Much of the feud over how much rent the San Francisco 49ers should have to pay Santa Clara to use Levi’s Stadium stems from a bitter dispute over how the annual amount is calculated, the Mercury News has learned.
An arbitrator recently said the team should pay $262,000 more in rent, raising the annual payment from $24.5 million to $24.762 million. The news sparked a war of words between the team and city, with the 49ers accusing the mayor of spinning numbers in the agreement to inflate the victory.
The increase in rent is relatively minimal given the large overall amount, but the dispute and the bitter fallout could ultimately damage what is an an already tense relationship between the team and the city.