A lack of game-night parking has the 49ers putting the brakes on high-profile "Monday Night Football" games at their new, billion-dollar stadium in Santa Clara.
The Niners have always counted on neighboring businesses and other outfits to provide 21,000 parking spaces on game days for fans at Levi's Stadium.
That will work fine on Sundays, when no one's toiling away at those businesses. It will be a different story, however, if 68,500 fans converge for a 5:30 p.m. kickoff and all those lots are full of employees' cars.
The upshot: No Monday night (or Thursday night) football for the team's inaugural season in Santa Clara next year, and maybe not after that, either.
"It's a busy area. We are still formulating all of our parking," said Santa Clara City Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor, who also sits on the stadium authority.
The 49ers haven't said much about the issue, beyond telling reporters they want to spend the first year "fine-tuning" traffic flow before trying to start a game during rush hour. "It's an ongoing process," said team spokesman Bob Lange.
Santa Clara officials, however, tell us traffic flow isn't the problem - it's what to do with the cars when they get there.
Gillmor said the 49ers have approached businesses about changing employees' hours on game days in order to clear the parking lots. "We are going to have to do some creative work with our local employers," she said.
The early returns, however, aren't encouraging. For example, nearby Mission Community College has tentatively agreed to rent the team 2,200 spaces on Sundays, but not on Mondays or Thursdays.
"That would be very difficult for our students," said Ed Maduli, vice chancellor of the West Valley-Mission Community College District.
There will be one weeknight game next year at the stadium, but the Niners won't be playing in it. Instead, the home team will be the Cal Bears who, oddly enough, scheduled the Friday night contest against the Oregon Ducks in Santa Clara because of their own parking issues in Berkeley.
According to UC Berkeley spokesman Herb Benenson, the Friday night game that Cal played against the Washington Huskies in November 2012 at Memorial Stadium was a logistical nightmare. Fans flocked to the stadium - which has no parking lot of its own - while the campus was full of faculty members and their cars. That left 5,000 season ticket holders without the spots they typically claim for Saturday games.
Santa Clara officials tell us the hope is that many Cal students will take buses that the university is providing to the Oct. 24 game at Levi's Stadium, and that motorists will be able to find sufficient parking given the relatively late 7:30 p.m. game time.
It should be an interesting test case.