City Council Decides to Terminate 49ers Stadium Contract for NFL Games

Originally posted by dj43:

There is much more to be gained by settling than forcing the team out of town.

The tough thing is the fact that so many people questioned the city/county's involvement in the first place that this is now going to fire up all that angst all over again. That stuff impacts judges and it may cost the 49ers more than they will want to pay if the city proves its case.

Let's fact it, Bay Area politics does not look favorably on ultra-rich people getting richer, especially when it comes to a non-essential product like football. While there is clearly much more to be learned, this may get messy.

Agreed that they'll settle, but disagree it's about the Bay Area: the leading tech firms in the bay is nothing but a story or rich people getting richer.

The difference with them is just that:

(1) Google didn't try to make Mountain View use tax dollars to build the Googleplex for them just as Apple didn't try to make Cupertino pay for Apple Park.

(2) Apple has a measurable effect on the local economy in that it employees 25,000 people in the Bay Area, many of them in good paying jobs, meaning it's entirely unlike the 49ers, for whom the local job creation is mostly minimum wage and gig work selling hot dogs and scanning tickets.

Edit: to be clear I'm not knocking hotel work or stadium work or actual workers, the point is that if you're going to spend 850 million dollars on job creation, building a sports stadium is about as bad of a ROI as you could possibly come up with.

Didn't Levi's use a hotel tax? That's not exactly the same thing as a tax on the residents of SC.

IIRC, the courts ruled in the team's favor last time they and the city were pissing in each other's coffee, so it wouldn't shock me if that happened again.

Originally posted by dj43:

Originally posted by RTFirefly:
The city is not trying to back out of the deal in any case. I don't know where any of you got that. All they're doing is trying to force the franchise to adhere to the contract, which they now contend the franchise is not.

There is much more to be gained by settling than forcing the team out of town.

The tough thing is the fact that so many people questioned the city/county's involvement in the first place that this is now going to fire up all that angst all over again. That stuff impacts judges and it may cost the 49ers more than they will want to pay if the city proves its case.

Let's fact it, Bay Area politics does not look favorably on ultra-rich people getting richer, especially when it comes to a non-essential product like football. While there is clearly much more to be learned, this may get messy.

I love that people can't bother to read more than the title.

The city just terminated the 49ers as the operators of the stadium for 49ers games. Didn't kick them out of the stadium.

Originally posted by captveg:

Didn't Levi's use a hotel tax? That's not exactly the same thing as a tax on the residents of SC.

IIRC, the courts ruled in the team's favor last time they and the city were pissing in each other's coffee, so it wouldn't shock me if that happened again.

The small city of Santa Clara borrowed $850 million from Goldman Sachs.

Some thoughts based on my very limited understanding:
1. It isn't that sports stadiums don't benefit a community, it is just that other allocations of that money can benefit a city even more. What a sports team does do, however, is give the city better name recognition, which other uses of money often do not. Santa Clara can benefit with more name recognition, more than a major city like San Francisco.
2. The 49ers convinced the city to finance the stadium with estimates of how much money the stadium would bring to the city. Actual returns are much lower than predictions, so the city is upset.
3. Since the 49ers are unable to attract enough paying clients to the stadium, the city has proposed that they be allowed to run the stadium instead.
4. Most likely that option isn't in the contract, nor is there an ironclad guarantee that city earns so much per year. There is no indication that the city could do a better job at attracting more clients to the stadium than the 49ers could, and regardless, it probably isn't in the contract that they can take over if the stadium underperforms.

While I don't know more than anyone else, my guess is the city is choosing a losing battle on trying to take over management. However, if they do pull the police away from directing traffic during the game, that will cause real pain to the 49ers. I don't see this fight working out to either side's benefit. I can see, however, politicians being penalized for taking petty acts like increasing traffic during a game, and the 49ers may just have to wait it out.

Originally posted by fryet:

Some thoughts based on my very limited understanding:
1. It isn't that sports stadiums don't benefit a community, it is just that other allocations of that money can benefit a city even more. What a sports team does do, however, is give the city better name recognition, which other uses of money often do not. Santa Clara can benefit with more name recognition, more than a major city like San Francisco.
2. The 49ers convinced the city to finance the stadium with estimates of how much money the stadium would bring to the city. Actual returns are much lower than predictions, so the city is upset.
3. Since the 49ers are unable to attract enough paying clients to the stadium, the city has proposed that they be allowed to run the stadium instead.
4. Most likely that option isn't in the contract, nor is there an ironclad guarantee that city earns so much per year. There is no indication that the city could do a better job at attracting more clients to the stadium than the 49ers could, and regardless, it probably isn't in the contract that they can take over if the stadium underperforms.

While I don't know more than anyone else, my guess is the city is choosing a losing battle on trying to take over management. However, if they do pull the police away from directing traffic during the game, that will cause real pain to the 49ers. I don't see this fight working out to either side's benefit. I can see, however, politicians being penalized for taking petty acts like increasing traffic during a game, and the 49ers may just have to wait it out.

They are losing out on concerts with the early curfew. Santa clara wanted a stadium but didn't know what came with it to make money

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by captveg:

Didn't Levi's use a hotel tax? That's not exactly the same thing as a tax on the residents of SC.

IIRC, the courts ruled in the team's favor last time they and the city were pissing in each other's coffee, so it wouldn't shock me if that happened again.

The small city of Santa Clara borrowed $850 million from Goldman Sachs.

Last I had read they were ahead of schedule in paying off those loans, but that was a while ago.

Originally posted by NONAME:
They are losing out on concerts with the early curfew. Santa clara wanted a stadium but didn't know what came with it to make money

That sounds even worse. If the city is the cause of the stadium under performing, and they want to replace 49ers as managers of the stadium, I could easily see a judge just tossing the suit out with prejudice.

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by dj43:
There is much more to be gained by settling than forcing the team out of town.

The tough thing is the fact that so many people questioned the city/county's involvement in the first place that this is now going to fire up all that angst all over again. That stuff impacts judges and it may cost the 49ers more than they will want to pay if the city proves its case.

Let's fact it, Bay Area politics does not look favorably on ultra-rich people getting richer, especially when it comes to a non-essential product like football. While there is clearly much more to be learned, this may get messy.

Football a non-essential product? What planet you live on?

Got to get this resolved.

This what happens when you build a stadium in a city run by crooked politicians.

http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2020/02/20/fppc-complaint-accuses-santa-clara-officials-of-using-public-money-for-political-purposes/

Having been to other Stadiums, the 49ers actually do a really good job of managing Levis. They track up to the second, customer satisfaction of ticketing, bathrooms, and concessions. We then get emails on an ongoing basis to give details on our experience and have been very good at making adjustments from one game to the next. The only thing that sucks is getting out of the parking lots post-game which I can assume is on the city not the Niners organization. I guarantee if the city succeeds the management will be a downhill spiral and game-day experience will be akin to what you would see at places like the Coliseum. I assume the city thinks it isn't getting the revenue it is owed so I suspect they think they will 'find it' if they take over operations. Please SC, as a fan, stay out of this.

Originally posted by fryet:

Originally posted by NONAME:
They are losing out on concerts with the early curfew. Santa clara wanted a stadium but didn't know what came with it to make money

That sounds even worse. If the city is the cause of the stadium under performing, and they want to replace 49ers as managers of the stadium, I could easily see a judge just tossing the suit out with prejudice.

What a bunch of cry babies.

Originally posted by Scottie15:

This what happens when you build a stadium in a city run by crooked politicians.

http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2020/02/20/fppc-complaint-accuses-santa-clara-officials-of-using-public-money-for-political-purposes/

Crooked politicians are the only way the 49ers could get a small city like Santa Clara to pay $850 million for a stadium and then give away the 49ers control of the proceeds from non-NFL events.

The 49ers reported a net loss of several million dollars on the NCAA title game. LOL

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by Scottie15:
This what happens when you build a stadium in a city run by crooked politicians.

http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2020/02/20/fppc-complaint-accuses-santa-clara-officials-of-using-public-money-for-political-purposes/

Crooked politicians are the only way the 49ers could get a small city like Santa Clara to pay $850 million for a stadium and then give away the 49ers control of the proceeds from non-NFL events.

The 49ers reported a net loss of several million dollars on the NCAA title game. LOL

There are obvious political motives behind a lot of things going on. None of us would have a clue about the reality of this complaint or the action by the council to boot the 49ers out of managing Levis. It is all BS same old same old politics between big players in Santa Clara and it doesn't matter where you live to know that.