Last week I attended a meeting of the Santa Clara City Council which was scheduled to discuss the possibility of building a new stadium for the Earthquakes – and I was on the TV news that night!
I arrived early with my Quakes scarf around my shoulders, and watched the TV news interviewing people before the meeting. As I was getting up to enter the meeting a reporter asked me if he could interview me, and I agreed. He just asked me one question – why should the Earthquakes move to Santa Clara. I went on for a couple of minutes somewhat incoherently, and felt embarassed about it afterward. He thanked me and I went into the meeting.
After sitting through several items of city business for an hour or so, we finally got to the presentation about the stadium. Last March, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the current investor/operator (“owner”) of the team, had submitted a “term sheet” describing their proposal for a stadium. The city staff presented an analysis of the proposal concluding that it would require either a property tax hike or a loan secured by the city’s General Fund to meet the city’s $60 million share of the cost. Also, the site is currently under a long-term lease to the Great America theme park (owned by Viacom/Paramount) for overflow parking.
Then Scott Blackmun, COO of AEG, came up to talk about it. He showed a video all about the company and its various assets, and then explained that they have been in talks with a prospective buyer group, led by local mortgage banker Tony Amanpour, about selling the team and that everything in the proposal was up for negociation.
Next, Mr. Amanpour gave a brief talk in which his enthusiasm for soccer (he played it growing up in Iran) and for the team (he had been a season ticket holder for many years) was apparent. He hinted that his group could maybe pay for the entire cost as long as the land was made available.
In the end, the council voted 5-2 in favor of additional study of the idea, stipulating several concerns such as naming the team “Santa Clara Earthquakes,” making a deal with Viacom (AEG has close ties) to get access to the land, and not risking the General Fund or raising taxes. The good news is that the two who voted against it are both leaving the council in a few months due to term limits, and the strongest supporters are not up for re-election this year.
If Amanpour’s group puts down the required deposits in October, the team will stay in San Jose for 2005, to be operated jointy by AEG and the new ownership group. Assuming that stadium plans continue to move ahead, next June the deposits become non-refundable and Amanpour’s group will become the sole operator of the team.
Anyway, when I got home that night I watched the local news on channel 11 and they included a brief sound bite from me, which was actually quite good. I was afraid I’d either be cut entirely, or not appear very coherent, but they found a statement from me that was quite clear and sounded great, about how moving to Santa Clara would help make the team the Bay Area’s team and not just San Jose’s team.
So cross your fingers and check Soccer Silicon Valley’s Web site for the latest news. And sign up there, if you haven’t already, to show your support for keeping the team in the bay area and to receive e-mail updates from the group.
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