Post by TheShadow on Jun 7, 2009 8:01:09 GMT -5
www.sfgate.com
By Ray Ratto
To our friends in Santa Clara (and we are your friends, honest), we'd like to share with you the best way for you to be proud of whatever deal you get with the 49ers. It's the only good thing San Francisco ever did with this deal, and it's the one thing that can save you from decades of holding a mink-lined bag full of IOUs.
Cap your costs. Cap your costs. Seriously, cap your costs. San Francisco's cutoff number was $100 million, and it was made a law. Find your cutoff number, re-find it, find it another time, and then do the same thing. Otherwise, you will be hosed and often, because that is the nature of team-city relations - anything Jed York or the folks don't have to pay for, they will be perfectly happy to have you pay for it.
This is just one of the many lessons we want to share with you in case you really want to build the 49ers a new stadium. Starting with:
1. You must really want to
You don't have to build, pay or do anything for the 49ers. You don't need to do any of it, because you're a perfectly viable and working community as you are - schools, shopping, plumbing, garbage collection, the works. You're already big-time in the one thing that a city really ought to be - a place where people want to live. If you want to build the joint, fine. It's your money. Just understand it for what it is, a vanity buy that might make you feel better about yourselves, and only if you don't end up with the twinge that the people in Alameda County get every day while driving on 880 and looking at Mount Davis with that "Man, did we get taken" hole in their stomachs.
2. Make sure you have the money
It's going to take a long time for California to get its economy in order, even if the recession ends soon, and in the meantime the state is going to look covetously at any and all avenues for revenue - like money you good people think is already yours. Make sure you can actually do this before deciding that you should.
3. Get everything in writing, twice
You are not the 49ers' partners on this. This is not a symbiotic relationship where they want to be sure you make out on the deal. They want to be sure that they make out on the deal, and you kids are on your own. They are not unique in this endeavor. Every team views the municipality in which it resides as a bank with no tellers or security guards. Don't sit and wait for them to do the right thing - make damned sure they don't have a choice but to do the right thing.
4. Their lawyers are better than yours
The 49ers hire people who work only on this project. Your people work on lots of things. The logic here is unassailable. Find people who work for you and can prove (or disprove) their claims. Assume that no matter how trustworthy the 49ers are, they still aren't to be trusted, not at these prices. Oakland thought it had done its due diligence in '95, with the predictable and pantsless result.
5. No open-ended agreements
The city of St. Louis built a football stadium for the Rams in 1995, and as part of the deal promised in writing that the stadium would be in the top eight of all NFL emporia or the city would have to pay for the upgrades. Today, 23 stadiums have either been erected or upgraded, and the city of St. Louis has a crushing new obligation that neither educates, feeds, paves, re-pipes or operates anything. This goes back to capping your costs. You promised them a place to play and a place to park. That's all they should get, ever.
6. Don't worry about L.A.
If the 49ers don't like the way you voted and threaten to leave, fine. They leave. If the measure of their ardor for you is that thin, they weren't your pals anyway. Besides, L.A. has nothing you should fear (like a stadium), and there are teams much farther along on that particular conceptual path, including San Diego, which has its own stadium issues in a town that is even more cash-strapped than you are.
7. Nothing is forever except your bond obligation
With the exception of Al Davis, nobody believes Al Davis will own the Raiders for all eternity. The next guy might want to (or need to) sell, and will cheerfully sell to the highest bidder without worrying whether that bidder wants to keep the team in town or move it. The city of Glendale, Ariz., built a lovely hockey arena and is now considered an underdog to retain the one full-time tenant it actually has, the Coyotes. Oh, and the Rams also have estate tax issues after the passing of Georgia Frontiere that may cause the team to be sold or dramatically diversified. In other words, you may do everything the 49ers ask and still end up with a team-less stadium.
8. Seriously, kids, cap your costs
If the Italian-marble-lined urinals on the suite level are running over budget, that's Jed's problem. If the live bears running on the treadmills that power the elevators don't pass ASPCA muster, that's Jed's problem. If the 49ers find out they don't have access to any NFL stadium money (and good luck there), that's Jed's problem, too. The only thing a handshake deal gets you is a cold, because you never really know where the other guys' hands have been. True, the Yorks walked on the San Francisco deal that Eddie cut because the city's costs were in fact capped, but only an idiot would commit to anything of this size without that iron-clad certainty.
Trust us here. We don't want you to end up like St. Louis (stuck with a huge and unexpected bill for a team that might leave anyway), or Seattle (down a team), or Oakland (which regained the team it thought it wanted 14 years ago and has been paying through the eyes ever since).
And when you finish trusting us, that should be it for awhile on the trust thing. Come next election day, the price of trust will rise exponentially.
By Ray Ratto
To our friends in Santa Clara (and we are your friends, honest), we'd like to share with you the best way for you to be proud of whatever deal you get with the 49ers. It's the only good thing San Francisco ever did with this deal, and it's the one thing that can save you from decades of holding a mink-lined bag full of IOUs.
Cap your costs. Cap your costs. Seriously, cap your costs. San Francisco's cutoff number was $100 million, and it was made a law. Find your cutoff number, re-find it, find it another time, and then do the same thing. Otherwise, you will be hosed and often, because that is the nature of team-city relations - anything Jed York or the folks don't have to pay for, they will be perfectly happy to have you pay for it.
This is just one of the many lessons we want to share with you in case you really want to build the 49ers a new stadium. Starting with:
1. You must really want to
You don't have to build, pay or do anything for the 49ers. You don't need to do any of it, because you're a perfectly viable and working community as you are - schools, shopping, plumbing, garbage collection, the works. You're already big-time in the one thing that a city really ought to be - a place where people want to live. If you want to build the joint, fine. It's your money. Just understand it for what it is, a vanity buy that might make you feel better about yourselves, and only if you don't end up with the twinge that the people in Alameda County get every day while driving on 880 and looking at Mount Davis with that "Man, did we get taken" hole in their stomachs.
2. Make sure you have the money
It's going to take a long time for California to get its economy in order, even if the recession ends soon, and in the meantime the state is going to look covetously at any and all avenues for revenue - like money you good people think is already yours. Make sure you can actually do this before deciding that you should.
3. Get everything in writing, twice
You are not the 49ers' partners on this. This is not a symbiotic relationship where they want to be sure you make out on the deal. They want to be sure that they make out on the deal, and you kids are on your own. They are not unique in this endeavor. Every team views the municipality in which it resides as a bank with no tellers or security guards. Don't sit and wait for them to do the right thing - make damned sure they don't have a choice but to do the right thing.
4. Their lawyers are better than yours
The 49ers hire people who work only on this project. Your people work on lots of things. The logic here is unassailable. Find people who work for you and can prove (or disprove) their claims. Assume that no matter how trustworthy the 49ers are, they still aren't to be trusted, not at these prices. Oakland thought it had done its due diligence in '95, with the predictable and pantsless result.
5. No open-ended agreements
The city of St. Louis built a football stadium for the Rams in 1995, and as part of the deal promised in writing that the stadium would be in the top eight of all NFL emporia or the city would have to pay for the upgrades. Today, 23 stadiums have either been erected or upgraded, and the city of St. Louis has a crushing new obligation that neither educates, feeds, paves, re-pipes or operates anything. This goes back to capping your costs. You promised them a place to play and a place to park. That's all they should get, ever.
6. Don't worry about L.A.
If the 49ers don't like the way you voted and threaten to leave, fine. They leave. If the measure of their ardor for you is that thin, they weren't your pals anyway. Besides, L.A. has nothing you should fear (like a stadium), and there are teams much farther along on that particular conceptual path, including San Diego, which has its own stadium issues in a town that is even more cash-strapped than you are.
7. Nothing is forever except your bond obligation
With the exception of Al Davis, nobody believes Al Davis will own the Raiders for all eternity. The next guy might want to (or need to) sell, and will cheerfully sell to the highest bidder without worrying whether that bidder wants to keep the team in town or move it. The city of Glendale, Ariz., built a lovely hockey arena and is now considered an underdog to retain the one full-time tenant it actually has, the Coyotes. Oh, and the Rams also have estate tax issues after the passing of Georgia Frontiere that may cause the team to be sold or dramatically diversified. In other words, you may do everything the 49ers ask and still end up with a team-less stadium.
8. Seriously, kids, cap your costs
If the Italian-marble-lined urinals on the suite level are running over budget, that's Jed's problem. If the live bears running on the treadmills that power the elevators don't pass ASPCA muster, that's Jed's problem. If the 49ers find out they don't have access to any NFL stadium money (and good luck there), that's Jed's problem, too. The only thing a handshake deal gets you is a cold, because you never really know where the other guys' hands have been. True, the Yorks walked on the San Francisco deal that Eddie cut because the city's costs were in fact capped, but only an idiot would commit to anything of this size without that iron-clad certainty.
Trust us here. We don't want you to end up like St. Louis (stuck with a huge and unexpected bill for a team that might leave anyway), or Seattle (down a team), or Oakland (which regained the team it thought it wanted 14 years ago and has been paying through the eyes ever since).
And when you finish trusting us, that should be it for awhile on the trust thing. Come next election day, the price of trust will rise exponentially.