It's Sunday-- Do You Know Where Your Sports Team Is?

Don't go buying your brand new "San Jose of Fremont by way of 92" or "Bay Area 49ers of Santa Clara" t-shirts just yet because we're still a long way off from the moving trucks appearing. Things just ain't as easy as it sounds.

Let's start in Santa Clara where Matier & Ross remind us that there's been three attempts to move a team that way-- the Giants, the A's, and MLS's San Jose Earthquakes (hey, did you realize they just won the MLS for Houston? Well, they did)-- have all, at various times, tried the move only to fail miserably. That's what we call a trend in the marketing biz.

The main problem with the 49ers move is that Santa Clara isn't going to hand over the land that easily in that they don't want to make things easier by giving out all sorts of handouts for the team. They also really don't have the land that the Niners want to build housing developments. See, the team wants to develop housing and shopping and all that stuff to partly pay for the costs of building the stadium, but there's no place for them to do it. The area by Great America where the stadium would go has no room and Yahoo! just swiped the only really open space. That's what happens when you pull a move to Santa Clara basically out of your ass. Says their press flak:

One thing in the Niners benefit, however, is that the NFL has kind of a kitty in which they could dip into to and give the Niners money to build the stadium. That could make up for the lost costs as could the any number of big money tech companies in the area to pay for naming rights (Google Field anyone?). The Niners, however, aren't saying anything. Says their press flak: "we are not going to negotiate this in the public. ... When we have it figured out, we will call you.'' That could pretty much sum up the York regime.

As for the A's, people in Fremont are clamoring for a vote on the matter and if that happens, we'll that's when the fun starts. So far, no vote is planned but there are people who want the opportunity to have their say, you know, democracy and all that. Fremontians (Fremontonians?) are concerned about paying for it, traffic, and other resources.

So far, there is no plan for a vote, partly because the plan hasn't been formalized and partly because, well, let's let Fremont's Mayor Bob Wasserman explain why: "if you had a (public) vote every time you had to make a decision, you would never make a decision." Somewhere Gavin is wondering why he can't just do that.

Fremont officials say once the plan is finalized, they'll have a series of town-hall type meetings to go over all of this. If in these meetings, people say they want to vote on it, they'll vote for it. If not, we'll hello A's.

Our prediction? The A's go to Fremont while the Niners stay in Candlestick limbo for ever and ever and ever. Why? Because Lew Wolff has his sh-- together. We can't say the same for John York