49ers Ask Neighboring Businesses To Change Work Hours So Team Can Play Monday Night Football

Ever notice how these digital renderings rarely show the parking lot?

Say you’re throwing a big event, like a wedding or a family reunion, at your house. If you’re short on parking, maybe you offer your neighbors a few bucks to let your guests park in their driveways. But it’s probably going too far to ask your neighbors to redo their entire schedule for your party.

That’s apparently what the San Francisco 49ers have been asking of their soon-to-be neighbors at the new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA.

See, the new stadium doesn’t have enough parking capacity for the nearly 70,000 fans who will show up to games. For Sunday games, the team has been able to wrangle enough parking spots from neighboring businesses to meet the parking needs. But if they score a Monday Night Football game, there’s a big problem.

While here on the Atlantic Coast, Monday Night Football games start at 8:40, a few hours after most people have gone home from work, it’s only 5:40 in San Francisco at kickoff, a time at which many of those businesses will, ya know, still be open for business with employees and clients and all.

Even though the Niners first season at Levi’s Stadiu, is still many, many months away, a Santa Clara City Councilwoman tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the team has approached several companies in the area to see if they would be willing to change their work hours to accommodate a weeknight game.

And while some workers would probably jump at the chance to get out early on a game day, it’s just not feasible for some businesses, like the community college that has no renting 2,200 spaces to the team for Sunday games, but needs those spots for students and employees on weekdays.

“That would be very difficult for our students,” explains the vice chancellor of the West Valley-Mission Community College District.

This parking problem could keep the Niners out of Monday Night Football for the next season or two. It would also probably keep them from being scheduled on Thursday night, though you won’t hear too many people complaining about that one.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist