Caution: LA is coming to steal your NFL team in 2011

[Wacca Pilatka]

I still don't understand why an 18 game season would make it more likely that a game could be played in Orlando. When it is approved, the preseason will be shortened to two games. So right now you are buying seasons for 10 games, two preseason and eight regular season. The per game price is the same no matter what. When the 18 game season starts, you will still have season tickets for 10 games, but will be gaining a regular season game. If anything, that will help season ticket sales.

It might make it more likely that the preseason game is played in Orlando.  Gaining a regular season game ought to help season ticket and single-game sales but might make the single preseason home game a colder ticket.  I'm not sure how the half-pack concept would work in a scenario with 9 regular season games and 1 preseason game.  (Hopefully we will be solid out on a season ticket basis by that point and make the half pack issue moot.)

[copperfiend]

I don't see them moving the only home preseason game out of town.

[Coolyfett]

I think it could be a good thing to play a home game in Orlando every year, even if the stadium is sold out on a season-ticket basis.  I know the initial logic was the same as the Buffalo/Toronto logic, to reduce the local ticket-buying burden (especially if the regular season goes to 18), but expanding the Jaguars' footprint (pawprint?) is a more important consideration.  We have no reliable secondary market.  Metro Buffalo is smaller than Jacksonville but the Bills have secondary market support in Rochester, Syracuse, Erie, and Toronto.  Metro New Orleans is about the same size as Jacksonville, but the Saints draw from other markets in Louisiana and Mississippi.  Green Bay, of course, draws from Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin.  Nashville and Indianapolis do not have much bigger metros than Jacksonville but have become statewide draws.  Metro Denver in the 1970s was roughly the size of metro Jacksonville now, but the Broncos already had years of experience of reaching out to secondary markets throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

The massive early success of the Jaguars in just drawing locally may have precluded their making more extensive pushes to pull from secondary markets.  (I notice, for instance, the steady decline in size of the Jaguars' radio network from 1995 to now.)  Reaching out to Daytona and Orlando, or even Savannah and Charleston, should help take the pressure off Jacksonville over time to essentially support the team by itself--something no other small-market NFL city is called upon to do.  Obviously, there is competition from the Falcons to the north, from the Bucs and Dolphins to the south, but the Jaguars probably need to throw their hats into the ring in some of these potential secondary markets.

What about Brunwick, Waycross, Valdosta & Savannah...Jax could get those towns before Atl

[tufsu1]

well Brunswick and Waycross are already in the Jax. TV market....Valdosta goes with Tallahassee

[Keith-N-Jax]

How about the people who live right here in Jacksonville go to the games end of problem end of story. All our problems lay right here in Jax not on the out skirts of town.

[blizz01]

From CNNSI:
Rams' return to L.A. may have legs

Downtown L.A. has proven capable of supporting teams, and the next step may be add a stadium complex. L.A. lost two teams 16 years ago, and might begin anew with two teams again, including the Rams. Stan Kroenke owns the Rams, as well as Denver's basketball and hockey teams. He will have to sell his Denver interests unless he becomes owner of the Broncos. Broncos owner Pat Bowlen is having health issues. Someone has suggested it makes sense for Kroenke to exchange franchises with Bowlen, taking ownership of the Broncos and allowing Bowlen to move the Rams to L.A.

http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/247190-rams-return-to-la-may-have-legs?eref=fromSI

[David]

How about the people who live right here in Jacksonville go to the games end of problem end of story. All our problems lay right here in Jax not on the out skirts of town.

Some of the problems lie in Duval county but not all. If it were up to just us, that means 1 in every 12 residents would have to attend a game. (going off the 850,000 population ranking) 1 in 13 if you include the 2010 estimate.

We need the entire region's help to fill that stadium.

[St. Auggie]

Ok, we need 70,000 people of the 1.3 million people that live in jax metro to show up 8 times a year.  That is a staggeringly small number. 

[simms3]

That's 560,000 seats to fill.  Some of those seats are season ticket holders and some are single or double ticket buyers.  Either way, 560,000 is a large number in relation to 1.3 million.  The number of seats to fill would be even higher if we had a pro baseball team considering how many games they have.  I still think we can do it (Jaguars I mean).

[duvaldude08]

Somebody please kill this thread. 

[77danj7]

Oh my gosh...A write up about Los Angeles by Peter King on CNNSI and it doesn't mention the Jaguars.  I'm in shock.

"This is the best chance Los Angeles has to get a team in a long time.

Nothing's going to happen until after the owners and players get a new collective bargaining agreement, but once that happens, I expect, as I said on NBC last night, the league to get cracking on bringing one of the 32 teams to a new stadium adjacent to the Staples Center and LA Live complex in downtown Los Angeles.

All along, what's held the NFL back is either that the league didn't really want to be at the Coliseum -- and USC wasn't crazy about having the NFL there -- or the league didn't want to be in the endless 'burbs of southern California. But the backers of the new stadium, Casey Wasserman and Tim Leiweke, are well-connected guys who want to build the kind of retractable-roof events center that could be used to attract the 2022 World Cup final (or some future World Cup) and Final Fours, as well as an NFL team. Influential owners in the league are excited about the Los Angeles prospect ending a generation-long drought in the city, and these are owners who -- I can tell you with certainty -- have not been nearly as excited about any of the previous L.A. ventures.

As for the team to play there, the obvious candidates are San Diego (likely the favorite, unless a stadium gets built there, which appears increasingly unlikely) or Oakland. I'd say San Diego's more likely, but this thing has a couple of years to play out. "



Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/peter_king/11/14/monday-morning-qb-week-10/1.html#ixzz15MNMMfgA

[Coolyfett]

The Raiders belong in LA, but also belong in Oakland. The writer of this article seems pretty level headed. Not having a team in LA is not holding the league back lol. 3 more games for Jax, fill those games and its a peaceful offseason.

[blizz01]

Amid L.A. rumors, Chargers owner to sell share

Chargers minority stake for sale

SAN DIEGO( AP) -- San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos is looking to sell a minority stake to help with estate planning.

Attorney Mark Fabiani, who has led the Chargers' push for a new stadium since 2002, said Tuesday that the percentage to be sold will be determined by negotiations with a potential buyer. The 87-year-old Spanos and his wife, Faye, own 36 percent of the team. Their four children each own 15 percent. Two minority owners own the other 4 percent.

"To be clear, this is a sale of a minority stake only; the Spanos family will continue to hold a controlling majority stake in the team under all circumstances," Fabiani said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The sale was first reported by FanHouse.com.

Spanos, a billionaire developer who lives in Stockton, revealed two years ago that he suffers from dementia. His son, Dean, is president of the Chargers, the only NFL team in Southern California.

Fabiani said the sale of the minority share has nothing to do with efforts to get a new stadium built in San Diego. The team is currently exploring options to build a $750 million stadium east of Petco Park in downtown. The team could eventually seek hundreds of millions of dollars in public assistance.

The Chargers have long been rumored as a possible tenant if a new stadium is built in Los Angeles. The team began play in 1960 as the Los Angeles Chargers of the AFL. After attracting small crowds at the Coliseum, it moved to San Diego prior to the 1961 season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/nfl/11/16/chargers-sale.ap/index.html

Plenty of buzz right now:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/Wheels-in-Motion-For-Chargers-Move-To-LA-108697669.html

[fsujax]

nice to not even have Jacksonville mentioned!

[JaguarReign]

When will they realize the fact that LA is not an NFL city. You put a team there, it will be gone within 20 years. That is the history, why do any of these people think it will turn out any different. LA is a basketball and college football city.