YardRat
11-24-2007, 12:58 PM
http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/story/213692.html
“We think we probably got an NFL team 20 years too early,” said Tim Connolly, Jaguars senior vice president for business development. “That’s something our owner, Wayne Weaver, has said in the past, and it’s true.”
What Connolly means is that Jacksonville is a growing community, and by 2015 — 20 years after the Jaguars’ inaugural season — the expectation is the franchise will not be in such a small market.
For now, however, Jacksonville is about identical in size to Buffalo — basically tied for the fourth smallest in the 32-team NFL, ahead of only New Orleans and Green Bay. Entering the season, Buffalo had the 49th-ranked television market in the country, with 640,000 homes having televisions. Jacksonville was 50th, at 639,000.
Selling tickets is an issue with only about six NFL teams — Buffalo, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Oakland and Arizona. The rest of the teams sell out virtually every game every year without much effort.
Selling out takes a big effort in Jacksonville — so much that the team covered up about 9,700 upper-deck seats in 2005. That move came after 12 out of 16 Jaguars games were blacked out in ’03 and ’04. The tarps reduced the capacity of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium from 76,877 to 67,164.
“We think we probably got an NFL team 20 years too early,” said Tim Connolly, Jaguars senior vice president for business development. “That’s something our owner, Wayne Weaver, has said in the past, and it’s true.”
What Connolly means is that Jacksonville is a growing community, and by 2015 — 20 years after the Jaguars’ inaugural season — the expectation is the franchise will not be in such a small market.
For now, however, Jacksonville is about identical in size to Buffalo — basically tied for the fourth smallest in the 32-team NFL, ahead of only New Orleans and Green Bay. Entering the season, Buffalo had the 49th-ranked television market in the country, with 640,000 homes having televisions. Jacksonville was 50th, at 639,000.
Selling tickets is an issue with only about six NFL teams — Buffalo, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Oakland and Arizona. The rest of the teams sell out virtually every game every year without much effort.
Selling out takes a big effort in Jacksonville — so much that the team covered up about 9,700 upper-deck seats in 2005. That move came after 12 out of 16 Jaguars games were blacked out in ’03 and ’04. The tarps reduced the capacity of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium from 76,877 to 67,164.