Jaguars already planning Phase II for Lot J development

[thelakelander]

The reality is that Jax will never reach a point where Khan will stop milking the city dry. Jax will remain a smaller market in the NFL for the foreseeable future. I don't see an avenue where piecemealing subsidies won't continue. Whatever the profit is for them, there will always be a reason or excuse for more subsidies to increase it.

[Kerry]

The reality is that Jax will never reach a point where Khan will stop milking the city dry. Jax will remain a smaller market in the NFL for the foreseeable future. I don't see an avenue where piecemealing subsidies won't continue. Whatever the profit is for them, there will always be a reason or excuse for more subsidies to increase it.

It is the NFL business model.  Name an NFL city that isn't under constant pressure to fork over tax dollars.

[Peter Griffin]

The reality is that Jax will never reach a point where Khan will stop milking the city dry. Jax will remain a smaller market in the NFL for the foreseeable future. I don't see an avenue where piecemealing subsidies won't continue. Whatever the profit is for them, there will always be a reason or excuse for more subsidies to increase it.

It is the NFL business model.  Name an NFL city that isn't under constant pressure to fork over tax dollars.

Yeah, this is certainly not unique to Jax. Heck, look at the beer prices in the venues, the NFL gets everyone where they can.

Still fun to go to an occasional game, entertainment comes at a cost unless you wanna watch it at home, then it's cheap.

[heights unknown]

The reality is that Jax will never reach a point where Khan will stop milking the city dry. Jax will remain a smaller market in the NFL for the foreseeable future. I don't see an avenue where piecemealing subsidies won't continue. Whatever the profit is for them, there will always be a reason or excuse for more subsidies to increase it.

It is the NFL business model.  Name an NFL city that isn't under constant pressure to fork over tax dollars.

Yeah, this is certainly not unique to Jax. Heck, look at the beer prices in the venues, the NFL gets everyone where they can.

Still fun to go to an occasional game, entertainment comes at a cost unless you wanna watch it at home, then it's cheap.

Yeah, true, you can watch it at home for much much cheaper.......if it's not blacked out!

[jaxlongtimer]

Interesting take on the Jaguars and Shad Khan's constant itching for more taxpayer funds:

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20200206/nate-monroe-is-jacksonville-good-enough-for-shad-khan

Excerpt (emphasis added):

Looking at the creepy mega-yacht Shad Khan docks each year in downtown for several weeks — apparently no land-based residence here is worthy — it's hard not to dwell on Khan's oft-stated commitment to Jacksonville. He must know this: People here wonder about his plans for the future because he betrays so little interest in the place, except when he insults it for lacking "mojo" or a nice hotel, or when he's asking for money from local taxpayers.

It seems like Jacksonville just isn't going to be good enough.

What did Khan expect, exactly, when he purchased the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011 at a bargain — about $770 million? Today this profitable franchise is worth far more: North of $2 billion, according to Forbes' 2018 estimate. This stunning wealth — built upon money paid by local fans and, more critically, a mountain of tax revenue they have no choice but to provide — has apparently not slaked Khan's limitless thirst.

To thank Jacksonville for this generosity, to show fans how much he appreciates their dedication, Khan is slowly abandoning the city — a city upon which he is making increasing demands for massive public subsidies to prop up his development plans...

[thelakelander]

Jax will never be good enough for the Jags to become a top half revenue producing NFL team. This market is one of the smallest by far and the others aren't exactly shrinking as Jax grows. An expensive Landing and heavily subsidized stick frame apartment complex and hotel in the middle of a stadium parking lot isn't going to resolve Jax's insignificance on a national level. If people want an NFL franchise, expect to keep backing up the brinks truck. It is what it is.

[MusicMan]

Wow. That really summed it up Lake. Thank you!!

[Ken_FSU]

Interesting take on the Jaguars and Shad Khan's constant itching for more taxpayer funds:

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20200206/nate-monroe-is-jacksonville-good-enough-for-shad-khan

Nate Monroe has been a huge breath of fresh air for the Times-Union, but I've gotta say, this is a pretty one-sided piece that gets quite a bit of factual information incorrect while missing a lot of the nuance and economic reality associated with playing host to a professional sports franchise in 2020.

I feel like he's really hating the player (Shad Khan), rather than hating the game.

Column in quotes, thoughts outside:

Jaguars owner Shad Khan asks more and more from the city, and in return gives less and less.

Looking at the creepy mega-yacht Shad Khan docks each year in downtown for several weeks — apparently no land-based residence here is worthy — it's hard not to dwell on Khan's oft-stated commitment to Jacksonville. He must know this: People here wonder about his plans for the future because he betrays so little interest in the place, except when he insults it for lacking "mojo" or a nice hotel, or when he's asking for money from local taxpayers.

Billionaires live near their money. Shad Khan's primary business isn't the Jaguars, it's Flex-N-Gate. That's how made his billions, and continues to make his billions. Additionally, the guy has businesses all over the world, most recently the Black News channel, and is continously on the move. Who cares if he chooses to live on his yacht during his time in Jacksonville during the football season? Home ownership in the area is completely immaterial to whether or not he's committed to keeping the Jaguars in Jacksonville. What good did Art Modell's house in Cleveland do for the city when he moved the Browns to Baltimore?

Tony Khan, Mark Lamping, Kelly Flanagan, and the entirety of the team that Khan has surrounded himself with to run the franchise do have homes here in Jacksonville.

Shad Khan's communications and optics are often pretty bad, but Monroe is also selectively choosing to ignore all the complimentary things that Shad Khan has said, and continues to say, about the city, its potential, and our amazing fanbase (most recently, see his statement about the crowd at the final home game of the season against the Colts, and his committment to bringing a Super Bowl championship to Jacksonville). The hotel comment was in pretty poor taste (particularly when the sports complex is literally built off the back of local hoteliers and the bed-tax), but was Shad Khan wrong when he suggested 7 years ago that the city was lacking the "mojo" of other metropolitan areas and challenged Jacksonville to step it up?

It seems like Jacksonville just isn't going to be good enough.

What did Khan expect, exactly, when he purchased the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011 at a bargain — about $770 million? Today this profitable franchise is worth far more: North of $2 billion, according to Forbes' 2018 estimate. This stunning wealth — built upon money paid by local fans and, more critically, a mountain of tax revenue they have no choice but to provide — has apparently not slaked Khan's limitless thirst.

Again, I think this first paragraph is conflating Jacksonville's worth as a city with Jacksonville's challenges fitting in economically with the modern-day NFL landscape. We're a really small market, with a comparitively small corporate sponsor base, and a comparitively small national fanbase, and a whole lot of transplants. All of these things make it disproportionately difficult for Jacksonville to contribute their fair share to the league revenue share, and disproportionately difficult to keep up on local revenues (necessary to hit a continuously rising salary cap as new stadiums around the league come on line).

In terms of the rising value of the franchise, again, I think it's overly simplistic to say that the team's ballooned in value by a factor of three on the back of money paid by local fans. First, the primary reason that the franchise has tripled in value - and all sports franchies have risen significantly in value - is obviously the gigantic television deals that sports leagues are recieving as more and more consumers cut the cord and cable and streaming providers pay obscene amounts of money for live sports programming considered to be more DVR-proof than any other content in 2020. I strongly believe that NFL cities deserve a cut of the television pie for playing backdrop for the the league, but that's completely beside the point here.

When Nate talks about the Jags increasing in value because of the "mountain of tax revenue" that locals "have no choice but to provide," I also think he misses the point that nearly all of the stadium improvements put in place since Khan took ownership have been either privately funded ($20 million for the locker rooms, $32 million toward the video boards, $45 million toward the Daily's project by Khan) or funded through the bed tax, which isn't collected from locals, and is legally required to go toward the sports complex at this point.

To thank Jacksonville for this generosity, to show fans how much he appreciates their dedication, Khan is slowly abandoning the city — a city upon which he is making increasing demands for massive public subsidies to prop up his development plans.

Several years ago, Khan — whose company Flex-N-Gate is headquartered in Illinois, and who retains residences in Chicago and Naples, but owns no property to his name in Jacksonville — ripped away one home game from the city each year and moved it to London to make more money.

Once again, jumping to a lot of conclusions here to say that Khan is "slowly abandoning Jacksonville," while the franchise is in talks with the city literally every single day about partnering on $500 million in development anchored at the stadium and practically begging to begin negotiations to extend the least beyond 2029. It's fine to be opposed to Lot J, but Khan pushing to pump $250 million in private capital into Jacksonville adjacent to TIAA Bank Field is the antithesis of "abandoning the city."

And, again, yes, the Jags moved a home game to London to "make more money," but that statement deserves to be put in more economic context re: local revenues and the race to keep up in the NFL, rather than presented as if it's purely a greed play.

Khan announced this week the Jaguars will play two home games in London next season. He then ignorantly proclaimed he expected fans would have a positive reaction to this repudiation. They have revolted.

Terrible optics, agreed.

The explanation for this is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about "stabilizing" the franchise and meeting a contrived goal of moving the team out of the bottom quartile among teams in revenue — contrived because the team is profitable and the only person who cares about this would be, well, Khan.

31 other NFL owners locked into a revenue share with a small-market franchise would disagree with that last sentence.

Stabilizing the franchise isn't mumbo-jumbo.

We're not going to be good every year (at this rate, maybe every ten years). No team can be. In a market this size for a franchise this new, if the team shits the bed, we can't realistically fill a 65,000 seat stadium every Sunday like multi-generation teams in metropolitan areas of 5 million people.

The Jags are simply trying to build dependable, consistent revenue streams to stabilize their local revenues and weather ebbs and flows in the football business. It's fine to not want to publicly subsidize the efforts, but there's a purpose behind it beyond just grabbing for cash.

To be clear: Khan has overseen a dysfunctional organization, refused to hold key leaders accountable for this dysfunction, and, predictably, this negligence has bled onto the field one soul-sucking season after the next.

And yet the fans persist. They endure brutal, vomit-inducing North Florida heat to watch the Jaguars fumble hope away. To the cheapskates' credit, the Jaguars and stadium management company did change their policy last year to "permit" fans to bring one 16.9 ounce plastic bottle of water per game.

Agreed.

It is, of course, not one of those punishing hot games in the early part of the season that will be moved to London. The fans can keep those.

This is framed as if the Jags refuse to move the September games to London and can freely choose when the games take place. The NFL International Series - by mandate of the league and I believe availabiilty of Wembley - takes place in October. Every single year.

Speaking of water, so too flow public subsidies.

While he is pirating a second home game away to London, Khan is also asking City Hall to fork over more than $200 million — most of it in cash — to pay for a conceptual development by the stadium so his bottom line will get even fatter.

Everybody's revenues are getting fatter in the NFL, which is pushing the cost of staying competitive and keeping up in a small market even higher. Khan's investment might have appreciated in value if he were to sell it (which he isn't - he fought for over a decade to land an NFL team and Tony Khan has already been identified as his successor), but I'd guess that the operating profits for the Jags aren't even Top-5 in the city. It's very, very expensive to run a competitive NFL franchise in 2020. If we want to stay in the game - which again, is a conversation we need to have as a city - we need to realize that it's an expensive game to be in.

In a city that can't afford to remove failing septic tanks that leak nitrogen into prized waterways, where some neighborhoods rely on aging wells that can turn children's teeth orange, which still doesn't have paved roads in places they were promised decades ago — in this town, Khan expects taxpayers to provide about two years' worth of the municipal infrastructure budget so he can build a multi-story sports bar and some offices and condos.

Strawman argument here. It's not an either/or, at least not at this point. We don't know the funding mechanism yet. The only thing we've heard from City Council is that the bed tax might be leveraged to pay for some or all of the development, as will property tax abatements. If it is bed tax, that money cannot be used for septic tanks or paved roads. It has to stay in the sports complex or be used for other tourism-related expenditures. All the math needs to be carefully vetted, as the public contribution will likely come on the back of projections for incremental revenue that the Jags believe will be earned as a result of Lot J, but it's very, very premature to suggest that $200 million in cash is going to come straight from the city's CIP.

Also, it's apartments at Lot J, not condos. Always has been.

This sum doesn't capture the totality of the seizure of public resources to Khan's bank account. The city is also planning to take down a portion of the Hart Bridge's elevated ramps so that, perhaps one day, Khan can build a high rise or two on the riverfront — which is prone to flooding more and more each year as sea level rise continues.

Wait, how can Shad Khan build high rises on the riverfront one day while simultaneously slowly abandoning Jacksonville and wanting nothing to do with the city?

Also, again, we're conveniently leaving out the part where locals are only paying for $12.5 million of this project. Curry successfully lobbied the remaining two-thirds of the funding from the state and feds. The Shipyards have been barren for decades, and even if Khan left town tomorrow, this project might be the smartest demolition in downtown Jacksonville in decades (even if the execution, in typical Jax fashion, leaves a lot to be desired). It opens up 70 acres of neglected riverfront land for eventual development at half the public ask for demolishing a structurally sound Landing. This is a steal, and Curry should be commended in this case for securing the majority of funding from outside the city.

Simple accounting also doesn't include the fact that losing a second home game takes money away from Jacksonville, both the hospitality industry and City Hall — the loss of revenue makes it harder to pay off debt, like the debt the city still has outstanding on TIAA Bank Field.

Which is why, as the Jags have explicitly stated, they have taken it upon themselves to bring in large stadium events like the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Green Day to offset those losses. They have also partnered with the Gator Bowl to help bolster that event.

Mayor Lenny Curry, of course, is cowed. He issued a statement supportive of moving a second home game to London. The only thing worse than Khan's announcement itself was dreading the arrival of the legion Jaguars apologists. They didn't disappoint.

That is not the way it has to be. When the Tampa Bay Rays announced an interest in splitting their baseball season with Montreal last year, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman flatly rejected it. Must feel nice to have a strong mayor.

Apples and oranges on Kriseman. The reason Kriseman flatly rejected it was because the Rays had a binding clause in their lease at Tropicana Field that prohibited the franchise from playing home games outside of St. Pete through 2027. We have no such provision in our lease agreement with the Jaguars.

It's also a bit disingenous to say that Curry issued a statement supportive of the Jags moving a second home game to London. What he actually said was, "As a fan, you want as many home games as you can have, I'm a fan first, I think most people know that. They're an organization that is working off a balance sheet, making decisions based on the stability of the franchise, and they said all along that they're going to do things that stabilizes the franchise financially, so that it remains in Jacksonville. The things that they've done have demonstrated that to me."

Understanding of the business decision? Sure. Cowing and supportive? I'm not seeing it.

Yes, Khan does nice things for veterans and children: All NFL teams donate to charity.

He seems to have pulled back on the modest investments he made in Jacksonville unrelated to football or the stadium.*

Let me fix this:

*When the business he invested in failed to make a single payment on the loan for over two years. Khan still helped said business re-aquire the Barnett building, and without his cooperation, it would probably still be on the list for potential demolition.

Now, it looks like it's all about building things adjacent to the stadium, and not without the city as an equal financing partner, at minimum. This has not always worked out well.

The city provided $45 million for Khan to build the amphitheater and flex field — theoretically half the cost of this development. City Council members were shown a rendering of a stunning development that bears little resemblance to the hunk of metal and concrete that sits there today — and not in a good way. It's hard to believe those buildings cost anywhere near $90 million to construct.

First, they didn't cost $90 million, they cost $65 million.

$25 million from the project went into redoing the club suites.

Secondly, whether or not you like the eventual design (I happen to think Daily's Place in particular is pretty rad and significantly more intimate and practically integrated into the stadium than the weird single level amphitheater in that first rendering), and whether or not you like the lineup or artists (*coughBill*cough*), it's really hard to argue that Daily's Place hasn't been a huge net positive for Jacksonville.

A need for a venue that size has been identified since at least the 1990s, the Jags split the cost, it was funded through the bed tax, and it's already proven to be one of the most successful amphitheaters out there in terms of revenue.

And since the city owns the amphitheater, it generates no property taxes. Just like the future entertainment center Khan wants to build — the thing that has the highest likelihood of being built first.

Nothing a the sports complex in terms of venues generates property taxes. Why should the city-owned amphitheater be any different?

It would be a huge mistake for the City Council and mayor to sign off on the next round of massive subsidies without demanding a long, hard-to-break extension on the stadium lease, or some other legal guarantee the team must remain in Jacksonville — home games intact — for decades.

I've been saying this all along - 100% agree with Nate here. This is what we should be screaming from the rooftops. Lot J and stadium upgrades need to be collectively tied into a lease extension and home-game guarantee, rather than piecemealed with no assurances from the Jags in return. And the public deserves the right to vote on whether the agreed-upon cost and funding mechanisms are worth keeping the Jags here through 20XX.

Khan bought the team from the Weavers, a prominent and lionized Jacksonville family. And deservedly so. The day Khan announced the second home game taking place in London, the Weavers announced they were making a $3 million donation to Jacksonville's Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.

It's hokey to state this as a sentence, but this is bigger than Khan. Or, rather, it should be. It is Jacksonville that provides the team value — and an identity — and it is because of Jacksonville that the Jaguars are relevant. Not the other way around. The team makes money not because of Khan's business acumen but because there is a dedicated fan base here, and because it's incredibly difficult to lose money in a cartel-style league that splits a large pot of revenue, where franchises often do not pay property taxes like typical businesses and extract hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from municipalities.

Khan calls his yacht "Kismet," an unusual word that means fate, or destiny.

What does the future hold for Jacksonville and Khan? Unfortunately, it looks like an open question.

Again, love Nate, but I feel like he's saying on one hand that the team is valuable and relevant because of the local fanbase, but on the other hand he's saying that it's basically impossible for a team to not be valuable and successful because of the NFL monopoly machine.

Not hating, I just think we need to all take emotion out of the conversation for a second (an admittedly difficult thing to do), and try to come together on what needs to be a much bigger discussion.

The Jags need to be more sensitive to the local fanbase.

And the local fanbase needs to stop living in this mindset where Khan is actively trying to swindle the city before moving the Jags to London.

It's because of Shad Khan (and Wayne Weaver) that the Jags never bolted for Los Angeles.

And if he really wanted to move the franchise to London, he wouldn't be risking a lot of money and ponying up a lot of private capital on the sports complex to create permanent, stable revenue streams in Northeast Florida.

Public contributions towards Lot J, stadium upgrades, and the Shipyards, and what that means in turn for the stadium lease and Jacksonville's future as an NFL city needs to ultimately be a rational, publicly-debated business decision from the city, divorced from emotion, and fear, and anger, and resentment.

Fear of losing the franchise can easily result in a bum deal for the city, just like buying into the London-conspiracy and bitterly turning on Shad Khan can easily result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Wacca Pilatka]

One other factor in this situation that hasn't been brought up is that the Jaguars have consistently spent to the salary cap in the last several years under Khan.  Obviously the decision making and allocation of resources has been flawed, but the Jaguars haven't scrimped on spending money on the roster.

Wayne Weaver is a magnificent citizen philanthropist, but in his last several years as owner, the Jaguars spent well below the cap.  I'm sure he wouldn't have moved a game to London or sought city money for stadium and surrounding area improvements, but if the Jaguars' stadium situation now were identical to what it were in 2011, and their roster expenditures in the same proportion to the NFL average as they were in 2009-11, there'd be a lot more doubt about a sustainable future for them in Jacksonville.  (Before the Julius Thomas, Malik Jackson, Calais Campbell, etc. signings of 2015-17, there was overt talk on football websites that Jacksonville would never compete for the top free agents on the market because it wouldn't try, and there was genuine surprise when the Jaguars landed Thomas in 2015.  He obviously didn't work out, but was the first example of Jacksonville signing a highly sought-after free agent.)

It's been asked why Khan is pushing for London/Lot J when teams with similar or worse average attendance do not do anything comparable.  Some of those teams are about to move into opulent new stadia.  Some, as Ken said, are in large markets with generational fan bases.  Others like Cincinnati have a long-standing reputation for being content to spend as little as possible on the team. 

Of course the NFL obfuscates actual financial info, but I take Khan's references to "remaining competitive" as a sotto voce way of saying it's not going to remain possible to spend to the cap without finding new and creative ways to expand local revenue.  Someone asked on jaguars.com what's wrong with being in the bottom quartile of revenue when 8 teams always are going to be there; those teams, in general, tend to be the ones that don't invest as much in players.  Had Coughlin and co. not done such an inept job of managing the cap the last two years, the argument for the London arrangement and Lot J probably would be going down at least somewhat more smoothly.  I really see opinion on Lot J as having shifted dramatically because the 2018-19 seasons turned into debacles.

I don't mean this as a defense of the second London game or of the Lot J concept, or of Khan's at times shockingly tone-deaf approach.  I just think it's worth including in the overall view of the situation.

Ken's final line above summed it up nicely.  I don't want the city to make a Neville Chamberlain deal, but destructive self-fulfilling prophecies can easily happen when Jacksonville's long-standing self-doubt starts to become a perpetual motion machine, as very nearly happened in 2009 with the Los Angeles conspiracies.

[G.O.D.F.A.T.H.A.]

Khan should leave Lot J alone because there is a pond where a large flock of geese have been living way before he bought the team for cheap.  I tried to contact PETA about this but they don't want to help me take action to stop this guy from messing with nature and its habitat.  I hope the city stops this guy from destroying Lot J.

[Wacca Pilatka]

^ Matt, please elaborate, not because I'm disagreeing but because I'd like to know what specific CBA terms you find to have been dramatically more favorable to Khan than to Weaver. 

Agreed with you on your point about the 2021 CBA.

Incidentally, I do not mean any of my comments above as an insult to Weaver, who has been an extraordinary Jacksonville citizen.  I'd say that the Weavers' philanthropy since coming to town ranks as the leading tangible benefit of the Jaguars' presence in the city.

[jaxlongtimer]

I really see opinion on Lot J as having shifted dramatically because the 2018-19 seasons turned into debacles.

I would add that public opinion may also have shifted substantially after the JEA debacle and other recent unpopular and/or scandalous incidents (Downtown demolition derby, Hart Bridge ramps, denial of the School Board referendum, pension kick-the-can-down-the-road, underfunded services and infrastructure, parking garage fiasco, Kids Hope Alliance breakdown, etc.).

I think local taxpayers now have a much more heightened realization that our municipal leadership rarely acts, negotiates or allocates precious resources for the benefit of the greater community but more so for special interests and good friends of said leaders.  It's no secret that Khan falls into the special interest and friends category making any deal now with him subject to much more intense scrutiny and skepticism than before JEA, etc.

And, whether allocated from the bed tax or other City, State or Federal revenues, any dollars allocated to Khan are dollars not available for other investments in the community.  It is reasonable to ask why is Khan the default number 1 priority over all other options without any real vetting or discussion?

As Nate points out too, Khan and his team haven't exactly handled their PR, lately, very well.  Add that to their development partner, Mayor Curry, and you don't have a deep reservoir of good will at the moment.

[Wacca Pilatka]

^ Yes, I agree; all of those factors contributed to the shift in public opinion.  My statement was too myopically centered on the Jaguars' situation.

[Ken_FSU]

^ Yes, I agree; all of those factors contributed to the shift in public opinion.  My statement was too myopically centered on the Jaguars' situation.

JEA situation certainly didn't help, but I agree with your original sentiment that this would have been a much, much easier sell to the public two years ago when sentiment toward the Jags was at close to an all time high. It's a lot harder to come with your hand out after another awful, losing season that saw Foles go down in game one, Jalen traded, Yann not paid, Coughlin canned after the NFLPA stuff comes out, and Doug and Dave retained.

Even when Curry had the Mission Accomplished press conference announcing the preliminary agreement and the $230 million ask, the sentiment toward the project wasn't as bad as it has been these last few weeks.

Of all people, I think Sam Kouvaris actually had one of the more reasoned takes on the situation here:

https://www.jacksonville.com/sports/20200208/sam-kouvaris-jaguars-reassurances-cant-erase-sting-of-london-news

[marcuscnelson]

Khan should leave Lot J alone because there is a pond where a large flock of geese have been living way before he bought the team for cheap.  I tried to contact PETA about this but they don't want to help me take action to stop this guy from messing with nature and its habitat.  I hope the city stops this guy from destroying Lot J.

Dude. They're geese.