49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: We've Passed the 'Century' Mark!

Dear Santa Clarans,

We've now passed the 'century' mark:  Our elected City Council has met in secret with the San Francisco 49ers over ONE HUNDRED TIMES since May 1, 2007.  The very reason that you have only 96 hours to review the 421-page draft of the DDA before this Tuesday evening is a direct result of those Closed Sessions.

Background:  In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign a "Confidentiality Agreement."  Without a peep, and with minimal public inputs:  Our elected leaders took virtually all dealings involving the stadium subsidy, the stadium site and parcels into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated - with no details - in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, Santa Clara Agencies have paid cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Finally, Santa Clara Agencies will be borrowing what they do not have in order to finance not only the make-ready work and the stadium's construction costs, but very possibly the costs of operating the stadium for the 49ers, too.  Those dollar amounts will be reported here periodically.

As of today:

101: The number of secret Closed Sessions that our City Council or Agencies have held with the San Francisco 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, concerning the stadium site and parcels since May 1st, 2007.

As of December 6, 2011:

$3,650,000: The total of Santa Clara Agency cash paid to 49ers consultants since April 3rd, 2007.

$6,000,000:  The total that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority does not have for the stadium's "make-ready" work - which they must now borrow from the 49ers themselves and pay back with interest.

Best regards,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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The rules are rather straightforward.  Our count of secret Council and Agency Closed Sessions above is in fact quite conservative and it's more than fair to the 49ers' Stadium Boosters seated on our City Council:

• Only meetings actually held between the city and the 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, for the purpose of discussing the "five parcels" are counted here.
• Secret Council and Agency meetings called for the same time of day and held one right after the other are counted as only one Closed Session.
• The "Sweetheart Hotel" negotiations with Joe Montana, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr., and Karl Wittek are not counted.
• Scheduled Closed Sessions "Not Held" - and, of course, city employee CBU negotiating sessions - are not counted.

We're very serious about the secret Closed Sessions - and we're happy to clear the air about how we've been accurately tallying them.

If we chose to include "The Sweetheart Hotel" and to singulate the secret Council and secret Agency meetings, we would simply be stating truthfully how much worse things actually are.     --- Bill Bailey     -=0=-

49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: 99 Secret Meetings - and the $6 MILLION we DON'T have.

Dear Santa Clarans,

In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign a "Confidentiality Agreement" - and that our elected leaders take virtually all dealings involving the stadium site and parcels into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated - with no details - in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, Santa Clara Agencies have paid cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Finally, Santa Clara Agencies will be borrowing what they do not have in order to finance not only the make-ready work and the stadium's construction costs, but very possibly the costs of operating the stadium for the 49ers, too.  Those dollar amounts will be reported here periodically.

As of this date:

99: The number of secret Closed Sessions that our City Council or Agencies have held with the San Francisco 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, concerning the stadium site and parcels since May 1st, 2007. 

$3,200,000: The total of Santa Clara Agency cash paid to 49ers consultants since April 3rd, 2007.

$6,000,000:  The total that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority does not have for the stadium's "make-ready" work - which they must now borrow from the 49ers themselves and pay back with interest.

The count of Closed Sessions above is in fact quite conservative and it's more than fair to the 49ers' Stadium Boosters on our City Council:

• Only meetings actually held between the city and the 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, for the purpose of discussing the "five parcels" are counted here.
• Secret Council and Agency meetings held one right after the other are counted as only one Closed Session.
• The "Sweetheart Hotel" negotiations with Montana/DeBartolo are not counted.
• Scheduled Closed Sessions "Not Held" - and, of course, city employee CBU negotiating sessions - are not counted.

We're very serious about the secret Closed Sessions - and we're happy to clear the air about how we've been accurately tallying them.


Best regards,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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Why we keep count.

A Stadium Fact: There is NO cap on the 49ers' Stadium Subsidies

Dear Santa Clarans,


There have been several claims in the media these last few weeks that Santa Clara's subsidy of the San Francisco 49ers is somehow "capped" at $42 million.  Unfortunately, this claim is completely false.


Pull out a Sample Ballot or other any other materials you wish covering Measure Jed from last June - and note that the total debt down to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority is not limited in any way.   The oversimplification being used by the 49ers' Stadium Boosters (this time) is that the Redevelopment Agency is only down for $42 million, and 'gosh, that's all.'


It's not.


Remember that the 49ers demanded our votes on Measure Jed by "estimating" that they'd be covering $493 million of a $937 million stadium.  On June 7th, however, City Staff informed us that the team only wants to pay "15% to 25%" of the costs of a $987 million stadium.


This is the way the game is played:  Euchre voters into signing a blank check, with meaningless (or broken) promises that debt is capped (or that the General Fund won't be touched, even though the Stadium Subsidy does cost it a bundle.).  About a year later, trumpet the passage of the bill, Measure Jed, then tell city residents that the public debt down to another city Agency is no longer the $330,000,000 claimed a year ago, but in fact may nearly double.


Imagine a situation where a destitute brother-in-law swears he only needs to put $330 on one of your credit cards - then imagine the uproar when you get the bill from the bank at the end of the month, and when you find that he charged $626 to that card.


The same game is being played here in Santa Clara - the debt that the San Francisco 49ers won't cover is going to be shoved onto the Stadium Authority - and there's apparently very little that the five "49ers' Stadium Boosters" on our City Council are willing to do to stop it.


The 49ers also made a promise that they'd be covering all construction cost overruns.  But who can tell what's an "overrun" if it's suddenly deemed not to be a 49ers Development Cost?  When that happens, it's a virtual certainty that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority will be stuck with it.


In essence:  Stadium Boosters continue to claim that the Stadium Authority is going to magically pay for all of this with just naming rights and Personal Seat License collections - and that it will then have enough dough to run a stadium for the 49ers for about $30,000,000 every year.


That claim sounds sillier all the time.






Thanks for all of your support,


William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer,

SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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Stadium Facts: Measure Jed does NOT Guarantee a Second Team

Dear Santa Clarans,

Stadium Boosters, even on our City Council, do sometimes manage to stretch the truth to the breaking point.  A prime example is the issue of any second team at a subsidized NFL stadium in Santa Clara, as this quote by Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor in today's paper shows:

" Santa Clara City Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor, however, was much more eager about having Oakland's Black Hole partner up in the South Bay.

" ' I would like to think that this improves the odds of the Raiders making a change to Santa Clara," Gillmor said. "Our citizens voted to have a second team...' "

Well, not exactly.  Here's what the Term Sheet appended to Measure Jed actually stated in black and white:

"49ers Stadium Company [and NO Santa Clara Agency] will have the right to enter into a sublease with a second NFL team (“Second Team”), on terms and conditions consistent with and subject to the Stadium Lease..."   (Section 16.1)

...and also:

"Although the terms of any sublease to a Second Team are not subject to approval of the Stadium Authority,..."   (Section 16.3)

Now, any Stadium Booster is welcome to misrepresent who holds the power of the second team lease.  However, any Santa Claran can read the Term Sheet itself, and know the truth.

The real truth is that we did not vote for a second team.  Instead, we gave Jed York the exclusive right to decide for us.

Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Pure Lucre for the NFL in TV Royalties

Santa Clarans,


One of the biggest delusions engaged in by the 49ers' Stadium Boosters is about the money.

The problem is, they won't admit to you that the money goes into the 49ers' very own cash box, and not into the accounts of our city's agencies.

The Real Stadium Facts:  The Ground Lease payable to our city's General Fund is a pathetic $180,000 the first year.  The rent payable to our Santa Clara Stadium Authority at this writing is a paltry $5 million against what will be a Stadium Authority operating tab of at least $20 million and possibly $30 million - every year. 

Remember:  NO operating overruns will ever be reimbursed by the San Francisco 49ers. 

So:  Where is all the money really going?

The bulk of the money to be made in fielding an NFL team - and not in a losing stadium operation - are what are known as NFL Revenues.  The Term Sheet attached to Measure Jed from last June spells this out, and it draws a sharp, black line between those Revenues and the pittance that will go to us or to our Agencies.

A big part of those NFL Revenues, untouchable by us, are television royalties.  To stay abreast of the dollar amounts, one can use a search engine to yield the usual pile of information - but in general, you may count on $4B to $6B per year, divided equally among the NFL owners.

Conservatively, that's over $100,000,000 to Jed York every year - for the broadcast rights alone.  Consider the many other streams of NFL Revenue flowing out of a stadium - like the luxury box dough - and you have a lot of money that Santa Clara Agencies and Santa Clarans are simply not getting.

The 49ers and the NFL are extremely secretive about this.  They really don't want you looking too hard at what they'll be scooping out of a stadium here.

However, just a little online searching will give you a good idea of why NFL teams make money - and why NFL stadiums don't. 


All the best,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org


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ESPN - alone - Pays $63 million to each NFL team ($2B/32)http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/01/20110117/Media/Sports-Media.aspx: 

Early, from 2007:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2007/09/Issue-238/NFL-Season-Preview/NFL-Media-Rights-Deals-For-07-Season.aspx

AdWeek took down their coverage of the NFL's TV money - but they published data from Barclays Capital Estimates showing that the NFL collected $4.04 BILLION from five networks in the 2010-2011 NFL season alone.

49ers' Subsidies: Measure J - and Measure Jed

Dear Santa Clarans,


In November of 2004, voters in the Santa Clara Unified School District passed a bond measure to upgrade badly aged and seismically inadequate infrastructure at our middle and high schools.   That bond measure?

Measure J.

In June of 2010, however, voters in Santa Clara voted to pay HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in subsidies to the San Francisco 49ers, all for (1) $7,000-per-year jobs *, (2) economic activity less than that of the 49ers' own Training Center and (3) losses to our city's General Fund .

That bond measure was also called Measure J, but it could not be more different from the original Measure J.

This matters because of a couple of exchanges I've had in the last several months with "49ers stadium boosters" who should know better.  They persist with the utterly false claim that the 49ers are somehow putting money into the Santa Clara Unified School District.  Now, while it's true that the 49ers exploited a funding crisis in our schools to get what they wanted last June, please note they're not giving a single cent to Santa Clara schools.

It's downright deceitful of "stadium boosters" to be promoting confusion between the two ballot measures above in order to advance their cause of stadium subsidies for the San Francisco 49ers.

This also matters because of the SCUSD newsletter "School Days," for fall, 2011, which a great many of you have already received.  The latest letter indeed describes the true, original Measure J projects, which are upgrading Santa Clara schools by using money from the 2004 bond measure.  However, by providing no context, the article in "School Days" invites anyone unfamiliar with the 2004 measure to assume that the 49ers' "J" is somehow responsible for the upgrades in SCUSD classrooms and physical plant.

It simply is not.

When you read about the 2004 Measure J and what it's accomplishing for SCUSD schools, please remember that this is our $315,000,000.  We authorized it.  That amount and its debt service is being paid for out of our property taxes - and not by the San Francisco 49ers. 

There's a better name for the 2010 measure, though.  Let's just call it "Measure Jed."

After all, Jed York is the only one benefiting  from it.




Thanks for your continuing support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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* See footnote here .

The Truth about the 49ers' Luxury Boxes

Santa Clarans,

On the evening of June 7, we learned that our costs to subsidize the San Francisco 49ers are going to increase greatly before we even see a stadium finance plan next summer.

But the most jaw-dropping part of the evening's meeting came in one of the 49ers' own presentations before Council.  The team's representatives actually claimed that their contribution to the stadium's "development" was their costs for their own luxury boxes in that stadium!

Please note from the "Stadium Term Sheet", Section 11.2b, that ALL luxury box income for NFL events goes directly to the 49ers themselves - not to any Santa Clara City Agency.  Not only that:  The 49ers collect even their base luxury box fees for non-NFL events as well.  (You'll find exactly this language in your Sample Ballots of June 8, 2010, too - Measure J gives that luxury box dough only to the 49ers.)

This is worth noting because of the media coverage this weekend concerning the team's sale of those luxury suite leases.  At the same time that the 49ers are putting $138 million into their own pockets, they're forcing the Santa Clara Stadium Authority pay the PSL* marketer's fee of $6,000,000 - with interest.  See here and here, Section 7b.

What the San Francisco 49ers raked in this weekend compensates them many times over for any 'development' costs they may have spent on their luxury boxes.  But that isn't news, and it doesn't help Santa Clara's Agencies to raise a single penny for the stadium subsidy itself.

The real news is how much the 49ers will taking out of the stadium - and how little will be left for Santa Clara and for Santa Clarans.

Thanks for your support,

William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer,

SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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*Let's call them by their correct name:  They are indeed Personal Seat Licenses.

Same as they were in Oakland.

49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Over Four Years of Secrecy - And For What?

Santa Clarans,

Imagine that your city had loads of empty hundred-acre parcels.  Imagine that it's thinking about locating an arena somewhere within its city limits.  Imagine that the actual location is not yet determined.

Our elected leaders would seek to reduce to a minimum the public costs of the land, but the only way they can do that is to shield the ground lease negotiations from the rampant speculation which would drive up the costs to us taxpayers.

The Ralph M. Brown Act rightly allows an elected body to take negotiations over real estate - and personnel matters and bargaining-unit negotiations - into closed session in order to get the best deal for taxpayers.  No one claiming to advocate "taxpayer value" could sensibly argue otherwise.

But now I'm going to pop that balloon. 

If you look at our own City Council Agenda of May 1, 2007, you will see virtually the same wording as you'd see if you looked at the Agenda of two weeks ago. **   For over four years now, we have known exactly who the participants are.

But far more important:  We've always known exactly which five land parcels are involved and where they're located.

The ultimate costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidies to Santa Clara residents, then, are far more dependent upon the giveaways awarded by our City Council's "stadium boosters" than they ever will be on the base costs of the land.  Our "partners" aren't even a public corporation, in fact, but are the super-secretive San Francisco 49ers. 

Now, consider:  At the Council meeting of June 7th, we were finally told not only that our RDA will be taking cash advances from the 49ers and paying them back at up to 8.5% interest - but that our Santa Clara Stadium Authority will now be doing the same thing.  Both agencies will be paying far more money to the 49ers to service that debt than they would with any bonds they could issue.  In the case of the RDA, they'll be paying for it out of your tax increment money.

In fact, the costs of the massive 49ers' stadium subsidy to Santa Clarans are about to be greatly increased.

As taxpayers, the giveaways to the San Francisco 49ers are indeed our business.  However, the Closed Sessions of the Santa Clara City Council give the clearest indication that the 49ers don't want us finding out about these cost increases until it's way too late to do anything about them. 

If the secret, Closed Sessions of our City Council and our Agencies are in fact merely being held to conceal the increasing indebtedness of our Santa Clara Stadium Authority from us taxpayers, then they have no place in the All-American City. 

Santa Clarans who contacted City Hall before the June 14th Council Meeting were entirely right to do so.  Thank you all for speaking up.

In fact, the Councilman who went completely off-Agenda on June 14th in order to criticize your correspondence may have revealed a bit more about this entire process than he intended. 

Please.  Stay informed on the 49ers' stadium subsidy. 

Demand more.

Thanks for your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair.org 

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Annotated Brown Act - brochure from 2003.  Dated, perhaps - but then again, something like the Brown Act probably shouldn't change much anyway.

** I mentioned the June 14th meeting on purpose - because it was "Not Held."   When we count up the number of Closed Sessions, we specifically exclude dates such as June 14th.  We count only the meetings that were actually held.  June 14th doesn't count.

May 10th, May 24th and June 7th, however, do count.  The total of secret, Closed Session Council/Agency meetings is indeed 91 as of this evening.  Really.

49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Putting the Stadium Authority's $1.5M in Perspective

Dear Santa Clarans,


Press coverage in today's Mercury News put quite a bit of ink on what the City Council would be paying itself to sit on the Santa Clara Stadium Authority.  However, that may not be the big story.

The additional $1,440 bucks a year per Councilmember works out to thirty bucks each for 48 meetings - the critical portions of which are likely to be held in secret Closed Session, thereby concealing the true functioning of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority from Santa Clarans.  We should be far angrier about that than about the dollar amount.

Let's set a few more decimal points:

1. From the June 7th City Council meeting, we learned that Santa Clara's subsidy of the San Francisco 49ers' stadium is now likely to be far more than the $444,000,000 we were originally led to believe.
2. Not one but two city agencies, the Stadium Authority as well as the Redevelopment Agency, will now be on the hook for high-interest cash advances from the 49ers themselves.  Can't issue your own bonds at 5.75%?  No sweat - borrow the dough from the 49ers at up to 8.5%.  The 49ers can use that cash flow to pay for the construction cost overruns they promised us they'd cover out of their own pockets.
3. Take the $950,000 that the Stadium Authority will pay to lawyers and accountants in the coming fiscal year, and add it to the $2,800,000 in RDA money that our city has already spent.  It's likely that we'll blow four million on those costs before a single shovel breaks ground.  That's tax increment money, by the way - property taxes essentially unremitted.
4. The $550,000 for City Staff can be added to the $612K in staff expenses we know of so far.  That latter amount is only a partial accounting, so we can probably count on those expenses easily exceeding $1.2 million.

Finally, bear in mind that this Stadium Authority budget is your money.  Recall that the City Council "parked" $4,000,000 in RDA cash with the 49ers Stadium Company while playing that old game of "RDA keepaway" with Governor Brown.  This $1.5 million should be coming back, and in fact, the remaining $2.5M should be put back in the accounts of Agencies our leaders told us were there to protect our interests.

The increased stipend to City Councilmembers should be noted, of course, as well as the cut they took earlier this season - but the costs of subsidizing the San Francisco 49ers are about to balloon for far different reasons.

That's the real news.


Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Secret Meetings and RDA Cash , Too!

Dear Santa Clarans,


In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign the "Confidentiality Agreement" with the team. This agreement forced our Council and Agencies to take certain dealings with the 49ers into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated, but not detailed, in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, over roughly that same interval, the Redevelopment Agency has paid RDA cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Santa Clara Plays Fair continues to track both the count of the secret Council/49er meetings, and the cash paid for "Stadium Studies." As of this date:

90: The number of secret, Closed Sessions that our City Council has held with the San Francisco 49ers and Cedar Fair since 5/1/2007.

$2,800,000: The total of RDA cash spent on 49ers consultants since 4/3/2007.

We'll publish this ticker periodically to keep Santa Clarans informed of the costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidy - both in dollars and in transparency.


Best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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The 49ers' Subsidies and the Two-Team Myth

The rash claim over two NFL teams in Santa Clara appears to be making the rounds in our city yet again.

The myth: "We're getting two NFL teams in Santa Clara."

Busted: Santa Clarans, you will get two NFL teams in Santa Clara ONLY if Jed York says you do.

Please remember that if you voted for Measure J last June, you handed the right of sublease to any second NFL team strictly to Jed York himself. NO Santa Clara Agency, and not one single elected official in our city, has the power to contract with any second NFL team. Only the 49ers and their goods-marketing brigades will be allowed to do that. Even if they do: The 49ers - and not our Santa Clara Stadium Authority - collect the lion's share of the money from that sublease.

The proof is in Section 16.1 of the Term Sheet.

You will find that the 49ers front office desperately needs to blame their own stadium financing problems on the NFL players they just locked out. However, that's just not going to work: For two years running, the NFL Commissioner himself has made quite clear that any NFL contribution to a Bay Area stadium will be to ONE Bay Area stadium, and not to two of them. As the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders are in the bottom six of revenue producers in the NFL (see here), the other thirty millionaire owners are probably not very sympathetic to the Yorks - and certainly not to Al Davis. Putting the league off on this issue is another example of the 49ers' front office shooting themselves in the foot.

But in a broader sense, the "stadium boosters" - on and off of the City Council dais - might want to be real careful with their wildly inaccurate claims about any second team in Santa Clara.

They might finally be asked: "If you really think you're getting TWO NFL Millionaires in our city...

"...why are you demanding that Santa Clarans pay $444,000,000 to subsidize those TWO NFL Millionaires when the two of them together could obviously afford to build and operate their own stadium with NO public subsidy?"



Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasure,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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Why the 49ers' Term Sheet rips us off

The 49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Truth as a Casualty - Part II

Dear Santa Clarans,


After public comments on a motion before City Council, the Council gets the last word with their own comments.

There's no rebuttal to those - even if they contain distortions or even untrue statements.

Last Monday night, March 21st, Councilwoman Patricia Mahan claimed that the San Francisco 49ers paid for "half" of the infrastructure costs of the Tasman Drive/Centennial Way area. She made a similar claim at the Muslim Community Association debates of May 16th, 2010.

We believe that this claim is as untrue today as it was then. On page 3 of the original Training Center Escrow Agreement of February 12th, 1987, you will find that:

• Santa Clara ALONE paid to build Centennial Way.
  

• Santa Clara ALONE paid to connect all utilities up to the front steps of the 49ers' Training Center.

Extracts of that lease are here. A concise summary may be found here, too.

We're entitled to far more truth on this "sweetheart lease" than we got last Monday evening. If we can't get it from the dais of our own City Council on this issue, we're in serious trouble.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges our fellow residents to ask questions - hard questions - when "stadium boosters" make unsupportable claims for the massive stadium subsidy.

Especially when they do so in City Council Chambers.


Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Secret Meetings and RDA Cash

Dear Santa Clarans,


In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign the "Confidentiality Agreement" with the team. This agreement forced our Council and Agencies to take certain dealings with the 49ers into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated, but not detailed, in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, over roughly that same interval, the Redevelopment Agency has paid RDA cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Santa Clara Plays Fair continues to track both the count of the secret Council/49er meetings, and the cash paid for "Stadium Studies." As of this date:

88: Number of Closed Sessions, 49ers and Council, since 5/1/2007.

$2,800,000: Total of RDA cash spent on 49ers consultants since 4/3/2007.

We'll publish this ticker periodically to keep Santa Clarans informed of the costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidy - both in dollars and in transparency.


Best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer, Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy: The "Naming Rights" Myth

Dear Santa Clarans,


Myth: "We're getting a Farmer's naming rights deal in Santa Clara!"

Please don't believe it.

The $700M Farmer's Insurance naming rights deal is for a football stadium not even built and with no NFL team. It's also likely that most of that money will go not toward stadium construction, but straight into the pockets of the millionaire NFL owner who can be persuaded to move in.

Farmer's Insurance attached these strict conditions to the deal: The venue must book 50 events, total, every year, and each event must have see a minimum of 40,000 ticket-buyers.

That's a total fantasy for Santa Clara - even if Al Davis becomes Jed York's tenant.

The real yardstick for a naming rights deal in Santa Clara is still Candlestick - where Monster Cable paid San Francisco a miserable $6M in four years.

Santa Clarans, please ask hard questions of "stadium boosters" making reckless claims about naming rights for the 49ers here in Santa Clara.

The Stadium Authority here is going to need every penny it can get - and Los Angeles doesn't have a thing to do with Santa Clara.



Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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49ers' Subsidies: The Private Investment Myth

Dear Santa Clarans,


It's time for a Subsidy Fact.

The real truth about the 49ers' subsidy was unfortunately obfuscated by Mayor Matthews in a KGO-TV interview here. Mayor Matthews states: "What we're funding is a municipal stadium that has a very small public contribution when we have a one billion dollar private investment."

I'm sorry, but that is simply not the case. There is nowhere near one billion dollars in private money going into any stadium in our city. In fact, the Agenda Reports of our own City Council make abundantly clear that the public "contribution" is really a massive subsidy totalling $444,000,000 and which amounts to 47% of the the stadium's construction costs alone.

The $114M upfront plus the $330M to be raised by the Stadium Authority doesn't even include what it will cost us to operate the stadium for the 49ers.

"Investment"? The stadium creates jobs which will pay less than $7,000 a year**, and it generates less economic activity than the Training Center itself. The use of the word "investment" should imply some return - returns which are sadly lacking with this "deal."

"Municipal Stadium" is precisely what the 49ers stadium isn't. We aren't building a stadium for Santa Clarans - we're subsidizing one for the 49ers. You'll find out how true that really is as we get deeper into the Development Agreement process. The stadium will barely be useful - much less profitable - to our new Stadium Authority. In fact, the 49ers have virtually assured that Santa Clara won't even make a fair return from the NFL games themselves.

With the RDA Amendment, and later with the Development Agreement, there will be a huge volume of blather designed to persuade us that subsidizing a millionaire's NFL team is in the interest of the city of Santa Clara. It simply is not.

Please. Speak out. Demand more "Stadium Facts."

If you have any questions about what you're getting in the press, ask anytime. What we don't yet know, we'll find out.



Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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** The 49ers themselves managed to blow their own case in May of 2010 when they admitted in one of their slick Measure J brochures that they were creating 2,600 (!) stadium jobs. That and an annual payroll of $17M gets you jobs working about 8 hours a week and paying less than seven grand a year. There will be no benefits, and certainly no bargaining units, for those workers. The "jobs" claim is merely a buzzword for the 49ers and the stadium boosters - nothing more.