Santa Clara Accepts $400M In Ticket Licenses For New 49ers Stadium
SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) -- Santa Clara officials overseeing the planned new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers approved more than $400 million in future ticket agreements for the stadium's 2014 opening and are continuing to work with the National Football League about the team's bid to host the Super Bowl in 2016, a spokesman said.
The city's Stadium Authority Board, made up of the town's mayor and city council members, Tuesday executed license agreements with buyers of almost 46,000 seats in the 68,500-seat stadium project set to open in August 2014, city spokesman Jim Beerman said.
The licenses sold so far represent $403 million in fees that will eventually help the city service about $850 million in construction loans to build the $1.2 billion Santa Clara Stadium, Beerman said.
The fee revenues come from sales of stadium builder licenses—also known as personal seat licenses—that cost from $2,000 for a reserved seat to up to $80,000 for one in the exclusive Club Level section, according to a city staff report.
The authority's approved vendor, Legends Premium Sales LLC, has sold licenses to almost 6,800 club seats and around 39,000 reserved seats, city officials reported.
The licenses only give the buyer the right to the seats and do not include the cost of the tickets to each game, which involve an additional purchase, for example $850 per seat per season for the cheapest reserved seats.
In a closed session, the board held a conference with a representative of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's office to talk about access to city property if the NFL selected the 49ers' new stadium to host the Super Bowl.
What was specifically discussed is still confidential, but the NFL wants to know what facilities would be available if the 49ers won the bid, such as parking lots, hotels and meeting space, Beerman said.
"The NFL has very specific things they need to do during a Super Bowl event in any city," Beerman said.
The proximity of the stadium site to Santa Clara's convention center might be of key interest to the NFL and the city could have to ask organizations that booked the center around Super Bowl Sunday in early February 2016 to leave, Beerman said.
"We may or may not have someone kicked out," he said. "That's the risk."
The 49ers are a finalist in the selection for Super Bowl 2016 with the Miami Dolphins in the Miami-Dade area of South Florida, the winner to be selected by NFL team owners May 22.
The Dolphins are trying to raise about $400 million to renovate Sun Life Stadium for the bowl but have run into difficulty since the team must ask local voters to approve about $200 million in public funds from tax increases and rebates.
The Santa Clara Stadium Authority, by executing the ticket licenses Tuesday, essentially won access to about $96,000,000 in deposits from license buyers.
That money can now go directly toward construction costs and thus lower interest payments the authority pays on its building loans, according to city staff.
The authority signed a contract with lenders agreeing not to start tapping into the license fees until it had spent $400 million to develop the stadium, a milestone the city reached this month.
The 49ers team loaned Santa Clara $400 million, the NFL loaned out $200 million and the stadium's general contractor, Turner Devcon Joint Venture, also loaned funds, Beerman said.
Other methods of paying off the city's long-term financing include selling the stadium's naming rights.
There has been a lot of interest from local businesses to put their name on the stadium and it could draw $125 million to $200 million more for the project, Beerman said.
(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
