“Santa Clara officials are expected to finalize a proposal with the San Francisco 49ers as early as today to build a 68,500-seat stadium in the South Bay city, in part with millions of dollars in public redevelopment money.
The deal lays out a funding plan to move the five-time Super Bowl champions into a new game-day home 37 miles from San Francisco in time for the 2014 NFL season, those involved in the negotiations said.”
∙ Santa Clara-49ers stadium deal could come today [SFGate]
This isn’t strange at all for an NFL team. Because of the few number of games, football in the suburbs makes sense from a land use perspective.
This isn’t as big a loss as the A’s moving to a strip mall in Fremont was going to be
Aren’t they still going to call themselves the “San Francisco” 49ers? Santa Clara 49ers just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I thought I heard that the chief of police for Santa Clara (city) said that he did not have the staff to support a game day – that the entire police force for Santa Clara (city) would need to be on patrol at the stadium.
I guess the county stepped in to help or the chief just received lots of new head count…
If the 49ers move, they shouldn’t be able to keep the San Francisco name.
Hercules, why?
“If the new stadium is built outside of the city of San Francisco, will the team still be called the “San Francisco 49ers”?
Yes! We will continue to be called the San Francisco 49ers regardless of where in the Bay Area a new stadium is built. It is common for professional sports teams to play in stadiums that are not in their namesake city. For example, the Dallas Cowboys play in Irving, Texas, and the Buffalo Bills play in Orchard Park, New York. In fact, there are even several teams in the NFL that play in a different state entirely, like the Washington Redskins, who play in Landover, Maryland, and the New York Jets and Giants, who play in East Rutherford, New Jersey.”
I remember a year or two DiFi proposed a law that said if a sports team moved a certain number of miles away from a city they could no longer use the city’s name. Does anyone know if that law ever went anywhere?
haha as a soccer loving Brit I love all the name changing/location changing that goes in this sport! Like the Cardinals for example.
It’s like Manchester United deciding to move to London or something, and changing their name to London United.
Would never happen. Brilliant!
Football stadiums, which are empty most of the time, ought to be out in the suburbs. No loss for SF– the 49ers only use Candlestick 10 times a year.
I agree that this isn’t that much of a tragedy, and that the 49ers should keep their “San Francisco” name.
The idea of having football stadiums (in particular) outside the city is a very good idea for all the reasons cited above. And if you want to see an example of a clever development of one, look at Patriot Place in Foxboro, Mass., where the New England Patriots play. They built an all-new stadium there a few years ago (Foxboro is about halfway between Boston and Providence, 30 miles or so from each) and just recently have added a significant retail/nightlife component to the park to make better use of the space when games and other events aren’t on. They tried to make a sort of “downtown disney”-ish lifestyle center for men, with Bass Pro Shops and electronics stores and bars and things. Seems to be a pretty good way to put those seas of parking lots to better use more of the year.
Please SF…please, please, please…do the best to keep your team in SF. We want nothing to do with the niners. What is it going to bring us other than traffic and millions invested in your stadium that you, not the city of Santa Clara, owns?
Additional tax revenue from all the increased business? Please…it’s a big parking lot that people from Gilroy are gonna drive their Suburbans into, drag their cooler full of MGD and Webber Lil Smoker out, get plastered, then drive home drunk. It ain’t gonna be no PacBell park or even the Shark Tank where people can meander around the neighboring restaurants and bars. This location is next to Great America, a Convention center, and big tech office buildings that are shut down on the weekend.
Additional jobs for the city? Please? How many minimum wage concession workers do you need for 9 or 10 days out of 365 day?
I am a huge football fan, but public funding (ESPECIALLY when the city and county are in debt) for any sports stadium should be outlawed. If they want to come down here…fine, but they should look at how McGowan and co. built PacBell…don’t place the burden on our shoulders.
Last rant. Even though I’m opposed to Santa Clara funding the niners move here…why is DiFi only looking out for the interests of SF? As a Senator, isn’t she supposed to look out for the interest of all Californians? Not just her ex-city’s residents? She should just stick her nose out of it (even if her support for SF helps my cause).
One last rant.
Great America has enough problems with its neighbors complaining about the park, I’m surprised a stadium proposal has gotten this far.
Niners should play at Kezar, plain and simple.
Actually, the Dallas Cowboys will be playing in Arlington starting in the 2009 season, which is even further from Dallas than their old stadium; and about the same number of miles from Dallas as Santa Clara is from SF.
Renaming them the San Jose 49’s wouldn’t be a stretch IMO
The NY Giants and the NY Jets have been playing in East Rutherford, NJ for many, many, many years.
And, the NY Nets basketball team has been there as well (although the Nets are expected to move to Brooklyn soon enough)…
All it will do is anger the Santa Clara folks because I doubt the 49ers will drop the SF…Jersey folks don’t like their home teams referred to as NY…
This is great news. I was becoming worried that the bubble may start affecting athletes and entertainers, the cornerstones of American culture.
“Given that disposable income is dropping rapidly in Phoenix and other cities where housing values have retreated, it probably means that this franchise needs to find a market where it can sell tickets at high enough prices and garner a strong enough cable TV contract to be able to at least meet the minimum payroll and other expenses…”
I am all in favor of this. I certainly don’t want the City of San Francisco to pay anything for a new stadium. If Santa Clara steps up then SF won’t have to.
Good…Have you seen the idiots at those games?!
Refreshing to hear someone not sugarcoat the hurdles they will be facing.
The 49ers are anticipating NFL funding help with a stadium, but Commissioner Roger Goodell said in December that a league fund for stadiums had been depleted and there were no plans to replenish it given the recession.
Securing market financing and league help in the current economic climate, then keeping costs under control, were “not mere speed bumps,” Policy said.
“We’re talking about major depressions in the road ahead that involve kicking in the four-wheel drive,” Policy said.
49ERS will more then likely keep their name of San Francisco There are several teams in the NFL that don’t play in their city/state i.e. New York Giants play in New Jersey.