November 15, 2006
It's Wednesday-- Do You Know Where Your Football Team Is?
What does the move of the San Francisco 49ers to Santa Clara mean for San Francisco's 49ers fans? As we didn't grow up here and as we aren't really a member of "the Faithful" it's hard for us to explain. So we asked a Friend of SFist to see what it means to them. Below is his comment.
And so Doctor Fatass commences the 49ers steady march to Los Angeles. Today Santa Clara, tomorrow King City, 2030 Los Angeles.
Is nothing in this town sacred? The 49ers have been playing in San Francisco since 1946, the year after the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. That's 57 years of real San Francisco history - leaving forever. For crying out loud the team is named in honor of the event that single handedly transformed San Francisco and the west forever.
When then the 49ers won their first Superbowl in 1981, tens of thousands of esctatic San Franciscans flooded Market Street for the Niners historic victory parade. It was an opportunity for San Franciscans to feel proud and positive again three years after the killings of Milk and Moscone and as the reality of AIDS was just gripping the City. It was an indescribable event that solidified our unity and identity as San Franciscans.
Does anyone think San Francisco will ever feel that pride for the Santa Clara 49ers? I think not.
Most people in their 20s and 30s who live here today will not be living here in 10 years. But that guy at the Bayview autobody shop, or the smiling gentleman in the Niner hat at your favorite taqueria? They'll still be living here then-- and they will still be heartbroken if their beloved 49ers leave the City by the Bay for some two-bit town in Silicone Valley. Lets not let this happen to San Francisco. It's just that important to San Francisco.
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Waa, waa. Get over it already. As Randy Shaw pointed out at BeyondChron.org, the 49ers' departure presents a great opportunity to revitalize Southeastern SF. Take a look at the Monster Park pic on my blog, and then tell me you'd like to live near that pavement? Instead of drunken fans 10 Sundays a year and empty asphalt the rest of the year, we could have houses, offices, businesses, parks, other fun and useful stuff there. Demolish Monster Park. Plenty of NFL teams play in places like Pontiac, Foxboro, Arlington, etc. San Francisco will thrive. Good riddance!
I grew up in San Jose, and the 49ers magic was just as thick down there. Many of my favorite childhood memories are tied to the Niners. The John York administration has been almost as damaging to my soul as the Bush administration.
I'd be devastated if the Niners left the bay area, but I think the Betting Fool got it right:
"Unlike the 49ers, who will play eight real games in their stadium every year, the A's will play close to 100 home games, if they have a successful season. For each game, a small city moves in."
A baseball park can create a neighborhood, and the A's leaving Oakland is a travesty. It's a defining moment of how the bland dotcom carpet-bagging forces are reshaping the bay area.
But football stadiums are monstrous anachronisms that suck up massive amounts of space, money, and resources so they can sit empty 96% of the time. San Francisco real estate is way too precious to waste on a new stadium. As much as I love the Niners, I can't get worked up about them moving to Santa Clara. I say let them keep the name and move somewhere within an hour drive so we can still go to the games, but far enough away so we don't have to live in the shadow of the new high-tech behemoth.
I grew up in the bay area watching the Niners in their heyday. It makes me sad that the NFL is letting such an obviously awful team owner do this to fans. If it does happen, as I think it will, I support them keeping their name if they stay in the Bay Area(but the LA 49ers, no way!). Having a city name attached to a NFL team is good publicity for the city, and we have to face the fact that tourism is really important for our city's health. However, I think the York's deserve every bit slander that gets thrown at them, especially considering how they handled the announcement to move and humiliating our city representatives in front of the Olympic committee.
Leave it to some Randy Shaw disciple clown to give the middle finger to San Franciscans because it does not meet *his* social agenda, and also his comment as an excuse to plug his (didnt look at it but Im assuming lame) blog. Predicatable.
The undoubtedly forthcoming angry, rhetoric-filled responses from this transplant squid will be ignored, btw.
Touche` Scott.
actually, scott look for a post from rita about how matt gonzalez or chris daly are dreamy :)
Excuse me, but the person giving SF "the finger" is John York. Among the 50-60K people who fill Monster Park on any given Sunday, I'd guess less than 15K are actual SF residents. My point is that SF can do better than eight weekends of drunken frat-boy tailgate parties and an empty expanse of pavement and concrete the rest of the year. On waterfront real estate no less! And now Gavin "I don't wanna be the Mayor who 'lost' the Niners" Newsom seems ready to give billionaire York the keys to the city treasury. Really. We can do better. (Lame blog? Whatever.)
Scott - post the url to your non-lame blog. I'd love to read it! Or maybe not. Perhaps I'd just not look at it and predict its contents.
You knew it would happen, predictable is the correct spelling.
I've seen claims that professional teams generate economic returns. But they also have costs. Anyone know whether the net effect really is negative or positive?
The whole charade seems like a scam to make it possible for city leaders to grant massive tax breaks (corporate welfare) to "rescue" the team. Seeing some of Gavin's recent idiotic moves, I no longer suspect that he's in on the fix. He's just being duped.
I am as big a Niner fan as anybody, well not as much as the guys who paint their faces come game time but does somebody have a good reason for giving a multi-millionaire owner of a football team a few hundred million to build a stadium? if "care not cash" can work for the homeless it should work for the rich.
The Giants were able to privately (right?) finance their stadium so why can't these jokers do it? Maybe they should sell the team to somebody that knows how, maybe Eddie D will buy back the team.