams","19":"tag-the-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115044035265367235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}