coremiller said:
Pretty much, although they never seriously threatened to leave the Bay Area. And they did get some money from the City, but not nearly enough to make the project viable. The negotiations became quite acrimonious.
Also, Candlestick is perfectly fine for football and always has been. The only complaints I've heard related to football is that the stadium is old and could use repairs/renovations, which is true. I've never heard anyone say it was a bad place to watch a game. And the traffic is not that bad if you have local knowledge about where to park and how to get out quickly. I'm legitimately depressed about the new stadium, my dad has been a season ticket holder for 20+ years and this is his last year as he refuses to pay the PSL fee for the new stadium.
OTOH, Candlestick was a legitimately awful baseball stadium and moving downtown was the best thing that ever happened to the Giants. Strangely the weather on Candlestick point is far better in November than July. Anyone who ever sat through one of those freezing cold summer night games the Stick was famous for, with the wind whipping trash and peanut shells around, knows this. I grew up on the Peninsula and it could be 85 and sunny there, and you still had to bring blankets and jackets to go watch the Giants. There's a reason they used to give out medals to anyone who attended an extra inning game. Also, the sight lines are much better for football than baseball (which is strange, since the stadium was originally built for baseball).
Late but if I could offer my $.02 as a City native.
They managed to pass a partial stadium financing resolution in 1996, where they would get $100 million from the City for the new stadium. This only just passed even though the team was popular due to SF's traditional opposition to financing stadiums.
Then Eddie D went down for bribing the governor of Louisiana to get a casino permit and the NFL forced him to divest his ownership of the team and pass it to his sister Denise.
I think the 49ers are still in SF in a new stadium if Eddie is still the owner: Eddie loved SF and would have wanted to preserve the brand.
When the Yorks took over the team, they had a pitched battle with Gavin Newsom (your acrimonious negotiations). Newsom had (has) delusions of grandeur and wanted SF to host the Olympics and tried to strong arm the 49ers into building the Olympic Stadium at Candlestick. They said no. Newsom basically washed his hands from the deal and by some accounts, wouldn't even return the Yorks' calls (Newsom claims the exact opposite - that John York wouldn't return
his).
By this point Santa Clara came to the team with a, frankly, suicidal financial deal that's probably going to see a lot of potholes and dog-eared library books in Santa Clara in years to come. But it's a great deal for the Niners.
Plus the tech boom in the South Bay had heated up again and the 49ers have always been more of a regional team than the Giants - the team claims most of their season ticket holders come from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and I think that's true. It always feels like 101 south is jammed after a game.
Lastly, I agree that the Stick is a great football venue, especially nowadays with the huge amount of history. It was just the worst as a baseball park. I don't think there's ever been a stadium that had more foul territory between your seat and the baselines. Even Oakland's configuration tucked in towards the plate.
Look how goddamn far you are from the field, and this was probably taken from the first row of the upper deck behind the dugouts.
Forget the freezing cold (which core is not exaggerating). Forget the fact it somehow managed to look like a football stadium ten minutes after they finished expanding it in 1971, rather than the baseball stadium it originally was. The place just had zero, no, good seats for baseball. Its only positive was that the trendy folks wouldn't go near the place, so it was a real hardcore fan's kind of place.