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I don't know if you can say poor SA. I really think SA had enough of Benson's antics during the short time he was here, and said good riddance. SA now looks to use the same Judge Wolf proposal used to court the Marlins to go after an expansion team.
Poor San Antonio: Saints return to La.
NANCY ARMOUR
AP Sports Columnist
Poor San Antonio. While the New Orleans Saints and NFL get ready for the biggest welcome-home bash ever, San Antonio is on the sidelines again, the gawky one left behind after the cool kids pick their teams.
The Saints' return to their rightful home is cause for celebration, a rare bit of good news for the beleaguered, hurricane-ravaged city. But it also leaves San Antonio looking for an NFL team to call its own.
Again.
"We are going to have a team," said Red McCombs, the San Antonio resident better known as the former Minnesota Vikings owner. "The only question is when, not if."
The better question might be, why not?
When Hurricane Katrina left the Saints homeless last year, the city embraced the team as if a spur, not a fleur de lis, were on the helmet. It opened hotel rooms, cleared space for the front office and provided practice fields.
But the Saints played only three games in San Antonio, not enough to give the city squatter's rights. And no matter how many acres Tom Benson owns in Texas, there was no way the NFL was letting him move the Saints if there was a possibility of playing football in New Orleans again.
But San Antonio has been pining for an NFL team for the better part of three decades now, hardly a passing fling. It's time for the NFL to give the city a serious look.
The NFL has always been lukewarm, at best, to the idea of putting down roots in San Antonio. Though it is the seventh-largest city in the country, it drops way down to 29th in metropolitan areas and is considered a small television market. San Antonio might see itself as Phoenix or Atlanta, but former commissioner Paul Tagliabue saw Buffalo and Jacksonville.
The city's image doesn't help. While Dallas has the glitz and glamour and Houston is space-age cool, San Antonio always has been that quaint little town down the road from Austin. After the Alamo and the Riverwalk, what else is there?
Plenty, in fact.
The San Antonio-Austin corridor is growing fast, San Antonio mayor Phil Hardberger said, with San Antonio alone adding 40,000 new residents last year. The city's reach now extends all the way down to the Mexico border - not an insignificant factor for a league always looking to expand its fan base outside the United States.
As for star power, AT&T's world headquarters are in San Antonio. Four other Fortune 500 companies call the city home, too, Hardberger said. McCombs said he'd s out money for a local NFL team "in a heartbeat." And that TV market? It looks small, but consider that Austin, which is about 75 miles north, has its own stations.
Strange as it might sound, the biggest thing San Antonio has going for it is it's not Los Angeles. The NFL is gaga to put a team in Los Angeles, yet that's the same city that let the Rams and Raiders go with barely a backward glance. San Antonio, meanwhile, wants a team.
Desperately.
The NFL can always count on San Antonio for strong TV ratings, and it's standing-room only at sports bars on Sundays.
The three Saints games at the Alamodome were sellouts - including one on Christmas Eve - with people lining up a quarter-mile deep to get tickets. All this despite the fact most residents' previous knowledge of the team probably didn't extend much beyond Joe Horn and Deuce McAllister.
"This is a town that's ready for a professional football team," Hardberger said. "There's a little flirtation going on here. We don't have a bribe yet, but we're fully open here to people that want to come, look around."
Hardberger is kidding about the bribe. This is San Antonio, not Chicago in the '60s. But he's dead serious about getting San Antonio an NFL team, this time on a permanent basis.
While the city made it clear it would be happy to have a long-term relationship with the Saints - love Benson sure seemed to want to reciprocate - the people there knew San Antonio was getting a borrowed team.
"We loved having the Saints here last year," McCombs said. "We wanted to give them a place to play, and we did that. We let them know we'd like them to stay, but we understood they were first, last and always, the New Orleans Saints.
"And we never got away from that."
Now San Antonio wants a team of its own. Next time there's one available, what's the harm in giving the city a serious look?
---
Nancy Armour is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to her at [email protected].
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunhera...l/15586544.htm
I don't know if you can say poor SA. I really think SA had enough of Benson's antics during the short time he was here, and said good riddance. SA now looks to use the same Judge Wolf proposal used to court the Marlins to go after an expansion team.
If they were smart, when the Jaguars start sniffing around, go hard after them.SA now looks to use the same Judge Wolf proposal used to court the Marlins to go after an expansion team.
Good ownership, good players, good coaching.
Would be PERFECT for San Antonio.
SA will get a team eventually.
I believe the Chargers can start talking to other cities starting in January 2007.
Jacksonville has placed tarps over approx 10,000 seats since last season to guarantee a sell out and prevent television black outs.
I also recently read a Toronto group is looking to buy and relocate a franchise.
Jacksonville's stadium naming rights obligation is over next year. Their owner doesn't want to move them, but if he sells, they would be perfect. The bonus is that they are an AFC team, so Jerry Jones won't be throwing us under the bus in the backroom meetings. They are playing in a college stadium with zero luxury boxes, although they have two large private touchdown clubs, one on each side. Not really the same thing, though. They got some naming money from the clubs (which the city fought them for!!!) but they can't sell them like luxury boxes.
Saints won't be in N.O. long term. There just isn't the business base there. Fannies in the seats don't pay the bills, luxury box sales do. There is also no way in that they get a replacement for the 40 YO Superdome any time in the next 10-15 years, either.
Chargers are a wildcard. They may move to LA, but word is that Al Davis may be moving the Raiders back, and LA is such a lukewarm NFL town, I don't believe they will support two teams. Chargers would be nice. We also get that AFC bonus again: Jerry Jones doesn't care.
It was nice to have the NFL in town for those three games. But I can only speak for myself when I say that I never wanted the city to pursue the Saints. I would much rather have an expansion team or a team that wasn't doing well in its current agreement. Realistically the Saints will probably not make it in New Orleans for too long, but the city needed them at least for right now for moral.
My suggestion, based on the "support" I saw at the Alamodome, would be that Hardberger and McCombs starting looking at the Arena League.
As far as the suites (someone mentioned it)... the Saints sold over 100 out of the 117 available suites, and these are suites that aren't even complete and are being remodeled. Half of them don't even have the drywall complete.
The only way San Antonio gets an NFL team in the next ten years is if they partner up with Austin. Why move to SA when LA and Toronto (and to a lesser extent - Montreal, Mexico City, Monterrey, Sacramento, Portland and Orlando) don't have a team?
My brother-in-law, my cousin and myself who are huge Cowboys fans went to the Christmas Eve Game
San Antonio can’t support an NFL team?
Christmas Eve
60,000+ fans
Losing Team
Team not even ours
Oh yeah and the Cowboys were on at the same time!!
I saw the Bills and the Falcons.......57K for the Bills......ATL was a sellout.
But do you think the city can do that for 8 games? Plus, it's not really the regular seats that is the issue, it's the luxury boxes. That's where the real money is made and (from what I've heard) there is a concern about having enough corporate backing to sell all the boxes plus be able to support the team.
8 nfl games vs 41 nba games
I don't think that would be a problem
now the luxury boxes would be another issue
Those numbers were cooked like Enron. Corporations bought a ton of seats and couldn't pay people to take them.
I was at all three games and none of them were even close to full. Falcons was maybe 90% full, the Detroit game was 60-70% full, and the Bills game was around 80% full.
Half of the crowd left to watch the Cowgirls game in the parking lots at random points during the game, the fans were wearing Cowboys gear, etc.
Don't give me that bull . The support was mediocre at best for the San Antonio games. The only thing that made it look decent was Holly Hills and other companies who stood to gain financially with a SA football team buying up tens of thousands of tickets and giving them away. What I saw in the Alamodome and what I saw Monday night (both in person) were night and day.
Wishful thinking. AFL or MLS, maybe. NFL, nope. I'd put one in Vegas or Canada first.
Sorry SA, I think I agree with this one.
I'm sure there's some thread archived with my complete thoughts on this subject, but here's the abridged:
San Antonio isn't a bad NFL market, there's just more affluent ones available.
SA's track record is to only support winners, and if the stadium won't sell out, the games will be blacked out on TV. Four hours north of the scene, Jerry cackles.
Jerry has nothing to worry about. SA is a Cowboys town. That's not a strike against them. Actually, I've noticed that SA Cowboys fans are more loyal to the team than the ones in DFW.
Let me first say, I hate the Cowboys. Second thing though, this is true, SA fans are more loyal then Dallas fans. Wonder why that is. Maybe Dallas is taking them for granted.
Damm I ing hope so!!
The Vikings could still wind up in SA if the team doesn't get their stadium. I'm glad McCombs sold the team as I thought he would weasel the Vikings out of Minny the way Norm Green moved the North Stars to Dallas.
Don't count on it as the Vikings are Minnesota's favorite team. IMO, the NFL would rather get a team in LA before SA gets considered.
Mebs.
All you negative people that talk about non support and we cant handle an NFL team are exactly why San Antonio is viewed the way it is......and is probably 95% of the reason why we dont/wont get an NFL team.
Why not have some in nuts and make a stand and show some support for a team and try to get one, instead of being so damn negative.
It people like yall that make me
Wow... Me-ow.
We would reserve "The Love Barge" on the riverwalk
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