Jacksonville temporarily pulling out of bidding for college football's national

[mtraininjax]

Due to escalating costs of hosting college football's national championship game and wanting to take advantage of an improved downtown riverfront when the Shipyards development is complete, Jacksonville has decided not to bid for the 2018-20 College Football Playoff but intends to pursue future title games.

http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/2015-05-13/story/jacksonville-temporarily-pulling-out-bidding-college-footballs

More good news for downtown, Ugh!

[Tacachale]

SIGH.

[InnerCityPressure]

We gotta ride the wave of the $60 million scoreboards.  They're gonna be old news and outdone by the next time bidding comes around :/

[vicupstate]

picking up the tab for team expenses and needing 300,000 square feet of convention space for the game's Fan Fest remained a big hurdle.

The real reason.

They had to know going in that nothing too significant is going to be ready at the Shipyards by 2018.

[I-10east]

It's not the end of the world. I'm okay with putting this bid off. After all, we want to be squared away (esp with the Shipyards) when something of this caliber comes to town. We'll still have plenty of other sporting events at Everbank Field in the future.

[RattlerGator]

picking up the tab for team expenses and needing 300,000 square feet of convention space for the game's Fan Fest remained a big hurdle.

The real reason.

They had to know going in that nothing too significant is going to be ready at the Shipyards by 2018.

Agreed. But this does give us a baseline for what will be needed, and what we can expect to be included, in the early stages of The Shipyards construction. If the initial work doesn't address this kind of convention space, we're off to a very bad start.

[PeeJayEss]

Don't most cities lose a bunch of money on these things?

[Dapperdan]

Don't most cities lose a bunch of money on these things?

Most likely. National Hotels, temp vendors, and such seem to make all the money. The city has to foot a massive security bill and host numerous parties and such. I am for this as well.

[pierre]

Is anybody surprised? It was a long shot.

[thelakelander]

picking up the tab for team expenses and needing 300,000 square feet of convention space for the game's Fan Fest remained a big hurdle.

The real reason.

They had to know going in that nothing too significant is going to be ready at the Shipyards by 2018.

Agreed. But this does give us a baseline for what will be needed, and what we can expect to be included, in the early stages of The Shipyards construction. If the initial work doesn't address this kind of convention space, we're off to a very bad start.

We still don't have a plan for convention space. I doubt a 300,000 square foot convention center will fit efficiently on the shipyards site. Besides, that's not a part of Khan's plan anyway.

Not bidding is no loss on our part. We didn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell of winning anyway. They made the right decision in not wasting time and resources now and hoping our DT environment would improve by the time another opportunity presents itself.

[Coolyfett]

Lol not surprised...

[Keith-N-Jax]

They made the right decision.

[I-10east]

Lol not surprised...

Yeah 'LOL' is the first thing that comes to my mind....

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Did Mark Long phone this one in to the TU?

I guess I'm out of the loop, because I wasn't aware that we have been seriously bidding on it to begin with.  What's there to pull out of?

[mtraininjax]

We didn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell of winning anyway.

That's the winning spirit we love to see and hear about our great city!