S.A. leaders to march onward after Saints leave
City proving it's ready for prime time in NFL
By W. Scott Bailey
San Antonio Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET Oct. 9, 2005
New Orleans Saints players raised their hands into the air and nearly 60,000 screaming fans turned San Antonio's first regular season dance with the NFL into a smash hit.
Now some local leaders are vowing to turn that momentum into a legitimate push for a permanent NFL team for the nation's eighth largest city.
Saints owner Tom Benson says he was moved by the home-field advantage South Texas fans provided his displaced team.
San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger walked the Alamodome parking lots and high-fived fans enjoying some rare Alamo City tailgating.
"This is as good as it gets," he yelled over the music and cheering.
Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks rushed for the winning touchdown in his team's 19-7 victory over the Buffalo Bills. His post-game comments to reporters included this assessment of the environment inside the Alamodome: "From the time we stepped out of the locker room going out there to warm up, they really were into it."
What San Antonians and South Texans and some relocated Louisianans, too, were into was the historic moment -- for San Antonio and the NFL.
That history-making event was not lost on other long-time NFL cities like Boston, where that city's daily included this post-game excerpt: "Brooks saw an opening and bolted. Crossing the goal line just ahead of a defender, he spiked the ball and raised his arms to celebrate.
"That's when he heard it: The deafening roar ... . And for one afternoon at least, San Antonio and the Alamodome felt like home for Brooks and his nomadic teammates."
SBC Communications Inc. Senior Vice President John Montford is relatively new to San Antonio, having lived here only a few years. But he is sold on the Alamo City as an NFL-worthy market. Montford, who is also chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, believes San Antonio deserves many more such Sundays. He also believes this time, city leaders will do more than talk about how San Antonio should have its own NFL team.
"You have to judge a city for what it is," Montford says. "And this is a great city."
Montford adds, "Any time you step up and you undertake an ambition of this nature, you're going to have setbacks, you're going to have roadblocks, you're going to have naysayers. But I'm not easily discouraged."
Saints and Angels
While San Antonio is working to parlay strong attendance for a trio of Saints games into a more permanent place in the ranks of the NFL, others are pushing a counter agenda.
NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has been less than enthusiastic about San Antonio and its temporary hosting of the Saints. Instead, he has attended a regular season game that was moved to Mexico City and continued to stump for a team in Los Angeles, which can tout its corporate base and TV market size.
"It's not all about just whether or not you've got the corporate base or the financial base to support a team," says San Antonio City Councilman Kevin Wolff. "You also need to have a fan base. I think we're at a point in San Antonio where, we already know we have the fan base. I think we have the corporate base now, too.
"You have to have both to make it work," Wolff continues. "That's something I think the NFL is forgetting about. They are so focused on the TV market (size) that they have forgotten that you actually need to have fans who will show up for the games and give a damn about the team."
Game plan?
So will the current crop of city leaders chase after this latest NFL effort with something more than the kind of lip service displayed by some of their predecessors? Wolff is convinced that the city is prepared to walk the talk this time.
"We've got a wonderful opportunity with these three games to knock one out of the park and prove to people we can do this," Wolff contends.
Wolff says the quest to put a team here is more a question of when than if.
"We're going to stay on top of this. We're going to get a team here," he says. "I don't know if that's today, tomorrow or three years from now. But it is going to happen because we are big enough, we can support it and we will prove it."
As for Tagliabue and his L.A. agenda?
"If he has convinced himself that Los Angeles is the place to be," Wolff says, "then every action he takes, everything he says, is going to be pointed in that direction.
"That's why we as a community need to take the approach of 'to hell with him,'" Wolff continues. "We're going to do what we know we can do and let the actions speak for themselves. Then you are eventually going to start to hear that San Antonio is a great place (for the NFL) to be."
Former Mayor Henry Cisneros has been careful not to confuse his NFL ambitions with the plight of the Saints. Still, Cisneros remains convinced that the Alamo City deserves its own team.
"This may not be the time to talk about that next step," Cisneros contends. "But there needs to be a next step at some point. I believe there will be."
Montford agrees.
"We should support the Saints," Montford says. "But what we really have to do is demonstrate that we are an NFL-ready city."
"There are a lot of people who don't think we have the resources,' Hardberger says. "I think we do."
