49ers insist they'll keep 'San Francisco' - City leaders upset, say the name won't move with team

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 11/14/6 | Cecilia M. Vega

[SmithL]

What's in a name? If you are the San Francisco 49ers, a lot, apparently.

A Super-Bowl-size battle is brewing over the fate of the team's name and whether it would still be allowed to call itself the San Francisco 49ers if it relocates to Santa Clara.

Team officials say that any move would involve bringing along the San Francisco name. But in the city by the bay, where leaders are furious over last week's surprise announcement that the 49ers want to leave their Candlestick Point home, officials already are arguing that, if the team goes, the name stays.

Legal experts, however, say that if the team moves, the chances of it being forced to become the Santa Clara 49ers, the Silicon Valley 49ers, the San Francisco 49ers of Santa Clara or any other tongue-twisting combination, are slim to none. There simply are few -- if any -- legal grounds for requiring the team to keep the San Francisco name within the city limits, they say.

"Pretty much whatever the team wants to call itself, it can," said Matt Mitten, director of Marquette University's National Sports Law Institute in Milwaukee.

If the five-time Super Bowl championship team does relocate to the South Bay, it would join a growing list of professional sports teams that play in stadiums located outside their namesake cities.

The Buffalo Bills don't play in Buffalo. The Dallas Cowboys don't play in Dallas. The New York Jets and the New York Giants don't even play in New York state -- they're in New Jersey.

In baseball, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play in St. Petersburg, Fla., and basketball's Detroit Pistons don't play in the Motor City, but in Auburn Hills, Mich.

And the name game is hardly limited to sports teams.

[Dixie Yooper]

For one thing, it's the football team that owns the name of the team. Also, San Francisco is not the only place in CA that the 1849er's searched for gold.

[pikachu]

Fresno Forty Niners? Maybe they could retain the San Francisco name if they added twenty to their name?

[Colonel Kangaroo]

With apologies to all the good conservative people who must live in our California Sodom by the Sea, I would look at any excuse to get the Niners disassociated from "San Francisco" if I owned the team.

[Echo Talon]

Then need to be bipartisan and use the name Santa Francisco 49ers. :)

[Mr. Brightside]

Simple.

Change the name to the Sann Francisco 49ers, or the San Phrancisco 49ers, or the San Francisko 49ers.

[GreyFriar]

I'm surprised that the San Francisco city government hasn't gotten around to renaming the city yet. I mean, it is named for a white racist priest who belonged to a homophobic religion.

[Holicheese]

Move them to Monterey.
Use the old Fort Ord.

"I would look at any excuse to get the Niners disassociated from "San Francisco" if I owned the team."
Kind of like the Rice a Roni people.

[j_k_l]

Legal experts, however, say that if the team moves, the chances of it being forced to become the Santa Clara 49ers, the Silicon Valley 49ers, the San Francisco 49ers of Santa Clara or any other tongue-twisting combination, are slim to none. There no precedent for making them change their name. My Cleveland Browns call themselves a "football team" and when was the last time they were actually a "football team"?

[geezerwheezer]

Any time they play my Atlanta Falcons! :0 )

[j_k_l]

Any time they play my Atlanta Falcons! :0 )

You can't blame the Browns. They kept handing the game to the Falcons but much like Vick and a football, the Falcons could not hang onto it.

[Cyclopean Squid]

AIDS: The Real San Francisco Treat.

Sorry, couldn't resist.