Pause: Is State Farm Stadium the Right Site?

I like many,  am looking forward to the Monday night Vikings  playoff game and was excited by the plan to move the game  to a neutral site.  It took  the advantage of a true home game away from the  Los Angeles Rams.   It is very sad that it is the deadly California fires that caused it.

I was given pause, when I heard it was going to State Farm Stadium in Ariziona.  Seems like really bad symbolism.  Now I know the naming game is really just that ( the Atlanta  Chick-fil-A Stadium can’t sell Chick-fil-A on Sundays always cracks me up.)  but, it seems like maybe another place might have been better.

You see , as CBS reportered :

Pacific Palisades, the Los Angeles neighborhood that’s been devastated by the Palisades Fire, is emblematic of the insurance nightmare increasingly facing homeowners residing in regions prone to climate disasters.

About 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were dropped by State Farm in July, California Department of Insurance spokesman Michael Soller said in an Thursday email to CBS MoneyWatch. An analysis of insurance data by CBS San Francisco last year found that State Farm also dropped more than 2,000 policies in two other Los Angeles ZIP codes, which include the Brentwood, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Monte Nido neighborhoods.

Which lead to a switch for the state as consumers as Newsweek reported :

As a consequence of these decisions, California homeowners are increasingly struggling to find coverage, and the state’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan, has been increasing its overall policy count.

This shift created more stress on the state system even before what is looking like is going to be a horrible disaster between loss or life and ruined property.

For the NFL which seems to reaction with either hypersensitivity or callous disregard this seems like a total blind spot.  It won’t be solved with a moment of silence.