Your stadium stinks. It's old. It's ratty. The toilets run, or they don't. The food sucks, the access in and out is dreadful, and it smells like your uncle when he's taking a tap after helping your dad put up sheetrock.
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| Detroit's Silverdome has hosted some of sports' biggest events. (Getty Images) |
So what to do? Simple. Buy the Silverdome.
The great domed spaceship that Pontiac, Mich., made famous is on the block, as Pontiac, like many other towns in Michigan, is hurting in the recession. The city is ready to auction off the Lions' old home, not long after Tiger Stadium, the Lions' older home, has been demolished.
So make an offer. Nothing is too low, nothing too demeaning. The place hosted a Super Bowl, for God's sake. It hosted a Wrestlemania, for Satan's sake (just kidding, all you Undertaker fans). It's had lots of big events -- plus the Lions.
In fact, the San Francisco 49ers, who won their first Super Bowl there, are looking for a stadium themselves. Candlestick Park makes that uncle we talked about look like an English soccer player's girlfriend, and the 49ers want to move to Santa Clara, home of the rogue amusement park.
But they have to get approval (read: money) from the voters, and because the voters live in California, where services disappear almost daily, the chances are spotty at best.
So why not the Silverdome? Strip it down, put it in boxes and rebuild it like it was some galactic-sized Lego project. You'd save millions, I tell you. Millions.
Of course, the Silverdome wouldn't be shiny and new like the new Cowboys' joint, but people are buying used all the time these days. Pride is no reason not to go utilitarian, not these days.
Plus, because the 49ers won their first Lombardi Thingie there, the opportunity for rampant nostalgia is almost overwhelming. I mean, this is an organization that fetishizes its past with great verve and intensity, because the past was so good and the present, up until the last few weeks, hasn't been.
They even started a 49ers Hall of Fame, and named as its first inductee Eddie DeBartolo The Younger. That's a fairly weird choice when you consider the other candidates -- the 40-some-old players, or the original owners, or Bill Walsh. Someone's paying off a family debt somewhere, either past, present or future. Or it's just sucking up.
But whatever. If they're happy, we're happy. We're just offering them a place to put his bust if the other stadium plan tanks. We're thinking of them. We're looking out for their best interests.
And we're trying to cut the voters some slack while reminding them, as subtly as we can, that this is what happens to old stadiums, whether they've been paid off or not. Montreal got out of its Olympic debt after only 30 years. In other words, the bills linger long after the brickwork leaves, and this is no time for frivolous spending. Just ask the Pontiackers, or the Pontiacquois, or whatever they're called.
Indeed, ask them now. They've got a proposal that might just be worth hearing. I mean, Candlestick-By-The-Sea is older than the Silverdome, it threw a middle finger at a major earthquake, and is a very old and cantankerous lady -- nothing like the dignified and matronly Silverdome.
But the Silverdome is the one up on blocks, and ready to be hauled away. Relief is but a call away, and while he's sitting around waiting to be activated, Michael Crabtree can make those calls: "Hi, I'm Mike, and my boss Mr. Singletary heard you had a great big shed for sale."
Either that, or they can just sit and envy Jerry Jones for his vision, his appetite and his complete lack of architectural propriety. The Silverdome might not be gaudy, but it's an upgrade, the 49ers don't have to degrade themselves before voters, and it makes them look socially responsible -- a first in stadium construction and financing history.
Ray Ratto is a sports columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle.
