The Jaguars - How Jacksonville Became an NFL City

[tufsu1]

yeah, but Bob Irsay was an idiot!

[finehoe]

I know someone else who has an obvious bias.

In other words, the $200 million figure can't be substantiated.

[Shwaz]

The Jaguars bring over $200 million dollars to this city per year.

Source, please.

Here's one.

http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2009/11/02/daily27.html

Peyton said keeping the team here is a vital economic issue.

”The Jaguars organization has a $200 million-plus economic impact on this community and in terms of national image, philanthropic support and community pride, has contributed more to Jacksonville than any other entity,” he said.

Uh, I meant some actual statistics, not just a quote from someone who has an obvious bias.

Please hold while the mayor sends over the books for your approval...

Why is it so hard to believe anyways? It's been public knowledge that the Jaguars are the largest economic and philanthropic contributor the community and have been for years.

[finehoe]

Please hold while the mayor send over the books for your approval...

Ha!  Like an elected official would answer to a constituent! 

[finehoe]

If it's "public knowledge" it should be easy to prove.  So let's see some actual facts and figures, not just what people (and politicians with a vested interest) "believe" to be true.

[ac]

I spoke to a reporter at the TU via Twitter and he said the paper is still sourcing the 200 million figure, so they have nothing yet, other than the quotes from the Mayor and CoC.

However, when you start thinking in terms of the money that goes to the various vendors and businesses that supply services to the team, and other businesses that indirectly benefit (parking, sports bars, hotels, etc.) it isn't that outlandish, especially when you consider the estimated annual impact of just having the FL/GA game is $25M.

As far as the community benefits, those are well-documented:

http://wokv.com/blogs/jaguars/2009/08/jaguars-foundation-announces-g.html

Under the leadership of Delores Barr Weaver, Jaguars Foundation Chair and CEO, the Foundation's total grant giving since 1995 is more than $12.5 million for youth-serving programs in the Jacksonville area, which includes Duval, Baker, Clay, Nassau, and St. Johns counties. This level of giving is among the top few of professional sports teams.

That doesn't include the various trips the players take to hospitals, schools, neighborhoods, NAS/Mayport, taking underprivileged kids on Christmas shopping sprees, and all the other things they do that don't get the same publicity as when someone screws up.

[copperfiend]

I know someone else who has an obvious bias.

In other words, the $200 million figure can't be substantiated.

I wasn't the one who referenced it. Does it matter if somebody does prove it? You seem pretty set in your ways.

[finehoe]

I don't think wanting to know the facts about something demonstates that one is set in their ways.

While we’re waiting for the T-U reporter to get back to us, let me offer the following for your reading pleasure:

“Unlike manufacturing plants or warehouses, professional sports teams generate non-financial benefits like civic pride and world-class city status for their host communities. Yet these benefits don't seem to justify the public spending needed to build a 21st century stadium. Instead, proponents justify those subsidies with claims of economic benefits the surrounding community will collect. According to these claims, a new facility will create thousands of new jobs, generate millions of dollars of new income for residents and add additional millions of dollars to state and local coffers.

The decision facing local officials appears to be a "no-brainer:" For the bargain price of $500 million to $2 billion, the city keeps its beloved sports franchise, gets a shiny new facility and a powerhouse engine of local economic development.

Unfortunately, economic research consistently finds no evidence supporting these claims.? My own research, published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and based on past economic performance of all U.S. cities with a professional football, basketball or baseball franchise since 1969, concludes that professional sports teams and facilities increased employment and earnings in only one small sector of the economy -- the recreation and amusement industry. It actually reduced earnings and employment in related industries like hotels, bars and restaurants.

Overall, professional sports reduced real per-capita income in their metropolitan areas by about $40 per year.”


http://www.businessjournalism.org/pages/biz/2005/06/finding_the_bottom_line_for_sp/

The large and growing peer-reviewed economics literature on the economic impacts of stadiums, arenas, sports franchises, and sport megaevents has consistently found no substantial evidence of increased jobs, incomes, or tax revenues for a community associated with any of these things.

http://www.aier.org/ejw/archive/doc_view/3626-ejw-200809?tmpl=component&format=raw

“…statistical analyses of the impacts of sports teams on urban economies. A study by Hudson (1999) investigated the impact of sports teams on employment growth and found that the presence of professional sports teams had no statistically significant effect. A similarly detailed study of 37 metropolitan areas by Coates and Humphries (1999) concluded that there is no evidence that sports facilities and sports teams increase the rate of real per capita income and, in fact, may actually generate a negative impact on real income per capita.”

http://www.arroyoseco.org/671_chapin-web.pdf

[ac]

Yay! Go agenda!

[finehoe]

Yay! Go agenda!

That's supposed to be a refutation? 

And we wonder why this city has such a hard time of rising above it's redneck roots.

[ac]

I'm not trying to refute it;  I personally am for keeping any business or entertainment entity that we currently have in the city, regardless of whether there's an irrefutable, tangible benefit.  Why?  Because I like having them here.  It makes me feel like I live in a real city, despite all the other crap that goes on here.

I'm pretty far from a redneck, but feel free to toss around any slurs you see fit.

So I'm curious, what is it that you don't like about the Jaguars that makes you less likely to give them slack then, say, the Suns, the more-empty-than-not Arena, the Symphony, or other entertainment entities that receive or benefit from public dollars?

[Tripoli1711]

Well enough of the forum hijack by a person who doesn't think the Jaguars have a positive impact on the community.  I think that is entirely bogus, but pretty much besides the point.  The lack of fan support for the Jaguars makes me very angry.  I think the analogy to the pet was a fantastic analogy.  The additional part to it is the "someone else will take care of it" aspect to it.  Thousands of the people who were so happy about getting the team never thought that they would have to support the team.  It was a hometown team that would always be on television and someone else would go to the stadium and pay money so that it is broadcast for free on television.  Sure they'd buy a hat and maybe go to a game once in a blue moon, but other than that, actually purchasing tickets was the duty of the neighbor, not me.

If we could get people to just go to one game a year, we would be okay.  By my math, there's 1.3 million in the metro area.  Assume that 40% of them are too old, too young or too poor to go to a game.  That still leaves 780,000 people just in our immediate metro area.. forget people who live in Daytona, Brunswick, Lake City, etc.

8 home games, 67k capacity =  536,000 tickets.  

If you know someone who claims to like the Jaguars but never goes to a game... spread the message.. just go to ONE GAME A YEAR.  If we can convince enough people to do this it will make a huge difference.

[Wacca Pilatka]

It shouldn't take a lot of hard statistical evidence to substantiate the idea that Jacksonville will be scarred terribly if the Jaguars were lost.  It creates a national perception that the city tried to become major league and failed at it, even without considering a bizarre number of sportswriters who seemingly have been waiting to do an end-zone dance on the corpse of Jacksonville as a pro sports city since the day they won the expansion derby.  That has ramifications that go far beyond sports.  It will become the single biggest thing Jacksonville is known for nationally.  It will foster a perception that Jacksonville is no longer a growing market and a good place to live and work.  It will substantially damage the city's collective psyche and very likely drive a number of people to live elsewhere.

Oh, and good luck finding another Wayne Weaver to fund arts and cultural and historical institutions in the city to the extent that he has.

Regardless of whether you care about football at all, rooting for the Jaguars to move, or being apathetic about the idea, on the grounds that it wouldn't hurt the city or would actually benefit the city (there's a certain element that seem to think the Jaguars' existence somehow holds back education or arts funding), is senseless.

[copperfiend]

How can somebody pretend there is no economic impact when we have a 53 man roster (not including practice squad, players on IR, coaches, training staff) with yearly salaries of 500k+. Most every player lives in Jacksonville year round as well and quite a few remain in town after retirement. That is a lot of money going back into the community.

[Wacca Pilatka]

How can somebody pretend there is no economic impact when we have a 53 man roster (not including practice squad, players on IR, coaches, training staff) with yearly salaries of 500k+. Most every players lives in Jacksonville year round as well and quite a few remain in town after retirement. That is a lot of money going back into the community.

And many of those retired players/coaches have been both vocal in their advocacy of Jacksonville and charitably inclined within the community.