Following on last Tuesday's press conference lambasting San Francisco's Super Bowl City arrangement with the Host Committee and the NFL, Supervisors Jane Kim and Aaron Peskin today published an angry op-ed in the Chronicle reiterating their demand that city officials renegotiate what Kim earlier this month called the "worst deal ever."

But with costs to taxpayer expected to surpass $5.3 million, and downtown city streets already closed in preparation for upcoming football-related festivities (with predictions of gridlock coming true), it is hard not to read the Supervisors' frustrated plan for making things right as too little coming too late.

"Let’s be clear," write Kim and Peskin. "Santa Clara is hosting the Super Bowl, the world’s most lucrative marketing event. San Francisco is hosting the traffic jam. Why should San Francisco taxpayers fund the marketing efforts of the world’s largest corporations?"

Which: OK, we very much agree. However, as we've said before, it probably shouldn't have takem the Supervisors this long to realize how bad this arrangement was for the city — were they asleep at the wheel or kept completely in the dark when these negotiations were going down? Peskin, for his part, wasn't in office when a lot of these agreements were made, so we'll give him a pass. We're not exactly sure what Kim's excuse is.

The idea that hosting a large event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics has a negative impact on a city's economy is not a new one, and it is not unique to San Francisco. In an article last year in the conservative Washington Examiner, the President of the North American Association of Sports Economics, Michael Leeds, told the paper that predictions of an economic boon brought about by such large events are frequently overstated.

“I have never seen an independent academic study that has shown the benefits of the Super Bowl come anywhere close to the predictions of these booster studies,” noted Leeds. “Many studies actually find some degree of harm. Once you cover all the expenses that the city goes to and net out what the businesses would have done anyway, that the city winds up being worse off.”

Regardless of how we got here, we're here now, and both Kim and Peskin are insisting that we shouldn't throw in the towel just yet.

"[It] is time for an instant replay on the deal with the Super Bowl committee to require it to reimburse taxpayers for all reasonable expenses," they note. "Along with a number of colleagues, we will be introducing emergency legislation mandating reimbursement, and we are looking forward to working with Mayor Ed Lee to implement it should we be successful at the Board of Supervisors."

The emergency legislation is slated to be introduced at the Board's meeting today. Should it pass, the measure will still be a non-binding one.

Previously: SF's Super Bowl Bill Just Went Up Another $500K