Saturday, July 19, 2008
Cat scratch fever: Jags' success registering gradually
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Paul Kuharsky
ESPN.com
Jacksonville Jaguars fans have renewed their season-ticket orders at greater than a 90-percent rate. But the Jaguars still face plenty of challenges of winning the market, even as they sport a winning product on the field.
Nearly 10,000 seats at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium won't see how a season filled with high expectations unfolds this fall. They'll remain in the dark, covered with tarps, a symbol to many of the city's failure to support the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But team officials, the chamber of commerce and fans say the tarped seats are misperceived and the only evidence they offer is that the building is too big for the city.
Many experts think the Jaguars could end the Indianapolis Colts' five-year run as AFC South champs and earn at least one game at home in the playoffs. Coming off the Jaguars' somewhat surprising 11-5 season and an upset in Pittsburgh in the first round, the buzz in northeast Florida is the best it has been since 1999, when the team advanced to its second AFC Championship Game and finished with just three losses.
The Jaguars entered the league as an expansion team for the 1995 season and have been a success story, football-wise, with a 113-95 record, seven winning seasons and six playoff appearances. (Jacksonville's expansion brother, Carolina, is 97-111 all time but has appeared in a Super Bowl.) Still, in the Jaguars' 13th season last year, they failed to fill the stadium three times, accounting for three of the 10 local television blackouts in 256 regular-season NFL games.
Although owner Wayne Weaver recently shot down a report out of Philadelphia that he was trying to sell the team to billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos, who likely would move it, hopes in the sprawling city of Jacksonville are that all the games will be broadcast locally.
The season-ticket renewal rate is at least 91 percent, according to Tim Connolly, the Jaguars' senior vice president for business development, who called it "the highest in a long time."
The Jags need to sell roughly 3,000 more tickets per home game to get to the 54,000 that assures no blackouts. The rest of the 67,164-seat capacity is made up of premium spots -- clubs and suites that don't factor into the NFL's blackout equation.
"The market has responded to the team performance," an upbeat Connolly said. "… I think the quarterback change was a lightning rod for positive feelings. You never want to blame one game or one player or one instant, but certainly over time, [Byron] Leftwich was not as popular of a player as was [David] Garrard. The fans here have responded.
"I'm confident that the market will be there; it's just the nature of our beast."
QB David Garrard's (9) heroics in the AFC playoffs at Pittsburgh last season helped inspire great turnout of Jags' fans at the box office for this season.
According to Connolly, small-market Jacksonville has several issues that make ticket sales challenging:
• Though Connolly said the city is growing by 30,000 people a year, Nielsen Media Research says the city has just 650,000 television sets. Connolly says that to fill the stadium, the team feels it has an incredibly difficult calling.
• The average household income of the people the team is chasing is about $88,000 per year. Households in comparable cities such as Kansas City, Nashville, Buffalo and Indianapolis average about $125,000 annually, according to a league survey Connolly cited.
• In an area where many people tend to buy their tickets late, the team is unwilling to let a corporation act as a patron saint by purchasing 1,200 or 1,500 tickets as the blackout deadline nears. Although Connolly said there have been offers, Jacksonville is hardly loaded with big businesses. It boasts the headquarters of just four Fortune 500 companies, none ranked higher than 261st.
• The team's average season-ticket account has just three seats, meaning the Jaguars have far more accounts than many teams, Connolly said.
• Reports that the team could be sold and move to Los Angeles surface occasionally, though Weaver has worked hard to quash them quickly.
"It's just a matter of demographics in our market," Connolly said. "People joke, 'We're not very big, but we're slow. There are not very many of us, but we're not very rich.'"
Bill Sutton, the associate department head of sports business at the University of Central Florida and a consultant who was a marketing vice president for the NBA for seven years, points to other concerns.
In the 2004 season, The Florida Times-Union reported that Weaver laid off at least 10 front-office employees and that when the senior vice president of sales and marketing, Dan Connell, resigned, he was not replaced.
Then the tarps arrived in 2005.
"When you put tarps over seats, you're kind of advertising to the NFL and the world: 'We can't sell tickets,'" Sutton said. "It's an embarrassment. … The NFL is America's pastime. If you can't sell the NFL out, it's not the people, it's you …
"I consider them underperforming off the field. I just don't know what their objectives are. If I'm a corporate sponsor, you've got to deliver a stadium full of eyeballs. If I have to wait every week to see if you're on TV, that's very disappointing to me."
In 2007, the stadium naming rights deal with Alltel expired. Macky Weaver, the team's executive director of corporate sponsorship, said that complex agreement combined naming rights with other sponsorship and was worth more to the team than the $620,000 annual figure that has been reported. The team and the city are close to a new agreement that will make dividing naming rights revenue more straightforward, he said. The implications of a 10- or 20-year deal mean the team won't rush to find its next partner, though he said he's had some significant conversations.
Sports marketing expert David Carter, the founder of the Sports Business Group and a professor at USC, said he doesn't consider the Jaguars' answers excuses, just small-market realities that are a big issue dividing some owners.
"In a market that is more fan-driven than corporate-driven, winning is going to be at a higher premium in order to maintain interest," said Carter, who also works for real estate billionaire Ed Roski, who has a plan to build an $800 million stadium in Los Angeles in hopes of luring an NFL franchise.
The three Jacksonville blackouts in 2008 resulted from a total of 5,500 unsold seats in a building that was expanded up to 78,125-seat capacity for Super Bowl XXXIX in February 2005.
Connolly said that with roughly 3,000 seats per game unsold entering this season, prospects for sellouts look good. The team hasn't even put partial packages or single-game tickets on sale yet.
Although players such as Garrard, running back Maurice Jones-Drew and cornerback Rashean Mathis have matured, the market is still working on it, said Jerry Mallot, executive vice president of Cornerstone, the economic development program connected to the Jacksonville chamber of commerce.
"I think the fact we built one of the largest stadiums in the NFL in one of the smallest markets is reflective of why we haven't filled the stadium or why we've covered up seats," he said. "We're learning how to support a major league team here. It's still been only a little over 10 years. But the fans are rabid here."
Rory Gregg, 30, is a lifelong Jacksonville resident and a $500 season-ticket holder in the north end zone.
He said a lot of football fanatics he knows still invest their time and money in college games, and don't want to overextend.
But Gregg sees big things coming for a team he expects to return to the playoffs.
"We are a football town, and people are on a pretty good high with this team right now," he said. "The hype now and the potential is equal or higher than in 1999 … at an all-time high. We've been pretty spoiled as fans. Look at our short history and we've been to the playoffs six times and the AFC championship twice.
"People have gotten that taste, and that's the level they've grown to expect. Other franchises have fans that have worn bags on their heads for years."
Connolly feels certain his team is about to provide him the best marketing tool there is: a window of Super Bowl possibilities.
Whether enough fans and businesses will join the ride and stick with the Jaguars remains to be seen, and the team's long-term health remains a question. In the short term: covered seats, yes; bags on fans' heads, no.
Paul Kuharsky covers the NFL for ESPN.com.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=kuharsky_paul&id=3494131
He seems to be neutral on Jax to a degree. they just need to get all facts considered correct.
QuoteThe three Jacksonville blackouts in 2008 resulted from a total of 5,500 unsold seats in a building that was expanded up to 78,125-seat capacity for Super Bowl XXXIX in February 2005.
I think this was a big mistake to expand to that capacity. Joe Robbie Stadium (yes, it will always be known that by me) has a football seating capacity of only 76,500, and it gets the Super Bowl fairly regularly.
As much as I like to watch the games from the a/c cooled goodness of a sportsbar or my own home, articles like this are slowly nudging me to buy tickets in support. I'm not exactly a rabid football fan so it does feel like the Jags are shoved down your throat if you're a regular non-football crazed citizen, but the NFL has done alot for the city so it almost feels like a civic-duty to attend the games.
It IS a way to show the rest of America civic pride in Jax... There is a poll on one of the other threads about our inferiority complex. A winning team in a beautiful full stadium with the Goodyear Blimp providing aerial views is worth millions...
I think the article was pretty fair, the only part I take issue with is the fact that blackout translates to empty seats, which isnt the case. Blackout means the stadium wasnt sold out by 1pm on thursday, come gameday it was full every time and the atmosphere was great.
David my wife and I bought season tickets last year and loved every minute of it.
I thought this was the most fair, national article I've ever read on the situation. I think this guy hit it right on the head.
The only exception was the comment about the adding seats for the super bowl - no permanent, general bowl seats were added for the super bowl. In fact, seats were actually physically removed.
Question are the Jags the only team in the NFL that has games blacked out or is it because we had a winning record and games were blacked out. I think they did the right thing by covering those extra seats. They always seem to fail to mention that the Jags are still a young franchise compared to the rest of the NFL. The Fan base is getting there. I think it takes time to get those die hard fans like the Steelers have and not to mention a few Super Bowl rings. I wish these people who always have something to say go find a hobby and let Jax and the Jags alone.
Most fair article I've seen in a long time from a national media outlet. When Mr. Weaver decided to cover 10,000 seats it was a great move, although a risky one. We are still having to overcome the negative pub that came from this. The bottom line, and a fact that everyone seems to ignore is that while our market is relately small for NFL standards, our stadium is huge. Without the "tarps" the general bowl is larger than Chicago, Indianapolis. Philadelphia, Detroit and several others. The size of the stadium is more about Florida/Georgia than Jags/Bills.
The Jags annouced split season ticket options today that should be very popular. I have always said that we are extremely lucky to have the Jags, they are great for our city (if you care about football or not)
Some good POINTS Jaxmortgageguy.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on July 21, 2008, 11:01:21 AM
Coming off the Jaguars' somewhat surprising 11-5 season and an upset in Pittsburgh in the first round, the buzz in northeast Florida is the best it has been since 1999
Not true. Jags were favored by 6 points. It was no upset. R-burger was hurt or coming off an injury....It didn't snow as bad as it did for the regular season. Jags play very well in the snow ask Greenbay, Chicago & Buffalo. Anytime you beat the Steelers or Cowboys the media always wants to call it an upset.
It was an upset in that the Steelers have never been beaten at home by the same team twice in one season. I'm proud that the Jags have that to place on the mantle.
Keith, Just about every team in the league suffers a blackout at least once in a season. I'm not sure if there are other teams suffer more than Jax though. I know Tampa, NO, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, and others have had a few in a season.
St. Louis had almost every game blacked out. Jacksonville always out preforms it's market size which is really something in the south where most pro teams in most sports under preform for their market. We should keep in mind that our market size is mark against us but the team is supported here.
Quote from: JeffreyS on July 22, 2008, 11:14:38 AM
St. Louis had almost every game blacked out. Jacksonville always out preforms it's market size which is really something in the south where most pro teams in most sports under preform for their market. We should keep in mind that our market size is mark against us but the team is supported here.
The Rams had games blacked out the year they won the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure if it's due to the short window, but the year the Bills hosted a PLAYOFF game in Buffalo against the Jags (reaching way back, here) - it was blacked out. The Dolphins blacked out their home playoff stand in 2000; Last season, both the Bucs & the Chargers needed corporate help to get the first round on TV locally.......Preseason games are one thing, but playoffs?
This used to be a funny site: http://www.wethefans.com/turndalightson12.html
Quote from: Keith-N-Jax on July 21, 2008, 07:58:30 PM
Question are the Jags the only team in the NFL that has games blacked out or is it because we had a winning record and games were blacked out. I think they did the right thing by covering those extra seats. They always seem to fail to mention that the Jags are still a young franchise compared to the rest of the NFL. The Fan base is getting there. I think it takes time to get those die hard fans like the Steelers have and not to mention a few Super Bowl rings. I wish these people who always have something to say go find a hobby and let Jax and the Jags alone.
The Jaguars and the Rams both had three blacked out - tied for the most in the league. However, the Jaguars were the only team to have a winning record AND blackouts.
Regarding the first week of the playoffs: I saw that as well. However, there were some other issues with those games - Both of those teams only had a four day turnaround to sell tickets, since their seeds were not set until the last weekend of the season, and playoff tickets are significantly more expensive than normal tickets.
The other aspect is that with LA being vacant, any time there is a smaller market team with issues, they are going to bring it up. There are really only a couple of teams that are really candidates to move (the other cities are Buffalo, Minnesota, San Diego, and Oakland). All four of which have some stadium issues, but frankly I think Minnesota would be the only real candidate, since if Buffalo moved it would probably be Toronto, and San Diego and Oakland wouldn't increase California's team count (something that others have thought of as a negative).
One thing that is interesting is that it doesn't seem to be as much of a priority with Roger Goodell as it seemed to be with Paul Tagliabue. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it just not being pushed as hard.