It looks like Santa Clara residents can breathe at least a preliminary sigh of relief about fears that revenues at the new San Francisco 49ers stadium won’t be enough to pay off the city’s stadium debt as promised: 49ers personal seat licenses, which are dedicated to paying off the public debt, are selling like hotcakes, with $310 million in sales already. (Plus $360 million in luxury suite sales, which the 49ers pocket.) And if I’m doing the math right on the crappy chart provided by the San Jose Mercury News, that’s just up-front sale prices, not annual fees, so there will be plenty of regular ticket revenue left over for the Niners down the road.
That may not be great news for the suckers who are buying high on seat licenses, but it’s very good news for Santa Clara, which, once it gets the money from sale of naming rights on the building, should now have a decent shot at paying off its $450 million in short-term stadium debt that comes due in 2015. (Naming-rights money typically trickles in over a longer period, so they’ll still likely have to refinance a chunk of the bonds.) And with seemingly a good bit of extra revenue rattling around, the 49ers seem in decent shape to be able to keep up with rent payments that will pay off the rest of the public debt (which is really private borrowing by the team that was then re-loaned to the public and is getting paid off by private team payments — you really don’t to know, trust me).
It’s all still preliminary, but signs are that the 49ers stadium will be another data point, to go along with the New York Jets and Giants stadium, that a billion-dollar NFL stadium can pay itself off if you have an enormous metropolitan area with a whole lot of wealthy people in it willing to fork over $2,000 and up just for the right to buy nosebleed tickets. It was still a big risk for Santa Clara to agree to this deal, but it looks like at least the city’s gamble isn’t going to come up snake eyes.
This does not suprise me, if you know bay area sports you know that people spend money on the 1.49ers, 2. Sharks and giants 3. Warriors, 4. None …… 9.Raiders …. 15. A’S
Even when the 49ers were terrible their games where not blacked out. Sure stadium was half empty but people still kept their season tickets.
How dare you, Geuy. The comptroller for Santa Clara Plays Fair will be in this thread any minute debunking the success of the 49ers and this stadium as pure propaganda.
There must be considerable consternation in other cities that they didn’t complete to get in on this deal as its success now appears to be assured for the City of Santa Clara in both the near and long term.
Sorry about being so wrong. I apologize now to everyone. Thank you to the Mercury for their usual trenchant analysis and independent verification of the 49ers marketing claims.
The 49ers have the wealthiest fan base in the NFL. From the get go I was a believer that this project would pay for itself. These figures are amazing considering the stadium is still 2 years away from being built. The recent success of the 49ers helps but it is really the financial might of its fan base that has shown the City of Santa Clara to be good business people….Not always the case with municipalities and stadiums….Oakland being the prime example across the Bay.
In the end not only will the stadium pay for itself, it will bring a profit to Santa Clara and to the 49ers year to year and in building franchise value.
Kudos to the 49ers fan base for proving me right! LOL…..670M is just so far, in the end this will be hands down one of the best deals in history for a municipality in the high risk stadium building process.
Remember, the BSL’s are being financed over a period of time. Thus, we don’t know if what’s being stated so far is money realized or simply deposits which have have been accepted for the right to purchase season tickets. Its no different than real estate speculators who put down payments on properties during the boom times only to rescind after the market crashed. No champagne bottles should be opened for this until all the money has been counted. I’m sure people were at one time touting the Raiders selling many PSL’s to pay off that stadium’s debts.
BM it took a while but the comptroller for SC plays fair showed up LoL! they are like the old guy on the corner of the street screaming about how the world should of ended last year but will end next month ;)….
The people who have signed up to buy PSLs and tickets to the new stadium (suckers or not) are doing so not because its an investment and they think they will make money, but because they are die hard fans with money. Spending $4k on two seats just for the PSL is like buying their wife 2 or 3 luxury purses.
the 49ers, the city of santa clara, and the banks know that a large portion of the bay area have people with that kind of money. Hence 2 years before the stadium opens, sales are brisk. My office mate is on the waiting list to buy he is 8500 or so inline, and is worried he will not get any seats lol… nice problem to have i guess..
The raiders issue with PSL was that they were not for the life of “mount davis” but for only 7 years I believe. That made people just wait, after 7 years all PSLs were gone. Other issues plagued those sales, how about a team going to LA then coming back thinking the fan base would still be there while the other team in the area was a dynasty?
Pretty sure Raiders PSLs were for ten years, but same difference. PSLs with an expiration date are just a terrible idea, because your equity dissolves a bit every year.
Let me reiterate that we should wait until all the money is counted. For all we know, those buying BSL’s at the new stadium may be ticket brokers. Most likely, there have been minimum deposits received for the seat licenses. Its conceivable that 1/3 of those may never end up purchasing a seat license. Maybe the 49ers are inflating the figure in order to create a panic so potential buyers will rush to buy. We don’t know because the 49ers are controlling the sales.
I believe it’s actually a 3rd party called “legends”that is managing the sales on behalf of the SA.
Let’s remember that the Mercury’s credibility re the stadium issue isn’t very high. I do believe that the team’s recent success will encourage people to make deposits on BSLs. However. I still think we’re a long way from stating that the risk of annual shortfalls is greatly diminished. It’s also hard to understand what risks are when so much is still being hidden from the public. Also that there are joint tenants in the NY stadium while there’s only one team here.
I’d say it’ll take a least five years of operations to be able to make a fairer assessment of the costs to the city. Being giddy about the team right now is easy–paying for a stadium is difficult.
“Legends” is right up there with “Santa Clarans For Economic Progress”. Its controlled by the 49ers organization.
I agree it will take at least five years to assume the stadium will be fiscally sustainable. Let’s wait until all the money is counted. Right now, the mentality of stadium supportes is the equivalent of me stating because my home was recently appraised at $1 million, I have $1 million to spend.
Wait until the loans have to be refinanced, annual debt service has to be paid, and operations and maintenance costs also have to be paid (O and M costs by themselves will be huge.) We already have loads of city staff time/salary from the General Fund going towards this project when we were told ‘No Cost to SC’s General Fund. No Cost to SC taxpayers. Period.’ by our current mayor as he campaigned heavily for the 49ers.
If this was a good deal, they wouldn’t have worked so hard to keep the loans off of the ballot and out of view of the taxpayers.
The Merc has just once again reproduced a 49ers press release. Citizens of SC have been given no data to back up the claims being made. We really won’t know until 4-5 years from now what’s really going to happen with the stadium finances. And note that not one of the candidates for city council who are currently running for election addresses the issue of the stadium loans/debt/O and M costs in their election materials. This won’t get paid for simply by cheer-leading for it.
“If this was a good deal, they wouldn’t have worked so hard to keep the loans off of the ballot and out of view of the taxpayers.”
If owning an NFL stadium is such a profitable venture, why don’t the 49ers simply build one with their own money?
Yeah, how come the 49ers can’t build it themselves? Funny how that question never gets a response.
Substitute ’49ers owners’ for ‘they’:
And they wouldn’t have worked so hard and spent $73,000 on lobbyists to take away our right to vote on letting the 49ers override our charter’s competitive bid requirement.
And they wouldn’t have spent $94,000 on blockers and thugs to try to prevent (unsuccessfully) Santa Clarans from signing petitions for a vote on the stadium loans.
And then, after enough signatures were gathered to force a vote, if they were really confident the loans were a good deal and could be paid off, they wouldn’t have needed to sue Santa Clarans to deny us the right to vote.
And then, if they were really confident in the stadium’s ability to make money, they wouldn’t have needed to sue the county and the redevelopment oversight board to get our local property tax money in the redevelopment area, depriving our schools/city/county agencies of $34 million dollars.
From the beginning, the stadium project has been completely manipulated in the 49ers favor with the help of pro-stadium council members. IF this was a good deal, they wouldn’t have needed to manipulate the ballot language to keep the costs off of the ballot, and wouldn’t have needed to exploit our schools to get the stadium ballot measure passed. The stadium ballot measure was a farce based on ‘save our local schools’ which is ironic given that the 49ers most recent lawsuit is to take millions of dollars away from our schools.
“Yeah, how come the 49ers can’t build it themselves? Funny how that question never gets a response.”
Actually, there was a response. The City of San Francisco told the 49ers they’d have to build a new stadium with their own money. The 49ers response was to have Santa Clara build one for them with taxpayer money.
Sorry for my late response out of the country…
“Yeah, how come the 49ers can’t build it themselves? Funny how that question never gets a response.”
Answer: Politics
Sure the 49ers could of easily financed this themselves, the numbers show it. Any big project like this in CA, needs to be supported by the local politicians so that in the lead up to the project, during and after favorable polices are enacted.
If the local politicians (i.e. city, county etc..) have no financial investment to make the project work then it can be doomed from the start.
Future city councils in this case will now have to work with the stadium and the 49ers, stadium is built and city is invested in it.
SBLs are being sold like cars, the team gets the money from a bank. The SBL owner now owes the bank the money and can pay it off over a 20 year period, if they default then they still owe the money and the 49ers can resale the SBL.
Thats paraphrasing form the SBL agreement I read from my friend who just plunked down $$ for seats.
Geuy,
What you write interests me. Did you friend put a deposit down on the seats? If you do this, are you entering into a binding agreement to purchase the BSL? Is that what you’re suggesting? A 20 year term at 8.5% for a BSL seems almost insane from a buyer’s perspective.
SC Jay,
“Did you friend put a deposit down on the seats? If you do this, are you entering into a binding agreement to purchase the BSL? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
=> Yes, its a loan that requires a % down, you are under contract with the bank that you will pay off the amount. The time before the stadium opens is interest free, but once the stadium opens then the interest rate charges kick in.
If you do not pay the full SBL amount upfront then you must put a down payment and you enter into a binding agreement. If you default on the loan, then the SBL will be revoked and the team will resale it. But you still owe the bank the money. I will see if i can post the document with out his info on it (if he lets me lol)
“A 20 year term at 8.5% for a BSL seems almost insane from a buyer’s perspective.”
– From a buyers perspective the whole SBLs idea is insane, “i will give you money to allow me to give you money every year” But yes, i figure most people think they can pay off the SBL before the intersets rate kicks in, in two years.
Geuy,
Thank you for the response. Interesting how it works. I really don’t think the secondary market will be favorable to people who buy BSLs as they are being priced to bring in the maximum $$. I’ve heard that you need permission to sell them in fact!
Just found this site.
Having to pay the MASSIVE amount of money for “seat licenses” AND tickets is… iNsAnE!!!
(Note: if it where possible, the word “insane” written here would be the largest font possible, bolded and underlined.)
Add in the gas to get there (and back), AND parking, AND food, AND drinks, and anything else and me thinks that the NFL “experience” is, um, a bang for the buck a “tad” overrated?!!
If I have this correct, one has to shell out for NOSE BLEED seats TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS for ONE, very crummy seat. Want to go with a friend, significant other? That will be FOUR THOUSAND dollars thank you.
That is, for the right to purchase two seats in the worst possible place to watch a game thank you very little. Your price for the ticket to get into the game to sit in the LOUSY seats out in the middle of nowheresville that you forked out FOUR THOUSAND dollars for will be an additional 1700.00 dollars!!!
So, kind sir, your total today for 10 games comes to $5700.00!!!
That’s 570.00 for two people to go to a game and sit in a seat that I wouldn’t pay 10 bucks to sit in. Is it any wonder the NFL gets richer and richer and why people who pay these exorbitant prices get poorer and poorer?
There laughing all the way to the bank here.
Oh, and of course they failed to mention (all though it’s the WORST kept secret in the history of the NFL) that TWO of those games are are PRE-season games.
So in reality, your really only paying for 8 games. Which in turn means that now what you really care about and what actually matters (8 games) just raised the price too… 712.50 for two people to sit in a seat that is the worst location for seeing a game besides a blackout.
Lest we forget, the 712.50 does not include the gas to get there (and back), parking, eats and other things that one might pay while going to the game.
Want to sit up close from about the 15 to 30 yard line? That will be 24,000 dollars for two seats and an additional 4000.00 for the tickets. Divide that by 8 games and your staring at 3,500 for two people to go to ONE game!!!
Obviously, over the years the “seat license” brings the price down and this is all based on year one but still…
That is possibly, one of the worst deals I have ever heard of in my entire life.
Hmmm… lets see, lets see (tapping fingers). A 90” LED T.V. is currently about 10,000 dollars (by the time that stadium opens up it will be significantly less) and that is the biggest LED T.V. currently available but lets go to extremes, shall we?
10,000 IF you want the baddest T.V. out there a few hundred more IF you want to watch every game in the NFL. And “YOUR SEAT” is ALWAYS on the 50 yard line no matter where the action is… in high definition yet!
Throw in the weather is always perfect where I’m at, the bathroom is superb, I sit in a recliner they sit in a hard plastic seat, I can pause, rewind, record the game, refrigerator that is already full of food anyways, I can have friends come over at no additional cost. Did I miss anything?
Oh yeah, I don’t have to worry about dealing with a bunch of drunks and the possibility of a fight/getting beer spilled on me/missing a play/obnoxious people/fill in the blank ________.
Plus, I don’t have to pay for gas (back and forth), parking, food, drinks…
Just dividing watching my 8 games of my favorite team (not the whiners) my grand total is approximately 1,700.00 a game (again, based on year one, as the price drops for more use over the years just like the seat licenses).
Of course, this is all predicated on buying the most expensive T.V. out there and paying full retail for it and just watching one team 8 times and turning it off until next week and not turning it on until next season… HA!
In reality, when the season ticket holders go home (via spending money on gas) there seat sits there empty. My T.V. on the other hand gets “flicked” to the next game, then after the games are over a movie perhaps or a favorite show of mine or maybe just some music and pictures of my kids…
Add in ALL the games I can watch via the NFL ticket, all the other sports, movies, T.V. shows, music and the like and my 1700.00 mark goes to about 17.00 dollars if that. More likely .17 cents.
365 a day usage every day for HUNDREDS of games (football, baseball, basketball, hockey, UFC, NASCAR) movies, T.V. shows you name it. V. eight games out of 365 days of the year for seats that can’t even compare to mine. Hmmm… I wonder what is the better deal…
Oh, but you don’t get the “game experience”… both good and bad!
Won’t be surprised in the least if they find enough suckers to sell out the stadium to help a billionaire owner pay for a stadium that THEY should have paid for themselves seeing as, you now, the team is worth billions as well.
But what do I know?