The City of San Antonio is hoping to land an NFL franchise as Mayor Ron Nirenberg believes that the city could be the third in Texas to land a team.
San Antonio is the seventh most populous city in the United States, and is currently home to the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, but the Spurs stand along as their only major professional sports league team.
Nirenberg wants that to change.
“If there’s not that corporate base, pro sports franchises look elsewhere. And one of the things that has hindered that corporate base for decades in San Antonio is the fact that we didn’t have enough workers to fill the positions that they would want to move here,” Nirenberg, according to KSAT.
“That’s why we’re investing in our own people and access to education, access to skills training and workforce development. So when we want to take those jobs that are available, we have the people to do it. And that’s improving our economic trajectory. That’s also improving the prospects for pro sports here.”
The city is making a bigger effort to combat poverty and to make sure people have access to quality education.
“That’s how we lift the prospects of our city and help us to evolve from a low wage city to one that has much more strength to build and invest in public infrastructure,” said Nirenberg. “When we have a strong workforce, we begin to attract many more of the employers that become the financial base that ultimately begin to invest in the pro sports franchises.”
“I said I think last year or the year before, I think San Antonio is an NFL city within 10 years, I still stand by that,” said Nirenberg. “And that is because of the evolution that’s happening within the National Football League, the fact that it too is becoming an international league, particularly with its sights on Latin America.”
