The Jacksonville Jaguars

[BridgeTroll]

No one goes to Lambeau because of the high resolution. They go because they have organizations that consistently put a good product, where it matters, on the field.

Actually... Lambeau is constantly being upgraded.  The Packers learned looong ago that the "stadium experience" is what drives local sales... this "local inhouse" revenue is where teams can move ahead of other teams...

http://www.packers.com/news-and-events/article-1/New-Lambeau-Field-video-board-installation-progressing/9871aa0f-705c-44cb-ac63-4da51d44a6f0

The installation of Lambeau Field’s new high-definition video boards is proceeding on schedule. All of the north board modules are in place and work on the south board will begin in the next two weeks.

The new video boards, four times as large as the previous video boards, measure 48 feet high and 108 feet wide and are equivalent to approximately 1,110 40-inch flat panel TVs.

Both the north and south boards will have a pair of adjacent auxiliary screens that are 31 feet high and 18 feet wide. The auxiliary screens will display statistics, scores from around the NFL and other information.

A new, state-of-the-art HDTV control room also is being constructed and will provide improved content for fans on game day. The Packers will employ eight new HD video cameras in-house, double the number from the old system, and three of those cameras will use lenses that are doubling in power from 23x to 50x. The number of feeds from the TV network cameras also will double from four to eight. Additionally, the replay capacity is increasing from eight to 12. Overall, the system has doubled the number of camera feeds from eight to 16 and the number of replay angles available has increased from eight to 12.

All told, game attendees will enjoy new video boards that will provide a dramatically larger, brighter and denser picture with content that includes improved replays and information that will be better than the in-home experience.

Other video board details include:
•
Each main screen consists of 104 modules containing a total of 4,738 individual lighting units.

•
Each main screen covers 5,222 square feet.

•
Each auxiliary screen consists of 15 modules containing a total of 540 individual lighting units.

•
The modules are 100 percent weathertight/waterproof with their own fan ventilation.

•
Each end zone screen is fed by a 24-strand multimode fiber optic cable (12-strand to the mains, six strands to each auxiliary), which supplies content to the screens.

[fsujax]

I just want some new screens. I have had season tickets for years now and have complained about the scoreboards for too long.

[blizz01]

It's been a while, but I guess it's time to drag my ass back to the Jag's board.

...Considering that you started it....

[downtownjag]

And Houston:

http://www.houstontexans.com/news/article-2/Reliant-Stadium-to-have-widest-video-displays-in-pro-sports/fb89292e-3349-495e-8e12-174a2dd8c526

The Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation voted to approve enlarging the Reliant Stadium video display boards on Wednesday, making them the largest in Texas and the widest display in professional sports.

“Our game experience is consistently rated as one of the finest in the world and these spectacular video boards will help us elevate to an even higher level of performance for our fans," said Houston Texans President Jamey Rootes. "Starting next season, the energy, excitement and entertainment we deliver for each home game at Reliant Stadium will be matched with exclusive video content, real-time information and event enhancements to provide an even better experience for our large and loyal fan base.”

Construction on the video boards is projected to begin after the current season and be completed by Aug. 1, 2013.  Manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric’s Diamond Vision Systems Division, they will have an image area of 52.49 by 277.17 feet, totaling 14,549 square feet of display surface and weighing in at more than 100 tons each.

Rootes believes the installation of the new and improved video display boards will better Houston's chances of hosting the Super Bowl at Reliant Stadium in 2017.

“An integral component is the Super Bowl bid," Rootes said. "Their question is, ‘What is the experience going to be like? The game experience for the fans when they’re there for the Super Bowl?' When you show that picture and it is the largest stadium installation, 25 percent larger than what they’ve seen before, you can't help but think that will be exciting for the fans.”

CEO of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Leroy Shafer is anticipating the renovation with much excitement. He not only sees the project as benefiting football fans, but people that attend the variety of events held at Reliant Stadium, as well.

“It’s a big deal because it keeps Reliant state of the art," he said. "When we built Reliant Stadium everybody looked at it and said, ‘Wow, there’s nothing like this in professional football.’ We came to the end of the life of this board and we looked at it and said ‘OK, we can just replace that up there but let’s see what we can do to make it the best, let’s see what we can do to make it the biggest out there in the NFL, for the Rodeo, or whatever we may bring into Reliant Stadium.’”

Other recent notable Diamond Vision installations include the Dallas Cowboys (Cowboy Stadium), New York Yankees (Yankee Stadium), Green Bay Packers (Lambeau Field), Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park), and Seattle Seahawks (Century Link Field).

[blizz01]

And I do agree on the seats. They are very faded from the sun. For visual purposes, I say they need to be replaced.

Can't we just swap them out with the seats that have been preserved under the tarps for the last several years?   

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

It's been a while, but I guess it's time to drag my ass back to the Jag's board.

...Considering that you started it....

Well, when I signed up to MJ, I somehow felt obligated to help lead the charge to end the dreaded 'Jags to LA' thread, so it's not so much about a new, much-needed start as it was about killing that morale-breaking thread.

Where have I been?  The honest answer is Reddit.  It's like speedballing legally and while at work, so now I'm taking a much needed sabbatical. 

Oh, I can't forget to mention the disturbance I felt in the Force when OUR team started making a bunch of changes under Khan's direction....  Let's just say I sensed something was awry here on the MJ forums.     

[KenFSU]

As long as the tickets are not priced astronomically high, a good team will fill the seats. Simple as that.

Simple, but empirically inaccurate. The last decade of professional sports in Florida would certainly suggest that winning alone is no guarantee of box office success. The Jags saw their first significant decline in ticket sales during their best season to date. The Bucs, Rays, and Marlins have consistently had problems filling stadiums despite fielding winning teams and having ticket prices below the national average. In fact, the Marlins are a prime example of the effect improving the game day experience can have on attendance. The team was among the very worst in attendance for the 2011 season, but saw attendance nearly double in 2012 with their new stadium. Not saying that Everbank is a dump by any stretch of the imagination, but as amenities continue to improve the home experience, stadiums are going to need to find a way to keep up. Cutting edge video boards are one way to do that. Displays of this magnitude in particular also serve to one-up the at-home HD experience that has in many aspects become the better way to closely watch football.

[Tacachale]

^Florida is lower than average in general, true, but arguably we have a much higher than average concentration of sports teams, along with weather and a million other things to do and spend your money on. It's also been a long time since any of those teams has been good consistently. That would definitely sell tickets; a few spare good seasons or streaks in the middle of lackluster ones does nothing. A consistently good Jags team would almost definitely sell tickets, or at least contribute to it.

A new stadium, like the Marlins', always sells tickets, at least until the new park smell wears off. I think we all can agree that upgrades can and do help as well, whether or not we agree it's worth it. Our key is finding a balance between keeping the experience up to date and fun, and breaking the already depleted bank.

[Adam W]

I'm sorry you feel that way, I-10. Actually, I'm not bothered, really. You post plenty of stupid shit on here on an almost daily basis.

Okay I agree that I say off kilter stuff every once in a while (nearly everyday was quite a harsh exaggeration) but I think that I also say plenty of valid things that might not necessarily be popular on this site too. I guess that I'm learning that the key is to bring more helpful and rational information to the table while limiting the stupid stuff.

Okay, fair enough. But by the same token, was my comment really the dumbest comment on MJ ever?

[duvaldude08]

Welp throughout our conversation I think we missed this. We are seeking money from the state to help with renovations. Miami did the same thing, and I read somewhere else theres was voted in favor by one committee so far.

Pro soccer, potentially Jacksonville Jaguars and Speedway seek subsidies
Article reprints available.
Find out more.   
01/31/2013

by David Royse, The News Service of Florida

Up to two Major League Soccer franchises would be eligible for subsidies given to other pro sports teams in Florida under a bill filed in the Legislature, a nod to Orlando's bid to bring an MLS team to the area.
MLS has made it clear that it wants a franchise in the southeastern United States â€" particularly Florida. League Commissioner Don Garber said in November that Orlando is among the cities at the top of the list, if the question of a home stadium for a team could be worked out. A lower-division club, Orlando City, and its owner Phil Rawlins, are trying to elevate the club to the sport's top U.S. league.

A measure, (SB 358) filed earlier this month by Sen. David Simmons (R-Maitland) would add MLS to the list of leagues in which franchises are eligible for a $166,667 monthly subsidy from the state. Currently, NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams are eligible for the payments. Simmons' bill says two facility certifications for new MLS franchises should be reserved.

The help for a future Orlando soccer team comes in addition to a request by the Miami Dolphins team for help with stadium renovations, and the speaker of the House said Wednesday he expects other bills to be filed to provide help for renovations to an auto racing facility and for the Jacksonville Jaguars to make renovations at EverBank Field.

While the money in the Simmons bill isn't specifically tied to stadium construction, it could help the Orlando team's bid to join MLS. Team officials have said they want to build a soccer-specific stadium in central Florida to bolster the bid, and how that would be paid for isn't clear.

The Miami Dolphins also have said they plan to ask the Legislature to provide the team with a $3 million-a-year tax rebate on sales of merchandise to fund a renovation of the team's suburban Miami stadium. The team also wants lawmakers to let Miami-Dade County raise a tourist bed tax from 6 percent to 7 percent in some areas to help the team.

Speaker Will Weatherford said Wednesday that the House is expecting to hear from a few other teams wanting money for sports facilities, and that Rep. Ritch Workman (R-Melbourne), the chairman of the House Finance and Tax Subcommittee will have a major role in evaluating the logic of providing such financial help when the economy is only just starting to sputter back to life.

"We hear rumors that there's also going to be a bill filed dealing with the Speedway, and them asking for us to partner with them to help with renovations, we hear there's going to be a bill filed dealing with the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium to help with renovations there," Weatherford said.

"They're all going to be sent to the same committee, which is F&T, and I hope that he will look at those very critically," said Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel). "I don't have a personal position on those issues."

Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) said his position essentially was the same as Weatherford's.

Both leaders warned that the revenue picture, while much better than in the last couple of years, isn't exactly one where lawmakers are looking to throw money around.

"Just because we've come out of the years the locusts have eaten, doesn't mean we're in the years of milk and honey," Gaetz said.

[PeeJayEss]

I can't don't want to get into the economics of this, but there are funds collected specifically for stadium renovations.  You can't lump the lack of money in the library fund in with a surplus of money in the football fund - it doesn't work that way.  Sure, it'd be nice if Khan hopped onto his boat, steamed out to where ever he keeps his money tree and clipped enough branches to make it happen, but he's got to ask the questions first.  Chances are if he asks the right questions and with enough frequency, he's going to get what he wants.

I wish you would explain the economics. So there is $50 million lying around somewhere that is intended for the stadium? Then please forgive me! If the scoreboard is the most pressing maintenance issue at Everbank, by all means, spend that money that is just waiting around.

Actually... Lambeau is constantly being upgraded.  The Packers learned looong ago that the "stadium experience" is what drives local sales... this "local inhouse" revenue is where teams can move ahead of other teams...

What is more important to attendance: the bells and whistles of the stadium, or the play of the team? You can make the argument that the bells and whistles help, but the "driver" of ticket sales is what contributes most to attendance. That is on-field play.

Simple, but empirically inaccurate. The last decade of professional sports in Florida would certainly suggest that winning alone is no guarantee of box office success. The Jags saw their first significant decline in ticket sales during their best season to date. The Bucs, Rays, and Marlins have consistently had problems filling stadiums despite fielding winning teams and having ticket prices below the national average. In fact, the Marlins are a prime example of the effect improving the game day experience can have on attendance. The team was among the very worst in attendance for the 2011 season, but saw attendance nearly double in 2012 with their new stadium. Not saying that Everbank is a dump by any stretch of the imagination, but as amenities continue to improve the home experience, stadiums are going to need to find a way to keep up. Cutting edge video boards are one way to do that. Displays of this magnitude in particular also serve to one-up the at-home HD experience that has in many aspects become the better way to closely watch football.

All new teams that are not very good very consistently have attendance issues. First-year attendance at a new stadium hardly proves any point. If they don't have a good product on the field, attendance will drop back off. The biggest issue facing Florida teams is their newness. New teams just don't interest people as much. You don't have multiple generations of interest, you don't have history or memories, and there is no brand loyalty. In addition, Bucs fans have been jerked around by the team's ownership for a decade and a half. Also, hockey in Florida was a silly idea, and the NBA is a basketcase (but I would remind you that the Bulls would sell out away games in the 90s). Pun intended!

I will concede two points, the Marlins and the Rays. Both played in stadiums that are, frankly, unfit for baseball. Sun Life (or whatever now) was just a cavernous place that is impossible to fill for 81 games a year, so I believe that contributed to attendance issues (and the fact that it was in the middle of no where). The Rays have been great and a fun to watch, but they play in a hell hole (Tropicana). The problems with these places are not the bells and whistles, but play watching (and the effect on game play in Tropicana's case). For instance, imagine putting in a very large TV in Sun Life or Tropicana, do you expect attendance to increase?

Last, when you use the word "empirically," you typically want to present some evidence. If you want to conduct a study on the factors that affect game attendance and which are most important, I think we'd all be interested. Until then, let's not claim to be empirically proving causal relationships, particularly using anecdotes.

[BridgeTroll]

Actually... Lambeau is constantly being upgraded.  The Packers learned looong ago that the "stadium experience" is what drives local sales... this "local inhouse" revenue is where teams can move ahead of other teams...

What is more important to attendance: the bells and whistles of the stadium, or the play of the team? You can make the argument that the bells and whistles help, but the "driver" of ticket sales is what contributes most to attendance. That is on-field play.

I didn't know the question was... "what is more important?"  MY point was ... regardless of the teams on field success... stadium improvements are very important to the financial viability of the team.  Even the very successful teams must make stadium improvements to enhance the fan experience.  That said... I certainly agree that on field play sells more tickets... Building a team from a dismal 2-14 will take time... adding a new scoreboard display... just takes money...

[Tacachale]

There have been all kinds of studies and reports on the correlation between winning and attendance. The notion is that consistently winning affects attendance, but it isn't the only factor. Other things like big name players on the roster and good marketing can also factor in; according to some folks, stadium experience helps as well. I suppose that's debatable, but the fact remains that the Jags' attendance has improved for two years despite playing consistently worse.

[KenFSU]

Last, when you use the word "empirically," you typically want to present some evidence. If you want to conduct a study on the factors that affect game attendance and which are most important, I think we'd all be interested. Until then, let's not claim to be empirically proving causal relationships, particularly using anecdotes.

Funny you should mention that

I actually conducted a pretty in-depth regression analysis on Jaguars attendance last year, examining regular season games played from 2005 onward (after stadium capacity was reduced to 67,164), omitting that bizarre stretch of six consecutive home games at the beginning of the 2009 season that saw attendance drop by nearly 20,000 per game due to a sharp economic downturn coupled with widespread rumors that Weaver was in talks to move the franchise to Los Angeles.

I looked at every (non-economic) variable I could think of, from winning percentage, to past season winning percentage, to opponent attributes, to game day temperature, to national television coverage, all the way down to chance of rain, in an attempt to identify factors that affected attendance (keeping in mind changes in how attendance was reported over various seasons).

To strip some of the economic influence from attendance numbers, I modeled the data with the belief that mean annual attendance was roughly representative of what the market could support in that particular economy in that particular year. And conversely, any deviation from that mean was largely a reflection of consumer taste or distaste for each week’s particular game based on our multitude of independent variables. Thus, in order to roughly normalize attendance data against much broader economic effects, instead of using actual attendance as my dependent variable, I used actual attendance relative the seasonal mean (actual attendance for the game minus mean attendance for that year’s season). This calculation output the number of fans over or under that year’s mean that attended each game based on the given set of variables.

Of all of these many factors, I found exactly three variables that had a pronounced effect on attendance.

I"ll copy and paste from my findings:

"The first statistically significant independent variable is opponent's winning percentage, which has a beta of 1,302.14. Holding all other variables constant, attendance will increase by approximately 1,300 fans over seasonal mean if the opponent is undefeated (seasonal and prior-10 game records yielded similar results), increase by 650 fans for a team with an equal number of wins and losses (b1 x 0.5), all the way down to an increase of zero fans for a team that has not yet won a game (b1 x 0.00). This indicates that city residents have a preference for watching winning opponents play.

The second significant independent variable was relative popularity of opponent. Every year, Harris Interactive â€" a market research firm headquartered in New York City â€" releases a popularity ranking of NFL teams, listing each franchise from the most popular to the least. Using this variable allowed me to examine how the overall popularity of the visiting team impacted home game attendance here in Jacksonville. This variable yields a beta of 30.62. For the sake of a clearer equation, I inverted the popularity rankings before running regression analysis. By inverting the popularity rankings (most popular team =31, least popular =0), a positive rather than negative beta is produced. This beta demonstrates that for each additional tick upwards in opponent popularity, approximately 31 additional fans will attend a game. For example, the 10th most popular team in the league (inverted to 31-10 = 21) would draw approximately 651 additional fans (31 x 21) to the Jaguars’ stadium.

The final statistically significant independent variable tested was national television coverage, which yielded a beta of 479.17.  Because this independent variable is binary and either switched off (0 for no national television) or on (1 for national television), the beta simply states that 479 residents will make their decision on whether to attend the game based on if it is or isn't on national television.

What was most surprising is that the independent variable that I initially felt would show the strongest correlation with attendance (Jaguars winning percentage) actually showed no statistically relevant correlation. In fact, Jaguars attendance seems far more correlated with characteristics of the visiting team than the performance of the home team. Jacksonville â€" like other large cities in Florida â€" has a large population of transplants from other areas of the country. Perhaps these transplants, along with a desire to "see the stars come to town' may factor into consumer preference appearing to be so opponent-driven."

Of course you can never isolate every variable, and things like marketing and advertising expenditure certainly can increase attendance, but the point is, it's realllly hard to show any statistical correlation between winning and attendance here in Jacksonville.

[BridgeTroll]

In fact, Jaguars attendance seems far more correlated with characteristics of the visiting team than the performance of the home team.

This does not surprise me at all... as for the rest of your data... all I can say is... WOW!