49ers To Keep Name,San Francisco Political Leaders Vow Fight

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

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.

"Petty 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.

Rice-A-Roni's headquarters are far from the steep hills and cable cars featured in its advertisements. The San Francisco treat is more like a Windy City treat, located all the way in Chicago.

Forty-Niners representatives are emphatic about taking the San Francisco name to Santa Clara. And, if the move happens, officials in Santa Clara also are more than happy to leave their city's name off of the team logo.

At least San Francisco's got plenty of dogs to entertain people.