Santa Clara vote seeks to strip control of stadium from 49ers
Santa Clara city leaders have voted to take management of Levi’s Stadium away from the San Francisco 49ers in the latest clash with the football team.
Meeting in closed session Tuesday night, the City Council voted unanimously to terminate the agreement that allows the 49ers to manage and operate the stadium for both NFL and nonNFL events, including concerts, college football games and monster truck shows. Tuesday’s action comes after a series of disputes, including the discovery that the team withheld $800,000 in revenue from the Redbox Bowl, City Attorney Brian Doyle said.
Because the city and the 49ers are already in court fighting over a previous effort to take away the team’s right to manage the stadium for non-NFL events, Tuesday’s decision won’t change anything until the case is settled. The city wants to hand over all operations at Levi’s Stadium to an independent stadium management firm.
The council’s action, taken in its role as the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, is the latest twist in a fight over who should manage the 49ers’ home the past six seasons. Santa Clara owns the stadium and has a contract with Forty Niners Stadium Management Co., which is run by the team, to operate the venue for all events.
But dissatisfaction with the team’s management, including the city alleging a failure on the 49ers’ part to provide access to financial records, has led to the latest attempt to remove team control entirely.
Last September, just as the NFL season was kicking off, the city terminated an agreement allowing the 49ers to manage nonNFL events. The team filed a lawsuit challenging the termination, and the case remains in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Doyle said the 49ers have been uncooperative in providing documents related to the management of Levi’s Stadium. However, the information the city has received, he added, indicates irregularities that include conflicts of interest, wage law violations and misspending.
“We’re looking at this as a public corruption issue which invalidates their ability to manage a public facility,” Doyle said. “Public assets are being handled by an entity we no longer trust.”
In a statement Thursday, the 49ers blamed the council’s latest vote on politics, including the team’s opposition to a March ballot measure that would change the way Santa Clara conducts district elections for council members. The city supported the ballot measure.
“We should all be troubled that this vote comes clearly as an act of retaliation after it became public that the 49ers would join civil rights leaders to defeat Measure C,” said Rahul Chandhok, the 49ers’ vice president of public affairs.
“The 49ers management company will continue to manage Levi’s Stadium and attract the most celebrated events in the world to the Bay Area,” he said. “The city’s latest announcement is just another step in a selfdestructive process they began years ago as part of a petty political vendetta. All of those efforts failed, just as this latest attempt will also fail.”
Mayor Lisa Gillmor told The Chronicle that the city has no interest in running the 49ers’ football operations.
“We’re just interested in hiring a thirdparty company that can run the stadium yearround for all of us,” she said.