Jaguars considering playing some games in Orlando

[The_Admiral]

Oh man, I forgot all about the Jacksonville Super Bowl. What a disaster that was. Maybe we'll look back on that as the beginning of the end, as it triggered waves of grumpy sportswriters asking what they'd done to deserve spending a weekend there. The city's national reputation might've never recovered. I didn't think ill of the place until I learned it was in fact "basically south Georgia."

[Gothamite]

The Jacksonville was in the running with Baltimore, Charlotte, and St. Louis, they guaranteed the owners the largest visiting gate compared to the other three teams. In addition, Touchdown Jacksonville, the name of the bidding group, also played on the fact that 1,000 people were moving to Florida every day back then and that their city could be the "Green Bay of the South" in that it would always be a one team town. In reality, they were going further south than Jacksonville and it is a one team town...Florida Gators.

The jokes are still coming from the national media from the week of Super Bowl such as:

"Buffalo by the Sea"

That's very unfair to Buffalo. They have devoted fans.

[BBTV]

The Jacksonville was in the running with Baltimore, Charlotte, and St. Louis, they guaranteed the owners the largest visiting gate compared to the other three teams. In addition, Touchdown Jacksonville, the name of the bidding group, also played on the fact that 1,000 people were moving to Florida every day back then and that their city could be the "Green Bay of the South" in that it would always be a one team town. In reality, they were going further south than Jacksonville and it is a one team town...Florida Gators.

The jokes are still coming from the national media from the week of Super Bowl such as:

"Buffalo by the Sea"

That's very unfair to Buffalo. They have devoted fans.

I believe that's a reference to the size / atmosphere of the city, not the fans.

[Gothamite]

Oh, I know. I should have included the " ".

[mjrbaseball]

One question I haven't seen asked: Doesn't the CFL have an issue with the NFL invading Toronto?

[The_Admiral]

Yes. They'll be like "aw come on you guys, you promised" and the NFL will throw a beer can in the CFL's face and laugh.

[The_Admiral]

So the Jaguars are 3-3. Not great, but not bad. I wonder if they're going to keep getting blacked out while not totally sucking eggs. If they can't even sell out the Dolphins game, which will surely be packed with Fins fans, then it's gotta be time to bolt. I'm shocked that there hasn't been more noise about this. The Los Angeles vultures (haha, there's a team name) should be descending on this franchise by December, I have to believe.

Do we have any attendance figures for yesterday's game with the Rams? For anyone who watched the game, how empty did the stands look?

[Gothamite]

I'm having a hard time locating yesterday's numbers, but I came across these numbers from Week One:

1. Dallas -- 105,121

2. Washington -- 87,780

3. New York -- 78,312

4. Denver -- 73,931

5. Green Bay -- 70,678

6. Buffalo -- 70,318

7. San Francisco -- 69,732

8. Kansas City -- 69,169

9. Philadelphia -- 69,144

10. Tennessee -- 69,143

11. Atlanta -- 67,313

12. San Diego -- 66,882

13. Chicago -- 62,231

14. Detroit -- 56,269

15. Jacksonville -- 46,520

Yikes.

[STL FANATIC]

Stands were not full yesterday, Admiral.

Pre-game reports said that they expected 20,000 empty seats. I saw that number mentioned with both the original 76,000 capacity and the smaller 66,000 capacity (not sure either of those are dead-on), so I don't know which to take the 20,000 off of. But regardless, they're was plenty of empty seats.

And I feel for those who do go, because they still managed to get loud and get behind the Jags. But their probably isn't enough of them to keep the team their if LA becomes viable quickly.

[Lee.]

I think the real question here is, why does Phoenix need 20 more years to prove itself as a viable hockey market, but JAX can be shuffled out of town as quickly as possible without a furor?

just asking

[The_Admiral]

I dug around the Jaguars.com message board and yesterday's game was estimated to be in the low 38,000s. Maybe a blackout extension would've helped them sell the last 20,000 seats. "The Rams are crappy" is no excuse. That should be all the more reason to watch your team win (which just barely happened)! Under two-thirds capacity is scary bad, and would make the league look scary bad if St. Louis weren't the only city in America that saw the game.

Which stadium is better equipped to handle the NFL in the short term, the Rose Bowl or the L.A. Coliseum?

I think the real question here is, why does Phoenix need 20 more years to prove itself as a viable hockey market, but JAX can be shuffled out of town as quickly as possible without a furor?

just asking

I think they should both move, and I'm generally anti-relocation. That's how grand-scale fail these two teams are.

[Gothamite]

Me, too. Not a huge fan of relocating teams, but these are the two to move.

Okay, think I found a number for yesterday's attendance - 42,088.

That's 25,000 empty seats even after they tarped off those sections.

[STL FANATIC]

I think the real question here is, why does Phoenix need 20 more years to prove itself as a viable hockey market, but JAX can be shuffled out of town as quickly as possible without a furor?

just asking

I didn't say I supported Jacksonville losing their franchise. I said if LA becomes viable quickly, they probably will.

The other side to it, though, is that the NFL isn't trying to grow new football fans or even new NFL fans in Jacksonville. The area is every bit as football crazy as Hamilton is hockey crazy. But in this case it seems fairly clear that these football fans are not willing to switch their allegiances and dollars to the Jaguars. Staying another full generation might change that, but the reason I'll make that extra push for the Coyotes and not the Jaguars is that if it works in Phoenix there will be a whole new group of hockey fans, and that's awesome. If it happens in Jacksonville, they'll just be a RE-AFFILIATED group of football fans.

Make sense? I don't think I'm being inconsistent on this. I don't like to see anybody lose their team, but I've got reasons behind all these opinions on why some cities should get a longer chance and some perhaps should not.

Additionally, I think it has to be said that Jacksonville moving to LA would mean the Rams won't. But that's comfort to be had after the fact, nothing else.

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, I don't think the NFL is going to cannibalize a delicate market with a second team. If the Jaguars move, the Rams have nowhere to go. I understand taking a relativist approach to relocation, because it is very much a shades-of-grey issue, but the Coyotes battle is an odd one to fight.

[Gothamite]

Los Angeles Stadium gets another boost. At this point, I don't see it not happening.

The only question is which team will it be? Schwarzenegger is encouraging them to look outside California, so they can make the case that jobs are being created in the state as opposed to just being shifted from one city to another.

[Brian in Boston]

If the Jaguars move, the Rams have nowhere to go.

That's not necessarily the case.

As Ed Roski's stadium plan in the City of Industry has picked-up momentum, it has been rumored on several occasions that NFL leadership would not be as averse as previously thought to seeing Los Angeles become a two-team market again. The population-base certainly exists to support such a development. Further, there are those in-the-know who claim that paying-off the debt-service on Roski's privately-financed stadium development plan would be much easier with a pair of tenants calling the facility home.

Ultimately, it will likely become a question of which two existing NFL teams can extricate themselves from their current markets/stadium leases first that determines who is setting-up shop in Greater Los Angeles. I'd say that the inside-track for the first slot has to go to the Chargers. They can get out of San Diego simply by paying an escape-fee of $56.2-million after this season. That amount drops to $24-million after the 2010 NFL season and subsequently decreases thereafter. Further, Ed Roski is a personal friend and business associate of the Spanos family, owners of the Chargers. After that, it would be a race for the second spot.

[BBTV]

I think the real question here is, why does Phoenix need 20 more years to prove itself as a viable hockey market, but JAX can be shuffled out of town as quickly as possible without a furor?

just asking

Because a pro football franchise, playing in a hotbead of football, shouldn't need a full 20 years to develop a fanbase, whereas a cold-weather sport being played for the first time at the highest level may take a little more time to grow.

BTW - I'm in favor of Phoenix moving, just providing a possible answer to the question.

[IceCap]

This thread's pretty lulzy.

And I get what STL is saying about new hockey fans in Phoenix if it works, I just don't think it will work.

But onto football and NFL teams relocating.

Toronto is out. I'm no Argos fan, but really I think the CFL will have a tough road ahead without a team in the fair Dominion's largest media market (and make no mistake about it, the Argos are done if the NFL moves in). It's just not my desire to see the CFL do well either. As it has been pointed out, the Rogers Centre is on the small side when it comes to NFL stadiums, and they even had trouble filling that when the Bills play there. The NFL expected all of Toronto to line up, thanking G-d that the NFL would bless the city with their presence, and that simply didn't happen. Is it a viable market? Sure, it'll work, but it'll also work much better in a few locations in the States.

And before anyone asks, no, there's no chance of a new NFL-sized stadium in Toronto. The money and the support are both lacking. BMO Field was the last new stadium you'll see in Toronto for a long while.

The Jaguars to LA? Eh, possible, but I imagine that it will result in a re-alignment nightmare. The only way to make it work would be to move KC to the AFC South, and there's no way the NFL's breaking up the Broncos-Chargers-Chiefs-Raiders rivalry.

That's not to say LA is out of the running though. It very much is, I just can't see the NFL letting the Jags be the ones to move out west. Sure you could say re-alignment wouldn't be needed, but I think a LA team in a division with Indianapolis, Tennessee, and Houston is a bit of a stretch, even by NFL standards (the Cowboys not withstanding).

The Rams moving to LA is much more likely. They have a history in the area, are up for sale, and an aging arena with little hope of replacing it in StL. Seems like the perfect storm to me.

The Jaguars to StL to replace the Rams is an interesting idea, and really it would be nice in a poetic justice sort of way (with StL's expansion bid falling apart, opening the door to JAX), but I don't know. The city's not paying to renovate or replace the EJ Dome for the Rams, why would they for the Jags? I actually think the Jags moving to San Antonio is more likely. Sure, there's the Texans in Houston, but one territorial fee later and all should be well.

[STL FANATIC]

I think you've generalized and overlooked a lot, Ice.

First off, I believe Alignment/Re-Alignment will be the LAST concern as far as which team ultimately makes the trek west to Los Angeles. To me that's much more an issue you deal with after the fact than one you allow to limit the options ahead of time.

Similarly, the only reason the Rams history would matter is if the current regime wanted to put them back there. They do not. They're not rushing to sell, and when they do, they're looking for a St. Louis buyer. There is the argument of the built-in fan base, but realistically the league expects LA to be able to support any team without qualifications.

So then it comes down to who could even go to LA first. Right now that's San Diego. I don't know what Jacksonville's lease is, but they have serious attendance problems that would make them an option to jump now. The Rams couldn't move until 2015 at the earliest anyways. LA may very well be filled by then.

Additionally, I'm not sure why it'd be said with any certainty that St. Louis won't replace/massively renovate the dome. It won't happen prior to 2015 almost for sure. But a lot can happen in 5 years. A winning team, good owner relations, and an improved economy are all possible by then, and if that's the case, I think a deal will be worked out to put the Rams in a better stadium.

The Rams are certainly an option to be moved, but they're far from the best or most likely. Third on that list MAYBE.

[Gothamite]

I'm sorry, STL, but while you make some good points I think you're allowing your own personal allegiance to color your analysis.

They have to be considered 3rd most likely at least (depending on how committed you think Wayne Weaver is to Jacksonville). But for those three, we're talking extremely minor degrees of separation.

And do you really think it likely that in the next few years St. Louis will be ready to build the Rams a new stadium?