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Hey...they need SOCCER!
Sincerely,
Mayor Ed
Completely hypothetical in terms of San Antonio getting the team.
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Ladies and gentlemen, your San Antonio Sidewinders
By JIM MASHEK
The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)
BILOXI, Miss. - Kathleen Blanco isn't blinking.
And Tom Benson isn't budging.
Negotiations between the state of Louisiana and the New Orleans Saints are going nowhere, and the upshot of that, of course, is this could mean the Saints are going somewhere.
As in somewhere else.
Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, says her state's coffers cannot meet the payment of public assistance to the Saints dictated by an agreement signed by her predecessor, Mike Foster.
Benson, in turn, insists the Saints will not resume negotiations with the state until after the 2005 NFL season, at which point the Saints can pay of a penalty of $81 million and bail for what they consider greener pastures.
Greener pastures will always get Benson's attention.
Because that's the color of money, and that's what drives Benson in nearly everything he does.
The NFL has held one city after another hostage for sweetheart stadium deals, with the premise that Los Angeles beckons as a lucrative alternative for any municipality that fails to pony up.
In this case, it's going to be a state.
And the state of Louisiana has a lot of pressing needs to address.
Benson has given up on his fantasy of having a $450 million, state-of-the-art stadium built for the Saints. Instead, he'll settle for a renovated Louisiana Superdome, which the state has agreed to, with provisions.
There's a chance we won't even get to that point.
Benson expects the state of Louisiana to pay his franchise a lump sum of $15 million within the next six weeks, and if it doesn't happen, all bets are off.
One man's prediction:
It's not gonna happen.
That's when Benson will have the ammunition he needs to move the Saints to a more profitable locale, and I'm sure he sees dollar signs when he looks at the "Hollywood" sign in the mountains of L.A.
All things being equal, I don't think Benson wants to move the Saints. But he's going to put his own profits ahead of civic pride and/or whether it's the right thing to do.
The Saints' deal with Foster was put together before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and tourism has taken a major hit in New Orleans since then. The city's entire economy is built around tourism.
Blanco has to put the welfare of Louisiana citizens before the fortunes (and fortune) of its NFL football team, but Benson doesn't seem to understand that.
He doesn't understand what it takes to build a successful NFL organization, either, but that's an argument for another time and place.
Imagine a Louisiana Superdome playing host to little more than four or five Tulane football games, some conventions and the annual Sugar Bowl.
Imagine Tom Benson shopping his team around, and possibly winding up in San Antonio, where he actually lives, instead of Los Angeles.
Some media reports in L.A. have indicated potential investors are looking for more dynamic ownership than Benson has to offer.
Benson is going to do what he's always done, and that's put himself, and his wallet, first.
Blanco is prepared to call his bluff, and Benson is preparing to have his bluff called.
The San Antonio Sidewinders?
Much more genteel than snakes.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/11516448.htm
Hey...they need SOCCER!
Sincerely,
Mayor Ed
I wonder if writers in San Antonio have the "[Insert NFL Team] May Relocate to San Antonio as [Insert NFL Owner from San Antonio] Battles with [Insert NFL City] over Stadium" built as a macro into Word.
We will build another stadium, all while keeping strip bars free of the dreaded lap dance.
Sincerely,
SA City Council
Actually, this makes me lean towards believing the Red buys Ain'ts and moves them to SA theory that a Minnesota paper tossed out a couple of weeks ago.
Red seemed genuinely irritated that the idea had leaked out when Chris Duel questioned him about it. Not the reaction I would have expected if there were nothing to the story...
This would be cool is SA got it's own Football Team!!!!
Question:
If SA got it's own Football Team who would you cheer for?
I would be a San Antonio Football Fan first, but I would still cheer for the Cowboys unless they were playing the San Antonio Team
How bout you?
i am a texans fans, but my allegiance would switch the instant the team came to town!
Did you even read who wrote this?
Once a Cowboy fan... ALWAYS a Cowboy fan....
My son goes to Tom Landry middle school, who do you think my team is?
I agree with the Taco. IMO, home town allegiance supersedes everything else. Just my .02
Gopher...you order your #24 Marion Barber Dallas jersey yet?
Hail to the Redskins!
would be great to see a Skins game live, here in San Antonio one day...
i could root for the SA team no doubt, but they wouldn't be MY team.
i'd be a casual fan...no more, no less.
Does it matter?
Yeah, becuase it was a Biloxi, Mississippi writer who wrote this article, not a San Antonio writer.
In my opinion it is totally hypothetical because there is absolutely no way the San Antonio voters would approve a 400 million bond issue to build a stadium and that would be the ante to play...
Voters vote 400 million bonds for NEISD and NISD without a second thought.
If a team coming to SA depended on a 400 million dollar bond, I think there are enough people out of te 2 million who live in SA that would vote yes to get an NFL team.
If an NFL owner came to San Antonio and said, "Im signing an agreement right now, if the bond is voted through, I will move here" It would be voted through 80% winning.
BTW, Sidewinders sucks, come up with a better name, AND, I would get tickets To every home game post October.
400 million dollars? u dreamin.
San Antonio Rough Riders.
End the naming contest right there.
That name sucks, Roosevelt alumnus. San Antonio and two CFL teams named Rough Riders. No thanks.
(Actually, one of the CFL Rough Rider teams folded, but you get my point.)
Why are we having a naming contest, BH? I thought the right thing to do was to tear down the Alamo Dome?
Personally, I think all the owners that don't have good stadium deals should chip in just to keep the Dome alive as a threat to their own cities. It seems to be the major use for that White Elephant on I37.
Has no bearing on what I wonder about San Antonio writers.
It does unless you can point out 2 or more cases were an SA writer wrote a hypothetical article about what you wrote.
Atleast two.
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