These Football Fans Actually Lined Up To Get Chargers Tattoos (For Free)

It's kind of crazy to think that, at one point, we were starved for an NFL team for two decades. Now we're suddenly steeped in football fatigue, thanks to the sudden influx of teams who wanted to play here and the Rams' disastrous first season back in L.A.

Which is to say that the fanfare surrounding the Chargers' 2017 relocation to L.A. was not... great. What doesn't help is that, while the team waits for the Inglewood stadium to be built, they'll be housed at the StubHub Center in Carson, which was built for another type of football (i.e. soccer) and seats only about 30,000 (when most NFL stadiums seat more than 60,000).

But the PR department for the Chargers are on their game. On Tuesday they rolled out a promotion that hit two birds with one stone: generate publicity, and ensure that some Chargers fans will be inextricably linked to the team for life. What happened was that, from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. at West Hollywood's Shamrock Social Club, fans were treated to Chargers tattoos, all paid for by team owner Alex Spanos and company. The brave and reckless were allowed to choose from one of three designs, reports the L.A. Times.

Here's visual evidence that some Angelenos were actually willing to get inked with a Chargers-inspired crest, which, depending on how the upcoming season fares, may become a kind of scarlet letter.

Some people made some quips about the promotion:

So why would anyone want to get a Chargers tattoo? Wouldn't it be wise to wait a couple seasons and see how things pan out first? Anthony Casadas, a San Diego native who was crestfallen when he found out about the team's relocation, was the first guy in line for the tattoo— speaking with The Ringer, he explained his decision to get the tattoo as such: “The way I think about it, if you’re married and your wife cheats on you, you don’t take it out on your kids. You still love your kids. That’s how I feel about the players. It’s not like Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates and those guys took a vote and decided to leave. I love the players still.” Whoa. OK.

Meanwhile, attendance for the Chargers' preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday was a paltry 21,054. The L.A. Galaxy, the soccer team who plays in the same building, had 25,667 in attendance the previous night. Perhaps more tattoo giveaways are in order.