Professional Soccer Returning to Jacksonville?

[danno]

One of the reason Blackbaud stadium has so much parking is that it is in the middle of and office park.  I've been tailgating there on a Wed afternoon at 2:00 for a US Open Cup match.  It was kind of funny the looks we were getting from people going to their cars after work while we were tailgating.  They have a great pub inside the stadium as well.

In Columbus they throw in extra seating on the stage portion for big matches.  Columbus is one of my favorite venues to see the US National team play in here.

[Adam W]

One of the reason Blackbaud stadium has so much parking is that it is in the middle of and office park.  I've been tailgating there on a Wed afternoon at 2:00 for a US Open Cup match.  It was kind of funny the looks we were getting from people going to their cars after work while we were tailgating.  They have a great pub inside the stadium as well.

In Columbus they throw in extra seating on the stage portion for big matches.  Columbus is one of my favorite venues to see the US National team play in here.

That explains a lot 

I was looking at some of the newer MLS soccer-specific stadiums online and some of them are very impressive. I'd like to see the new Houston stadium in person - it certainly looks the part on Wikipedia. It's great to see that the majority of MLS franchises now actually play in soccer-specific stadiums. That's a great leap forward for the league.

I think Jax would definitely benefit from having something downtown or near downtown (in the 'urban core') should the day come when a pro team decided to set up shop in the city. I think there are easily enough soccer fans in the area to support a minor league team, but the problem really is to get the support there week after week - regardless of how well the team does. It's a commitment that not everyone is up for. There's no question in my mind that Jax is a football town, but we have trouble getting people to go to Jaguars games. And I'm sure we have plenty of hockey fans, too, but we've lost a number of minor league hockey franchises over the years (I went to a couple of Barracudas games and really loved it - though I've never been much of a hockey fan).

I think Jax is a soccer town though. Maybe we just need to start small and build on it.

[Ocklawaha]

Sorry, Ock, but I didn't mean to imply that you did. I was just making a point of keeping a soccer-specific stadium clearly in focus.

I do, however, think you are overestimating the numbers for Tea Men attendance. We may have had a few games when we managed 15k in attendance (I know the opener was a BIG game in terms of turnout), but I used to go to games regularly and we were lucky to manage 5 - 10K:

Tea Men V New York Cosmos.

Here is why I think most of you are wrong on attendance at a major league Soccer event today.

When the Tea Men came to town the metropolitan population was 722,252

Metropolitan population today?  1,512,601

Difference?   790,349

68,097 people MORE then our entire population in 1980, equal to the entire population of Nassau County.

So between when the Tea Men played and today we have added ANOTHER ENTIRE CITY worth of people.

When the Tea Men took to the field, we packed in 17,128 at their first game, attendance waned later in the season, eventually dropping to around 10,000.  The second year with the entire league flagging in attendance we averaged
to be in last place with an average attendance of 7,160.

As the league stumbled to a stop, the Tea Men were taken into the minor league ASL. Without Lipton is was probably a suicidal move. Without the marketing dollars and the TV contracts the team was handicapped.

Application of simple math leads me to consider the numbers .99134% or 7,160 persons, the average attendance from throughout the metro area. Today the population increase means that if we attained .99134% of our population in attendance we'd hit 14,995.  Thus I'll stand by my guesstimate that we need a stadium seating around 15,000-20,000.

Though you might not know it from my discussions with I-1East, I'm the eternal optimist.

[Adam W]

Well, Ock, I do think you're being a bit optimistic, though I think a bit of optimism never really hurt anyone. 15-20k would be great. I think most of the MLS stadiums hover around the 20k capacity range (at least the newer ones do). But I don't see Jax pulling those kinds of numbers on average - especially given that places like Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, Toronto, etc averaged between 16k - 19k in 2012.

Of course, KC (apparently) averaged just over 19k, so nothing is outside the realm of possibility.

Even with the increase in population, I think it would be a tough sell to try and land an MLS franchise. I'd see Orlando as a better option. I think Jax could manage to hold on to a minor league soccer team and be quite successful at it if it was done correctly. I mean look - we have managed to keep the Suns (or Expos) forever.

That picture of the Tea Men and the Cosmos is crazy. I have no idea what is going on in it (I assume it's an NASL indoor match being played outside). The stands look pretty crowded, but that's probably because it was the Cosmos - they were the big team of the day. Depending on the year, they may even have been the League champions at the time.

[copperfiend]

Alan Verlander just tweeted that Mayor Brown will be making an announcement regarding soccer in Jacksonville at 1:15 today at Everbank Field.

[thelakelander]

He probably got the same email forwarded to us:

MAYOR BROWN TO MAKE MAJOR SPORTS ANNOUNCEMENT

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Dec. 11, 2012 â€" Mayor Alvin Brown will make a sports announcement for an event to be held in 2013.

WHEN:          Tuesday, December 11
                        1:30 p.m.

WHERE:        Terrace Suites
                        Everbank Field â€" 32202

[copperfiend]

I am pretty sure Verlander was directly involved with the event.

[thelakelander]

I just looked him up.  I'm sure he is directly involved.  For some reason, I didn't recognize the name when I first saw your post.

[fsquid]

maybe we got a qualifier?

[copperfiend]

The US Men's team has some World Cup qualifying matchups in 2013. Would be awesome if that is the announcements. US plays Panama in June and no venue named yet.

[fsquid]

as far as I know, there haven't been any venues announced for the qualifiers at home.

[copperfiend]

You're correct. I was reading the other day that KC is the favorite to land the first match, against Panama, in March.

[fsquid]

Mexico game will likely go up North too.

[copperfiend]

Probably. It would be great if Jacksonville could be part of that rotation for big soccer matches in this country. I think the turnout and atmosphere we had in May for the Scotland friendly both surprised and impressed alot of people.

[fsquid]

I'd rather have the big one time events than a team to be honest.  May was a blast.