22-07-2025
Chargers face class action over sending 2025 Chiefs home game to Brazil
Maybe the Philip Rivers retirement was a pre-emptive distraction.
On Monday, attorney Daniel Wallach passed along a signed but unfiled (for now) class-action complaint against the Chargers over the exportation of a 2025 home game against the Chiefs to Brazil. The lawyer for the plaintiff is Rana Ayazi.
The 14-page document arises from a very simple set of allegations. One, the Chargers marketed season tickets based on a nine-game regular-season slate of home opponents, including the Chiefs. Two, the Chargers sent the Chiefs game to Brazil. Three, the Chargers did not provide a refund to season-ticket holders.
The complaint seeks relief under the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the California False Advertising Law, and the California Unfair Competition Law.
The renewals arrived in October 2024, touting nine regular-season home games for 2025 — including the Chiefs. The Chiefs' presence on the schedule was repeated in advertising published in February 2025, after it was announced that the Chargers would open the season in Brazil. By June 2025, the Chiefs logo had been removed from the collection of teams listed in advertising by the Chargers, and the Saints logo (the Chargers' preseason home opponent) was added.
As alleged at paragraph 6 of the complaint, the Chargers 'did not offer a refund, credit, or other compensation to Season Ticket Holders' after the Chiefs game exited the mix. As alleged at paragraph eight, the Chargers 'would not allow Season Ticket Holders to cancel their tickets for the 2025 season with a refund.' Instead, cancellation would have resulted in the forfeiture of any payments already made for the 2025 season tickets.
'There was thus no way,' the complaint explains, 'for Season Ticket Holders, who reasonably believed based on the previous advertising that the Kansas City Chiefs game would be included, to cancel without forfeiting thousands of dollars in payment.'
The plaintiff in the case, Devin Abney, alleges that he attempted to cancel his season tickets and get a full refund, after learning that the Chiefs game had been sent to Brazil. The Chargers declined to do so.
Abney also alleges that the Chargers violated their own internal policies by failing to affirmatively refund to season-ticket holders the cost of the Chiefs game, once it was sent to Brazil.
At a bare minimum, the Chargers should have given season-ticket holders a partial refund based on the loss of one of ten total 2025 home games, if the tickets were purchased under the assumption that they'd attend all of the games. And, yes, if someone bought season tickets under the assumption that they'd get to see the Chiefs — and if the loss of that game was enough to get them to cancel the transaction — they should be allowed to do so.
The first point is highly conducive to a class action. The second is tougher to sell as a class claim, because not every season-ticket holder would want to scrap the whole package without getting to see the Chiefs.
We'll see where it goes from here. For now, we'll say this: If the allegations in the complaint are accurate, the Chargers seem to have a little problem.
