The San Francisco 49ers have become an unlikely flashpoint in Santa Clara's mayoral election, as Kathy Watanabe calls for an audit of stadium-related revenue and fellow candidate David Kertes criticizes city leadership's transparency. Supporters of mayoral candidate Kathy Watanabe gathered near Levi's Stadium on Thursday to press the issue, arguing that Santa Clara residents deserve a clearer accounting of stadium-related revenue before they head to the polls.
The dispute, covered by NBC Bay Area, centers on how much money the 49ers and Levi's Stadium actually contribute to Santa Clara's general fund, and how open the team and city hall have been about those figures. Watanabe has called for an independent audit of that revenue stream, telling the station that the public deserves transparency when a public asset generates private revenue and profits. She said the audit should zero in especially on money collected from recent major events, including the Super Bowl and World Cup matches hosted at the stadium.
Fellow candidate David Kertes agrees the 49ers' finances belong in the spotlight, but he argues an audit alone won't fix the underlying problem. According to the same NBC Bay Area report, Kertes has placed the blame squarely on Santa Clara's own city leadership, saying it is the city — not just the team — that has failed to be transparent with residents about the arrangement.
The 49ers Push Back on the Numbers
The 49ers, for their part, insist they've been an open book. The team says it is a good partner to Santa Clara and is transparent in its financial payments to the city, per the NBC Bay Area report. The team went further, saying Watanabe is either misinformed or intentionally misleading the public — a sharp rebuttal aimed directly at one of the audit's chief proponents.
To back up its case, the team offered a list of local businesses it says benefit from the 49ers and Levi's Stadium's presence in Santa Clara, according to the outlet's reporting. The 49ers also cited public records showing that stadium-related revenue has generated more than $30 million for Santa Clara's general fund over the past two years.
The city itself has put out figures of its own. Santa Clara said in a statement, as reported by NBC Bay Area, that it collected about $3 million from Super Bowl hotel-tax revenue, and that it received roughly 95 percent of the reimbursement it expected from the 49ers. It's not clear from available reporting whether the hotel-tax figure and the broader general-fund total cover the same accounting period or the same categories of revenue.
A Fight Rooted in Years-Old Questions
A civil grand jury report from about 2024 recommended that Santa Clara conduct its own economic-impact analysis of the stadium relationship, a recommendation echoed in candidates' complaints.
Santa Clara's Finance Department is tasked with monitoring city finances and forecasting major revenue sources, according to the City of Santa Clara, though the current dispute suggests candidates and residents alike want more visibility into how stadium dollars specifically flow through that system.
Six Candidates, No Primary
The stakes are higher than usual this cycle because of how Santa Clara actually picks its mayor. The city has no primary election; instead, six candidates are competing directly on the November ballot, with the winner determined in November, the outlet reports. That structure means the 49ers debate could ripple across a crowded field rather than narrowing to a simple two-way contest.
All six mayoral candidates are expected to address the stadium-revenue fight directly this Sunday at a debate, according to NBC Bay Area's report. With the 49ers' influence clearly mattering to voters, the debate stage may be where residents finally get competing candidates to spell out, in their own words, how they'd force more transparency out of one of the city's most powerful institutions.
