Looks like the Jaguars are not alone in slumping ticket sales. Not a surprise in today's economic climate. This will likely be a leaguewide issue this year.
QuoteTV blackouts are likely to return
By Jay Posner
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
7:50 p.m. August 6, 2009
The “B†word is back at Chargers Park, and I don't mean Bolts.
Blackouts.
Five years ago they were as much a part of Chargers home games as the cannon, but then the team got good and people bought tickets and life was good for everyone (if you forget the part about the team not getting to the Super Bowl).
That all figures to change this year.
Blame the economy or high ticket prices or fans frustrated by that whole Super Bowl thing, but the Chargers have “thousands of tickets†remaining for every home game this season, according to Jim Steeg, the club's chief operating officer.
Steeg called it “unlikely†that either of the home exhibition games, a week from Saturday against Seattle or Sept. 4 against San Francisco, would be televised live in Southern California. Somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 tickets must be sold to lift the blackout for the Seahawks game; the number is “a little bit†higher for the 49ers game.
So forget those two (exhibitions are better off forgotten anyway). What really matters are the games that count, beginning Sept. 20 against Baltimore and Sept. 27 against Miami. Steeg wouldn't get specific about how many tickets are left for any of the regular-season games, but I'd bet it isn't that many fewer than for the exhibitions. Sure, there are requests from Chargers players and the visiting team that count toward lifting the blackout, but we're still talking thousands, not hundreds.
And, with nearly all those tickets carrying single-game prices of $74, $79 and $98 (season tickets are $8-$11 less per game in those price ranges), it's not exactly like taking the family to a movie.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/06/chargers-media-column-tv-blackouts94650/?chargers
QuoteLooks like the Jaguars are not alone in slumping ticket sales. Not a surprise in today's economic climate. This will likely be a leaguewide issue this year.
This may actually be good news for the Jags... They are likely to have a down year anyway... it is a good season to rebuild and not fill the stands. It can easily be blamed on the economy. When things begin to pick up hopefully the Jags will have a better product that is more enticing to ticket buyers...
I wish this would put some of the Jags to LA talk to rest as we aren't the only team with this issue, just the first to admit it.
One thing that will hopefully be different here is that the Chargers are having this problem after having a long history and a rather successful decade.
Here in Jax it is always said when those things come here there will be no more ticket problems.
The Jags to LA talk isn't going to be put to rest anytime soon because there is a large segment of the sports media that hates/looks down on Jacksonville. In the expansion race of 1993, they cast Jacksonville as the joke entry, and to avoid having egg on their collective faces when the city got a team, have ridiculed it ever since. The Jaguars' ticket problems get much, much more attention than other teams'. And while there is a legitimate sales shortfall this year after the many non-renewals, the Jaguars were putting an average of 65,000 fans in the stands in 2005-2008, yet you still heard/saw constant Jags to LA media stories, often using absurd inaccuracies like statements that the Jaguars had 20,000 empty seats per game. Then people start repeating the falsehoods as though they're facts. There's a disturbing number of people who think the Jaguars are bottom of the league in attendance when in fact they've been about 20th each of the last several years.
The tarps are often misintrepreted and ridiculed too, even though they were just a mechanism to reduce a monster-sized stadium to a reasonable NFL capacity. There's 67,164 seats even with the tarps and that's a bigger capacity than, among others, Heinz Field and the former Texas Stadium. If JMS were the size of Lucas Oil Field or the tin can where the Colts used to play, we wouldn't have had perpetual blackout talk (though this year will be a rough ride in terms of ticket sales).
Fortunately, Wayne Weaver has shown a steadfast commitment to Jacksonville, and the lease agreement would be difficult to break even if he weren't around, but why let facts get in the way of Michael Silver and Tony Kornheiser's LA idolatry and regional bigotry?
Quote from: Lucasjj on August 07, 2009, 02:41:18 PM
One thing that will hopefully be different here is that the Chargers are having this problem after having a long history and a rather successful decade.
Here in Jax it is always said when those things come here there will be no more ticket problems.
I think the relationship between the Chargers and the city/fan base is rather adversarial in some ways; there has been a lot of wrangling between team and city over building a new stadium and, I believe, open threats from the organization to move to Los Angeles. That probably depresses attendance to some degree.
Wacca Pilatka, I think I saw even with the tarps that the Jags have a bigger seating capacity than the Chicago Bears. Think about that.
Yes, that is true (though some would make the argument that Chicago has several other professional teams competing for the entertainment dollar).
If Jacksonville had built a 60-64k seat stadium we'd never have heard a peep about blackouts (though surely biased sportswriters would till take digs at the city anyway). Even in 2007 when there was an early-season attendance drop due to a lot of nonrenewals, I think the lowest attendance was 61,700 or so for the second home game against Atlanta.
But to attract Super Bowls, keep the FL-GA game, and keep the Gator Bowl in contention for more prominent status if a playoff system or more of a rotation of championship game locales ever happens in NCAA, the much larger stadium was necessary. And that in turn made the tarps necessary. Only a handful of markets--Washington, New York, Dallas, Denver--can move 75,000+ NFL tickets on a regular basis. Jacksonville did sell close to that for the first few years of the Jaguars' existence, which is extraordinary for this market size. But it was also accomplished with $13 upper deck tickets and a lot of bandwagon/curiosity factor short-term early fans. Now that the novelty has worn off, the task is to build on the hardcore fanbase so that we can continue to sell 65,000 regularly.
Tarps are a reflection of adjusting to a reasonable size for not only the Jacksonville market, but almost any market. They're not a reflection of fan disinterest. But that's how they're presented in the press.
The new stadium was built for the 17,500 (?) seats that were premium and the skyboxes. The old Gator Bowl only had skyboxes on one side, and no club seats. Remember those seats do not count in the blackout figures.
The problem is the size of our stadium. The NFL (greediest company on earth!) needs to go by seats SOLD rather than seats remaining. It's unfair that we're punished for the size of our stadium.
If we demolished 1/2 our stadium we'd probably never have a blackout, but we'd lose the college games.
Our capacity is 67,000 for jags games, 84,000 for super bowl/college games.
Compare that to a much larger football market (and new stadium) the colts play in: Max capacity is 70,000, or 63,000 for the colts games.
I love the seats sold idea.
If every bar in Jacksonville bought 4 season tickets, they could use those tickets as give aways to promote anything they want at their bar. Businesses here in Jacksonville need to step up to the plate. Go to any major city, and tons of seats are owned by local companies. You can give them to employees, take a client out, or just use them for promotion purposes. These companies will be quick to complain if the Jags ever do leave, but won't do anything about it now. Bars, restaurants, local businesses please step up to the plate and support the Jags and the City of Jacksonville. And Jaguars sales team, please get out there and sell these tickets, you are part of the problem too.
It seems like the Jaguars lost a major corporate presence when First Union was taken over by Wachovia.
I like the idea of local businesses stepping up. Many of them have gotten involved by helping out with the season ticket holder rewards programs, but it would probably be even cheaper for them to buy a couple tickets a piece.
This would even fall into Stephendare's niching idea. Bars like Mavericks attract people who watch Nascar and NFL and eat at Hooters. Promote Mavericks by providing football prizes, which will draw in more patrons, who will then go to Hooters before the game to add business to the Landing. The same thing could be done in reverse with Hooters giving away tickets and the fans going to Mavericks after the game...
Now all we need is a jort store or a Bass Pro to complete the cycle.
Jort store? Will Western World in Orange Park be good enough? And instead of Bass Pro, Gander Mtn?
Quote from: copperfiend on August 12, 2009, 12:04:54 PM
Jort store? Will Western World in Orange Park be good enough? And instead of Bass Pro, Gander Mtn?
Hey, watch it with the Western World talk, lol.
Gander is better that Bass Pro, hands down.