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Candlestick Park -
Address: 602 Jamestown Avenue San Francisco
CA 94124
Home of:San Francisco 49ers (NFL)
Date opened: April 12,1960
Capacity: Football: 70,207
Cost: $15
million
Candlestick Park, located at 602 Jamestown Avenue, San Francisco
CA 94124, was built in 1960 for the San Francisco Giants of Major
League Baseball who played there until the 2000 season. The San
Francisco 49ers of the National Football League moved in before
then 1971 season and has been at Candlestick Park ever since. The
Oakland Raiders also made a one year stop in 1961 to play at Candlestick
Park. The stadium has almost always used a natural grass playing
surface and at the time of its construction, Candlestick Park only cost $24.6
million to build, all of which was publicly financed. After only a short time
of existence, the stadium began to deteriorate. The mayor at the time proposed
a new stadium be built in downtown San Francisco, but instead $16.1 million
was spent to make the park multipurpose. The seating capacity was increased and an Astroturf
playing surface was used from 1971-1979.
The name of Candlestick Park was used
from 1960-1995 and 2008-present. The rights to the stadium name were licensed to 3Com Corporation from September, 1995 until 2002, for $900,000 a year. During that time, the park became known as 3Com Park at Candlestick Point. In 2002, the naming rights deal expired, and the park then became officially known as San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point. On September 28, 2004, a new naming rights deal was signed with Monster Cable, a maker of cables for electronic equipment, and the stadium was renamed Monster Park. However, just over a month later, a measure passed in the November 2 election stipulated that the stadium name to revert back to Candlestick permanently after the contract with Monster expired in 2008.
The stadium
can hold nearly 70,000 people for football games and could hold
58,000 people when baseball was also played at the park. Candlestick
Park also features 93 luxury suites for the fans to choose from.
The 49ers and Giants each were quite used to selling out each of
their respective home games during the season, and now that the
49ers are the sole tenants of the park, things haven’t changed
one bit. The 49ers continue to sell out many of their home games at Candlestick
Park and the fans have continued to show their loyalty to the team year in
and year out. After the Giants moved out of Candlestick Park and into Pacific
Bell Park (now AT&T Park), the 49ers looked into building a new stadium for
themselves.
Plans were underway to construct a new 68,000-seat stadium at Candlestick Point. However, on November 8, 2006, the 49ers announced that they would abandon their search for a location in San Francisco and begin to actively pursue the idea of building a stadium in Santa Clara, California.
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