Dickey: The Niners are not going anywhere soon

An artist rendering, above, shows the potential new home of the 49ers in Santa Clara — an idea that likely will not develop in the near future. (San Francisco 49ers/AP)

SAN FRANCISCO — No, the 49ers are not moving to Santa Clara soon. More likely, 10 years from now, we’ll still be wondering when the Niners will get their stadium.

Unlike my sportswriter colleagues, I’ve always been interested in the political issues surrounding sports, including stadium issues.

In the past 30 years, I’ve talked to mayors, club executives, stadium designers and builders about stadium projects. For the 49ers’ Santa Clara project, I had a meeting with Lisa Lang, who’s heading up the project, and her colleagues at the 49ers facility. Subsequently, I’ve had a one-on-one meeting with Jed York and phone conversations with Lang.

So, I can tell you that the approval of Santa Clara’s participation by the Santa Clara City Council this week was a baby step, not a decisive one.

Some recent history:

- In the 1990s, I looked at the Giants’ plan to build a park in China Basin and predicted that it would happen. Giants executive Larry Baer, who lined up the corporate sponsors, called it the “perfect storm.” It was the height of the dot-com boom and the Giants had a contending team, built around the game’s best player, Barry Bonds.

- The first time I looked at the plan for an A’s park in Fremont, I thought it would work well in San Jose, which is where A’s owner Lew Wolff really wanted to go. San Jose has the infrastructure to support it. But Fremont is a group of bedroom communities, not a city, and it did not have the infrastructure. So, I wrote that the A’s plan had no chance to succeed. Wolff officially dropped the plan earlier this year.

The 49ers’ plan is well-designed. Realistically, the bulk of the 49ers’ fan base has shifted to the Peninsula, and the Santa Clara location would also be an easy one for fans from the East Bay and as far north as Sacramento. York has worked tirelessly to get support from Santa Clara, talking frequently to different groups.

But financing is still a huge problem.

The 49ers have been working to get Santa Clara involved because only a public-private deal qualifies for the NFL’s G-3 program, which gives money to teams. But there’s no money left in that program. The assumption is that it will be replenished, but not until a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is negotiated with the Players Association — and it’s not automatic.

Even if the plan is replenished in a couple of years, the most the 49ers could get would be $150 million. That would still leave them far short of paying for the stadium, which would probably cost more than $800 million.

In 1997, when the 49ers planned a new stadium at Candlestick, an important part of the package was supposed to be money from personal-seat licenses. But at that time, the 49ers were coming off a 15-year run in which they won five Super Bowls. That would be a much tougher sell now. The 49ers have also been trying to attract investors, but that’s a hard sell, too. Would you like to have John York handling your money?

And nobody who knows Denise DeBartolo York thinks she would write one of the biggest checks ever by an NFL owner to cover the financing shortfall.

So, for those looking for a jersey saying “Santa Clara 49ers” ... wait a while.

Glenn Dickey has been covering Bay Area sports since 1963 and also writes on www.GlennDickey.com. E-mail him at glenndickey@hotmail.com.