The Los Angeles Chargers finished the 2021 NFL regular season in one of the most exciting ways possible. They played in a game with the Las Vegas Raiders where the winner would go to the playoffs while the loser would go home. However, if the difference somehow link, both of which would make the playoffs, and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the Postseason collided. The teams were held in the final seconds of extra time, but the Raiders kicked a field goal as time ended in a dramatic finish.
With the season in the rearview mirror, Chargers owner Dean Spanos and his family continued the drama.
First, his nephews sued him while the playoffs were still in progress. Then, in June, his sister (mother of his nephews) filed a lawsuit that could lead to a possible sale of the chargers.
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Spanos’ parents and sister Dea Spanos Berberian passed away in 2018. That transferred more than a third of the Chargers to the family fund, which controls 36% of the team. Sons of the Spanos family, Berberian and Team Vice President Michael Spanus and Alexis Spanus Ruhl also hold a 15% ownership interest, with outside parties owning the remaining 4%.
Spanos’ nephews, Dimitri and Lex Economo, sued Spanos on the grounds of improperly redirecting money away from the trust. A few months after that lawsuit, Berberian announced that the fund had debts and expenses North of $358 million, in addition to the $22 million in charitable donations he still owed.
Berberian believes the only way to cover that debt is to sell the team. This belief may be a major reason behind the lawsuit she filed in June. In the lawsuit, Berberian alleged that Dean and Michael acted against their parents’ wishes “out of their deeply held misogynistic attitudes and sense of entitlement as men in the family.” Burberry cited frivolous spending as well, including moving more than $60 million from the fund to buy a private jet that has no commercial purpose.
Dean and Michael Spanos released a joint statement saying the allegations were “false and provocative,” and Ruhl released her own statement praising Dean (her brother) as “unrelentingly respecting me and my desires.”
Berberian filed a lawsuit last year to try to sell the family’s trust, but the NFL stepped in. The association is now ruling the matter, although no decision has yet been made.
If the trust is forced to sell, it may bring in a large amount. The Chargers, who moved from San Diego to Los Angeles after the 2016 season, were worth $2.6 billion last year. Even if that valuation held steady, selling a 36% equity stake would result in $936 million. That would be enough to pay off the fund’s debts while giving plenty of money to everyone in the extended Spanos family.
It should be a tense few months – or even years – as everything is settled. This whole situation is sure to lead to a few awkward family gatherings around the holidays.
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