If ever there’s another landmark play like The Catch, which marked the beginning of an era of excellence for the San Francisco 49ers, it may not be in the city that hosted that and many other storied NFL moments. Voters in Santa Clara—about 45 miles south of San Francisco—will decide on June 8 whether to lease property to the team adjacent to California’s Great America theme park to build a $937 million stadium to replace Candlestick Park. Except for financing for the project, a yes vote would appear to all but guarantee the 49ers will move from the city where Joe Montana and Jerry Rice(notes) helped rewrite NFL record books. http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=Au7kLNL5dn4AlArO7prKecxDubYF?slug=ap-49ersstadium
Blech. I hate the idea of a team named after a city playing far away from that location. Santa Clara and San Francisco have little in common.
So Santa Clara passed this bill last night... I really didn't give a shit until I heard about the next few steps of the process. Santa Clara has basically collected $100 million to put toward this. The proposed stadium will cost $927 million. Not sure on this but I think the owner of the Niners (his name is escaping me but I heard him in an interview today on KNBR) said they Niners could round up about 400 million between their revenue and sponsorships, naming rights, etc. That leaves several hundred million left over. The kicker to all of this is that it seems the Niners really want to get in on some of the cash the NFL keeps to assist in paying for new stadiums. The NFL, however, has said that it would only hand over some money if the stadium were to house two NFL clubs. Granted, NO ONE with anything to do with the Niners has mentioned this but it seems like people in the know are quite confident that the goal is ultimately to get the Raiders to play there too so that they can get some of that NFL surplus stadium money. I'm sure the Raiders could get put forth a decent chunk of change as well. Heard some interesting takes on how Al Davis would handle this though. He doesn't seem like the type to share and he sues EVERYONE so I was hearing tom thoughts today that the Niners people should be careful in dealing with him and make sure its on their terms. But it sounds like they're setting themselves up to where getting the Raiders in there is necessary to them getting the stadium. While it is a good financial move for the Raiders and Al isn't afraid to move the team around, I can see him not liking this proposal for any number of nitpicky, control-freakish reasons.