49ers face potentially significant bill for hosting World Cup games
In 2026, Levi's Stadium will have a more active year than usual. It starts with the Super Bowl and continues with the hosting of World Cup games.
And the World Cup matches could end up being expensive for the 49ers.
Via the San Francisco Chronicle, the revised California budget from Governor Gavin Newsom includes no state funding for the World Cup.
The 49ers previously agreed to cover a $37 million deficit for the Bay Area Host Committee, if the committee fails to raise enough money to conduct six matches at the Santa Clara venue. The host committee has been seeking private donations. Both the committee and the 49ers have been lobbying he government for more funding.
The event is expected to cost $50 million to stage, with the project losing money.
Which leads to an obvious question. Why in the hell did Santa Clara make a proposal to host World Cup games?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Can the Commanders repeat their 2024 success in 2025?
The Washington Commanders' success in 2024 was a surprise to 95% of the NFL and those who watch football. They won 12 games for the first time in over 30 years and reached the NFC Championship during a year when everyone thought they would be rebuilding. But Adam Peters had ideas; he swapped draft picks for players and signed veteran free agents to support his rookie quarterback. The success this team had was unforeseen, which is part of the reason that many do not think they can do it again. Begging the question, can the Commanders repeat last season's success? One CBS Sports analyst doesn't think so. The Commanders won a surprising 12 games in the regular season, making the NFC Championship Game for the first time in 1991. There was a catch in last season's success, however, as they had the most wins when tied or trailing in the final 10 seconds of regulation since 2000 (six) and tied for the second-most wins by six-or-fewer points in a season all-time (including playoffs) with six. Washington won seven games on the final play last season. This isn't sustainable, right? The Commanders fought all the way to the end of games, but can't bank on late-game comebacks every week. A significantly tougher schedule (on paper) won't help matters, either. Don't be fooled: the Commanders are still a good team; they just won't benefit from last-second success every week to make a deep playoff run again. Advertisement So, because the schedule is more difficult, and many of last season's games were won on last-second plays, the author doesn't think they will be able to win games at the last minute. It's an interesting assumption given that the Commanders have added to the offensive line, added skill players, and improved their defense. It's as if some of these analysts forget that there are new additions to this team and that every team will look different from season to season due to player personnel changes. Some teams have more consistency than others, but for the most part, there are always new faces on a football team, and you never know which player simply needed a specific environment to thrive. Will Washington win 12 games again in 2025? Don't put it past them. But the goal is to make the postseason, so even if they don't win 12 games, as long as they have a path to the Super Bowl, it's still a successful season. This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Can the Commanders repeat their 2024 success in 2025?
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A sensational debut: Cherki has the football world at his feet 🔥
A sensational debut: Cherki has the football world at his feet 🔥 The art of marking minds. On Thursday evening, during the Blues' crazy defeat against Spain in the Nations League semi-finals (5-4), Rayan Cherki made a resounding debut for the French team. Author of an exceptional goal, a decisive pass, and the origin of the third goal for the French, the OL playmaker gave a glimpse of a bright future with the Tricolores. It didn't take much for observers to get excited, from the press to internet users in front of the match. Also read: - Spain 5-4 France: The Blues' notes Advertisement - Historic! Two countries will play their first World Cup in 2026 - Cherki's exceptional goal for his first selection This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. 📸 FRANCK FIFE - AFP or licensors
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
For the USMNT, a successful summer is harder than ever to define
In a certain sense, there really is no winning the Concacaf Gold Cup. Not if you're the United States men's national team, at any rate. While the tournament's name may allude to a glory conferred by the most valuable of precious metals, the whole thing remains among the ugly ducklings of global continental championships. Advertisement If you're the US, lifting the biennial Gold Cup this summer would amount to winning it for an eighth time overall and a sixth in a quarter century. There's no novelty to it, no real sense of upward momentum on the long-sought ascent to a higher international plane. Fail to win it, however, and there will be an inquest and existential questions, even though this incarnation of the American roster is missing a half dozen-or-so key pieces, depending on how you count them. But if the optics of the Gold Cup are zero-sum, it retains an intrinsic value to the Yanks less in the thing itself than in what it simulates: a World Cup. Squint, and pretend that you're playing, say, Poland and South Korea instead of Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, and there's something useful in going through the cadence of a competitive summer tournament. Even if the opponents are just the same old regional foes – fellow Group D denizens Saudi Arabia excepted, as they're a guest team – the slow boil and gathering momentum of an unspooling tournament offers helpful experience. Related: In an inexperienced US squad, Chris Richards' presence will be key Certainly, the hope was that the 2025 Gold Cup would be an exercise in putting the finishing touches on a supposed golden generation, positioning all the pieces just so as the team prepared for a career-defining summer next year while hosting the 2026 World Cup. Going through a tournament one last time would be a final chance to spot and address the flaws and fissures in the foundation. Winning it, if at all possible, would be a kind of byproduct of all that finessing and finetuning. Advertisement Instead, the Americans will spend the summer trying to rehabilitate their battered reputation after March's Concacaf Nations League debacle. The discourse will probably be dominated by who isn't there as much as who is. Yet there can still be some real use in this exercise. It's even feasible that the USMNT could have a good summer by showing some signs of life. 'I don't think there's any denying that some of our performances have fallen short over the past year to 18 months,' said defender Walker Zimmerman. 'It's something that us, as players, we obviously aren't satisfied with, and it's a big focal point for this camp. It's always such a great opportunity to have a month in front of the staff, get a lot of quality trainings in together, and find yourself hopefully getting into a rhythm of playing multiple games where you can put everything on the line to try to make a World Cup team in a year's time. It's a massive opportunity.' All the absences underscore just how prone a summer tournament is to the flukes of form and fitness. But head coach Mauricio Pochettino has a chance to scour his overhauled roster for a few new depth pieces and tactical alternatives in among all the fresh faces, sourced in unexpected number from Major League Soccer. The USMNT's lineup has been largely ossified going back a half decade or so now, and when given a chance, more pleasant surprises like Real Salt Lake's spitfire midfielder Diego Luna might well present themselves. Or players who can offer the American attack a different look anyway, on the semi-regular days when Plan A isn't working. Advertisement Related: Pulisic's surge to Balogun's plunge: how USMNT stars fared in Europe this season Then there are the players who have accomplished resumes at the club level but, for whatever reason, just not really shown it for the national team yet. Malik Tillman, the Bayern Munich castoff, has established himself as one of the best players in the Dutch Eredivisie in an attacking midfielder role where the U.S. could really use a spark. While contributing hugely to PSV's second straight league title, however, Tillman has been largely anonymous for the national team. This is also true of the New Jersey-born, Brazilian-raised Johnny Cardoso who, like Tillman, is 23. So impressive in his season-and-a-half with Real Betis has Cardoso been that a move to mighty Atlético Madrid is reportedly imminent. With a full national team complement in camp, Tillman and Cardoso would have gotten lost in the shuffle, either the odd men out in the midfield logjam or pushed out of their best positions. Here, now, is a chance for them to make their case, or at least pose some questions about whether the incumbents really ought to be automatic starters. The importance of identity and tactical systems probably gets overstated at the national team level, where a dearth of time means that an awful lot of teams play broadly the same way. But the coming month does offer Pochettino a chance to cultivate some of the closeness and feistiness that his best club teams displayed. There is perhaps a larger exploration to be undertaken at some point about the ways in which the improved conditions and job security of the modern American player have undercut the existential belligerence the Yanks used to play with, but, for now, any kind of low-level aggravation will do. Advertisement Some bite. A little more getting-after-it intensity, even when the stadium is half-empty and the opponent unthreatening, on paper at least. There would be as much value in unlocking any of those intangibles as there would in winning the Gold Cup, even if that's the macro expectation. 'I think I'd be lying if I didn't say, 'Lifting that trophy on the final day' would be what we would consider success. I think that's the standard we've set for ourselves,' said goalkeeper Matt Turner. 'But at the same time, things happen in soccer, and I think what we need to control is what we bring to the table every single day: the intensity, the way we push each other, the passion, the energy, the connection with the fans, with each other, with the staff. We're going to be together for a long period of time and it's a really good opportunity for us to put a lot of things together, tactically, technically, emotionally.' Taken together, these alternative accomplishments would probably make for a satisfying summer of national team soccer. They might even compensate for a failure to win the Gold Cup.
