Urban Sports: San Diego
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/images/UrbanSports-SanDiego/Skyline.jpg)
San Diego's PETCO Park opened in 2004, creating a tremendous economic impact on San Diego's Downtown Gaslamp district.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/679
I'm now moving to San Diego.
No matter how we think of Jacksonville, don't sell our city short. I think we are probably overdue for a MLB team.
Get a MLB team and I'll be the 1st to move back. I'll dump our hydrogen powered city buses, our new redline, the tree huggers and my apt. above burberry just to see my red sox play!
Quote from: jeh1980 on December 27, 2007, 02:12:06 AM
No matter how we think of Jacksonville, don't sell our city short. I think we are probably overdue for a MLB team.
im not a big baseball fan but i agree its something we should have
Let's raise taxes to build a new stadium for the Jacksonville Red Sox yeeaaa!!!!
I don't give a hoot about baseball, but my daughter is a nut for the game. Guess I'd learn to love it too but only if y'all agree to rename the team "The Jacksonville Red Caps" which was the historic name of the famous Negro league team that started here. I'd love to see them honored.
Ocklawaha
Red Caps sounds cool to me. Can we force them to take mass transit only to the games...the team that is....car pool mandate in the contract on game day at a minimum?
Quote from: Ocklawaha on December 28, 2007, 12:49:31 AM
I don't give a hoot about baseball, but my daughter is a nut for the game. Guess I'd learn to love it too but only if y'all agree to rename the team "The Jacksonville Red Caps" which was the historic name of the famous Negro league team that started here. I'd love to see them honored.
Ocklawaha
sounds like plan
I would love to see MLB in Jax too, but I think we need about 20 years of population growth until we can support such a franchise. We will see.
After the play-offs and the Super Bowl game, when the Jaguars are sitting as World Champs, and teams like New England, and Dallas are stunned, wondering what just ran over them... Every league in the nation will be knocking on our door... I could dig seeing...
NHL
NBA
AL or NL
It COULD happen! This is the year!
Ocklawaha
Don't hold your breath. We need to get a firm handle on supporting the Jags before thinking about the MLB, NBA and NHL.
Yeah, there are lots more of those games, and tickets aren't exactly cheap to major league anything. Let's support the local minor league hockey team, the Barracudas. (Is justdave still the Beer Man and Chuck-a-Puck guy?) And the Suns, when baseball season starts. If we don't support what we've got, there's no way we can "graduate" to a higher level.
I just don't agree...
Factor One: We put lots of folks in a stadium for Pro-Football, true we are a small market team (TV MARKET) but had we a stadium of say 50,000-55,000 like many MUCH LARGER markets, we'd be the sell out champs of the league. When the gloves come off the stadium CAN seat something like 80,000... great for College once or twice a year, but bad for pro sports.
Factor Two: Way too many of us "think small town." We fondly recall Par 3 Golf and Dizzyland, the Boardwalk, TADS restaurant, Petersons 5 and 10...etc... We just are not that little "ville" anymore. We have a team that pounds the likes of Pittsburgh, Denver, San Diego and Oakland into the grass, then turn on a dime and claim we just won't go to a game where our Hockey team plays the Farmville Fireants! The WHAT? No frickin wonder. I can spend my dollar to see the Jags play New England, or the Suns play Orlando, or the Cuda's play "Fireants", sorry guys even if I had all the sports money in the world, we are no longer in that league.
Factor Three: With a proper size baseball park and Arena, there is no reason why we can't put 10,000-30,000 folks in those places a couple times a week, with the likes of Magic, Islanders, Padres, Heat, Cubs etc... Beats the hell out of the 500 that show up for the Fireants.
Factor Four: We were the NUMBER ONE team in the USFL, and NSL in attendence. We put more folks in the bowl for pro soccer (a game most gringos don't even understand) then places like Los Angeles and New York.
Why? I think it's because it allowed us to play up to our size and flex a little muscle... Jacksonville Tea Men vs the New York Cosmos, sounds oh so much more like I'll go then some game against the "Biloxi Bigots", or "Macon Mayflys".
Historically Speaking: When you already have the Afrika Korps rolling across every City on the continent, it's better to allow the Vichy to waste their assets on the small fry.
Ocklawaha
The success of the Jags on the field has nothing to do with market size. Green Bay has been a powerhouse for decades, but that does not mean a city with 80,000 reisdents can support an MLB team. Metro Jax only has 1.3 million residents in a State already littered with pro franchises. Its not a knock against Jax, but our market is simply too small. If not, then it should be quite easy to find a market our size with multiple franchises.
San Diego is a great city. A friend of mine lives there, this being his second time to do so. The first time he lived there, he did so without owning a car, but was able to get around very easily because of the trolley system. He lived in El Cajon and worked for the Chargers up at the Q, and he said it was always easy to get around. There aren't too many places you can live comfortably without owning a vehicle and I'm not sure we could say Jacksonville will ever be one of those.
With regards to a pro baseball team, this will likely never happen without significant population growth. Baseball is the toughest sport for a small market to support for various reasons. First reason is that there are 81 home games, many during the week during the day, that are difficult for people to attend. The other is the fact that MLB has no salary cap and revenue sharing like the NFL and NBA does. This is why teams like NY Yankees, Boston, LA Dodgers, SF Giants field better teams, because they can always pay the most money. The two smallest markets in the MLB are Kansas City (1.83 million) and Cincinatti (2.1 million). These two places have had teams for many years and were much more prevalent in years past. Of your new expansion cities (teams since 1993), Denver is the smallest at 2.4 million, followed by Tampa at 2.7 million, then Phoenix at 4 million, and Miami/So. FLA at 5.46 million. We all know that the Devil Rays receive little support in Tampa, but the Rockies do well in Denver. This is do to the fact that Denver is clearly the biggest economic center of the region. The Rockies have zero competition in a multi-state area, so their games are shown in places like Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah. By contrast, the Devil Rays must compete with the Marlins and the Braves, not to mention the millions of transplants to the area who maintain allegiance to their original teams.
If Jacksonville were to attempt to acquire another professional team, it would clearly need to be the NBA. The smallest NBA market is Memphis at 1.27 million (smaller than Jax), followed by Charlotte at 1.58 million, and Indianapolis at 1.66 million. Again though, these markets have the advantage of having a substanial area outside of their metro to draw fans. Jacksonville does not have this option. San Antonio is the closest example to what Jax can do and they have a metro population of 1.9 million.
As far as what Jacksonville can do with what they have, they already have a leg up with Municipal Stadium and Veterans Arena downtown, with easy freeway access. The city should be trying to encourage development of bars and shopping right next to the stadium. This would have people in the area regardless of whether or not there is a game going on and would create a great gameday atmosphere as well.