San Francisco 49ers president and Haute 100 San Francisco member Jed York has said over a conference call that the new Collective Bargaining Agreement has allowed for enough extra cash to build not one, but several new stadiums – a reported 1.5% of the entire league’s salary cap, to be exact.
The credit to build has been estimated to be between $100 million and $125 million a year and, despite some rumors, 29-year-old York has said that, although he has never witnessed any real pressure from the league to share a new stadium with the Oakland Raiders, the idea is not completely out of the picture. He is, however, still very focued on Santa Clara being the location.
“We’ve discussed it, but there’s no plans. There’s nothing in the works,” commented York. “And again, it’s something we remain open to, but it’s got to be the right deal for two teams. There’s nothing that anybody can force to make that happen.” The new stadium is already slated to begin with construction in 2013 and has an anticipated completion date of 2015.
York was understandably excited about the new bargaining agreement, as this now means he can vigorously pursue stadium financing. “Very hard to receive financing for a new stadium when you are in the middle of a lockout,” York said. “Now that is resolved, now we can turn our attention to working with the NFL, working with the banks that have financed stadiums in the past. … It makes it a lot easier to get finance commitments from those banks, and that’s where we are going to turn our attention.”
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