New San Francisco 49ers Stadium Plan B

Jed York lobbying the Santa Clara City Council for a Taxpayer Subsidy

Will the San Francisco Forty Niners (49ers) move to Oakland? In a December 20, 2009 San Francisco Chronicle article, San Francisco 49ers President Jed York was quoted as saying that if the Santa Clara 49ers stadium ballot initiative is turned down, the team is open to sharing a stadium in Oakland with the Raiders. He felt that an Oakland site was preferable to the proposed Hunters Point site in San Francisco because it had:

• Amtrak
• Bart
• nearby freeway

none of which are at the Hunters Point site.

The NFL contributes money to new stadiums being built by individual teams. Two teams sharing a new stadium saves them some money and they are now suggesting that the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders do the same thing that the New York Giants and New York Jets have successfully done in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It should be noted that Santa Clara 49ers stadium proponents will say that "this will put Santa Clara on the map". But did having two teams playing in its city put East Rutherford, New Jersey on the map??

2-Team Football Stadium planned in Oakland

In a February 24th, 2010 San Francisco Chronicle article, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross talked about the plans Oakland is putting together for a new NFL football stadium with the expectation that both the Raiders and the 49ers will share the stadium. This is in line with the Stadium Five's hopes that the Raiders will share a Santa Clara NFL stadium with the 49ers.

The article quotes Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty who points out that "We have a better location, a better infrastructure and better access to roads and mass transit." And clearly a site with onsite parking and a BART station does trump a site with VTA light rail and no onsite parking. He also points out that Santa Clara voters should be expecting 20 home games a year for both the Raiders and the 49ers - subjecting the Santa Clarans in the residential neighborhoods around the stadium to massive traffic jams and crowd noise virtually every Sunday afternoon from August thru December - not just the ten the 49ers would play. An Oakland stadium is also more centrally located to the San Francisco Bay Area than a Santa Clara stadium in the South Bay.

Both cities are talking about housing two teams because they realize that they need two teams to keep the stadium from being too much of a money drain, and that the NFL, which is supposed to help provide funds for new NFL stadiums, wants a shared stadium as was done in the New York Metropolitan area for the New York Jets and New York Giants. The NFL also wants to save money. But while the San Francisco 49ers president Jed York has expressed an interest in sharing a stadium in Oakland with the Raiders, the opposite is not true. The Oakland Raiders have not said anything about a willingness to move to Santa Clara and share a stadium with the San Francisco 49ers.

01/14/2010 - Tim Kawakami says Raiders critical for 49ers to pay for a Santa Clara stadium

Kawakami

Tim Kawakami, San Jose Mercury news sports columnist says in his 1/14/10 column:

"Two years after he was hired with great York-ian fanfare, Andy Dolich disappeared from the 49ers' hierarchy this week.
The way Jed York described it: Dolich's position was eliminated. The way I hear it: Jed is enthralled by the Dallas Cowboys organization and wants to establish a Jerry Jones-style front office, with, of course, Jed in the all-powerful JJ role. It's not a terrible model to copy, and Jed should be particularly interested in Jones' new stadium."

"But wait: Wasn't Dolich supposedly hired to help guide the 49ers' Santa Clara project? Yes, he was. His departure/firing is not a good sign, I would think, for the Santa Clara effort. The more I hear about this situation, the more I'm convinced that the 49ers probably can't do this financially without a partner, and that would mean the Raiders. And Al Davis. Which is never going to happen, for as long as Al lives, and we all know that's going to be another 100 years."

Going from neighbors to roommates??