http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/29/MNGE590O691.DTL
Monster Park it is -- renaming deal done
City attorney says Prop. H can't break Niners' 4-year pact
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
The deal to slap a corporate name on Candlestick Park would stand up legally regardless of how San Francisco voters come down on the issue in the November election, the city attorney concluded in an opinion issued Tuesday.
With the blessing of Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors, the 49ers sold the naming rights to the city-owned stadium to Monster Cable Products Inc., the Brisbane company that makes stereo speaker cables.
The agreement, worth at least $6 million over four years, splits the proceeds evenly between the team and San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department -- an amount that one of the deal's detractors described as "chump change'' but that backers said was badly needed for city services.
The deal to rename the stadium Monster Park comes five weeks before San Francisco voters will decide whether to cement in city statute the stadium's historic name, Candlestick Park, and bar it from being called anything else. The prohibition would extend to a new stadium, too, if one were built at that site on Candlestick Point.
Four supervisors, led by board President Matt Gonzalez, sponsored the ballot measure as a political Hail Mary to stop the city from affixing a corporate name to the public facility.
And while the city attorney is confident that the deal between the 49ers and Monster won't be affected by the ballot measure -- an opinion that Gonzalez questions -- passage could stop a future deal. And that could have even bigger consequences if the team is successful in its dream to build a new stadium with taxpayers' help.
"If approved by voters, Proposition H could preclude future agreements to sell the naming rights to the stadium, or any publicly owned stadium at Candlestick Point,'' said Matt Dorsey, spokesman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera. "What the measure couldn't do is invalidate an existing agreement (between the 49ers and Monster) that has already been approved by the mayor and the board.''
Selling the name to a new football arena would be worth considerably more than the $6 million Monster was willing to pay to attach its moniker to the 44- year-old, wind-swept Candlestick Park.
For instance, SBC, which acquired the former Pacific Bell, paid the Giants $53 million for naming rights to the new waterfront baseball park that extends until 2020. The city didn't see a dime from the lucrative deal because the baseball yard was privately built.
Candlestick Park, which is rundown and outdated by pro-sports standards, is a different matter.
Newsom incorporated revenue from the naming rights sale in his proposed $5 billion municipal budget -- pending the 49ers' ability to strike a deal with a corporate sponsor.
With five companies in the running, officials with the 49ers and Monster disclosed Monday that they had reached an accord, and Tuesday they were joined by city representatives at a press conference in the team locker room to make it official.
The Board of Supervisors signed off on the idea of renaming the 'Stick when it approved the budget. But that didn't stop Gonzalez and Supervisors Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano and Gerardo Sandoval from using their city charter- granted powers to try to block the plan at the ballot.
Sam Singer, a spokesman for the 49ers' front office, said that it was too late; the deal's done.
"I look at Gonzalez's move as a quarterback sneak, and it's not going to work,'' Singer said. "Proposition H and Matt Gonzalez don't really matter any more.''
Singer also downplayed suggestions that passage of Prop. H could present a public relations problem for the 49ers, Monster and the mayor. Voters already spoke, he said, when the Board of Supervisors approved the proposal this past summer. It was voters, he noted, who elected the supervisors to represent them. "Gonzalez lost fair and square,'' he said.
Gonzalez, however, has a different view.
"I would interpret voter approval of the measure as directing the city to breach the contract,'' he said. "If the voters don't approve the measure, then so be it.''
Gonzalez, an attorney, would not say how far he would press the matter legally if voters wanted to keep the name Candlestick Park.
The 49ers sold the naming rights to Candlestick Park once before. The stadium was officially called 3Com Park in 1996-2001, but few people other than team and city officials, TV announcers and traffic reporters used the name.
When the 3Com agreement expired three years ago, then-Mayor Willie Brown tried twice to forge a new naming rights agreement to generate cash for city coffers. But the Board of Supervisors stymied those attempts.
Newsom found more success when he convinced the board majority that the money was desperately needed to help close the projected $307 million budget gap and save services.
Yomi Agunbiade, acting general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, said the $3 million the city will get from the naming rights agreement would be enough money to save about 50 jobs -- from gardeners to recreation directors. "It would touch almost every aspect of what we do,'' he said.
But Ammiano faulted the mayor for not finding an alternative funding source.
"I do think that $3 million is chump change for sacrificing principle,'' he said.
E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com.
Monster Park. Beware, football players may or may not lurk in the shadows.
Monster Park it is -- renaming deal done
City attorney says Prop. H can't break Niners' 4-year pact
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
The deal to slap a corporate name on Candlestick Park would stand up legally regardless of how San Francisco voters come down on the issue in the November election, the city attorney concluded in an opinion issued Tuesday.
With the blessing of Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors, the 49ers sold the naming rights to the city-owned stadium to Monster Cable Products Inc., the Brisbane company that makes stereo speaker cables.
The agreement, worth at least $6 million over four years, splits the proceeds evenly between the team and San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department -- an amount that one of the deal's detractors described as "chump change'' but that backers said was badly needed for city services.
The deal to rename the stadium Monster Park comes five weeks before San Francisco voters will decide whether to cement in city statute the stadium's historic name, Candlestick Park, and bar it from being called anything else. The prohibition would extend to a new stadium, too, if one were built at that site on Candlestick Point.
Four supervisors, led by board President Matt Gonzalez, sponsored the ballot measure as a political Hail Mary to stop the city from affixing a corporate name to the public facility.
And while the city attorney is confident that the deal between the 49ers and Monster won't be affected by the ballot measure -- an opinion that Gonzalez questions -- passage could stop a future deal. And that could have even bigger consequences if the team is successful in its dream to build a new stadium with taxpayers' help.
"If approved by voters, Proposition H could preclude future agreements to sell the naming rights to the stadium, or any publicly owned stadium at Candlestick Point,'' said Matt Dorsey, spokesman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera. "What the measure couldn't do is invalidate an existing agreement (between the 49ers and Monster) that has already been approved by the mayor and the board.''
Selling the name to a new football arena would be worth considerably more than the $6 million Monster was willing to pay to attach its moniker to the 44- year-old, wind-swept Candlestick Park.
For instance, SBC, which acquired the former Pacific Bell, paid the Giants $53 million for naming rights to the new waterfront baseball park that extends until 2020. The city didn't see a dime from the lucrative deal because the baseball yard was privately built.
Candlestick Park, which is rundown and outdated by pro-sports standards, is a different matter.
Newsom incorporated revenue from the naming rights sale in his proposed $5 billion municipal budget -- pending the 49ers' ability to strike a deal with a corporate sponsor.
With five companies in the running, officials with the 49ers and Monster disclosed Monday that they had reached an accord, and Tuesday they were joined by city representatives at a press conference in the team locker room to make it official.
The Board of Supervisors signed off on the idea of renaming the 'Stick when it approved the budget. But that didn't stop Gonzalez and Supervisors Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano and Gerardo Sandoval from using their city charter- granted powers to try to block the plan at the ballot.
Sam Singer, a spokesman for the 49ers' front office, said that it was too late; the deal's done.
"I look at Gonzalez's move as a quarterback sneak, and it's not going to work,'' Singer said. "Proposition H and Matt Gonzalez don't really matter any more.''
Singer also downplayed suggestions that passage of Prop. H could present a public relations problem for the 49ers, Monster and the mayor. Voters already spoke, he said, when the Board of Supervisors approved the proposal this past summer. It was voters, he noted, who elected the supervisors to represent them. "Gonzalez lost fair and square,'' he said.
Gonzalez, however, has a different view.
"I would interpret voter approval of the measure as directing the city to breach the contract,'' he said. "If the voters don't approve the measure, then so be it.''
Gonzalez, an attorney, would not say how far he would press the matter legally if voters wanted to keep the name Candlestick Park.
The 49ers sold the naming rights to Candlestick Park once before. The stadium was officially called 3Com Park in 1996-2001, but few people other than team and city officials, TV announcers and traffic reporters used the name.
When the 3Com agreement expired three years ago, then-Mayor Willie Brown tried twice to forge a new naming rights agreement to generate cash for city coffers. But the Board of Supervisors stymied those attempts.
Newsom found more success when he convinced the board majority that the money was desperately needed to help close the projected $307 million budget gap and save services.
Yomi Agunbiade, acting general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, said the $3 million the city will get from the naming rights agreement would be enough money to save about 50 jobs -- from gardeners to recreation directors. "It would touch almost every aspect of what we do,'' he said.
But Ammiano faulted the mayor for not finding an alternative funding source.
"I do think that $3 million is chump change for sacrificing principle,'' he said.
E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com.
Monster Park. Beware, football players may or may not lurk in the shadows.