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Crap ... what's going to happen to that surge of NFL interest in Jacksonville?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Bubbler, Jun 10, 2011.

  1. ucacm

    ucacm Active Member

    I have spent a significant portion of my life in an area surrounding Memphis...and, after the two explanations offered, I still ask "Memphis?" I love Memphis. I've partied in Memphis. I've gone to NBA Playoff games in Memphis. I routinely tell people "Memphis is extremely underrated."

    Yet, I still ask, "Memphis?"

    I hope there are some native Memphians in this thread to tell me that Memphis is an NFL city. It doesn't seem anywhere close to a major league city, but I still love it and would live there.
     
  2. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Memphis averaged 30,000 in attendance in 1985 for the Memphis Showboats of the USFL. When the Birmingham Stallions played there, I think they had more than 50,000.

    Of course, having Reggie White terrorizing quarterbacks obviously helped put butts in the seats.
     
  3. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Wrong again, Sold out every game from 1995-2000, in a stadium too big for the metro area population (72,000-plus). Out-drew eight teams last year (Arizona, Chicago, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Detroit, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Oakland: http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance).

    You wouldn't mind actually coming up with some facts, would you?
     
  4. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Not self-esteem problems as much as doing what any medium-sized city would do: try to get a major league franchise. Why is making the attempt to get a team and promoting what you have construed as self-esteem problems? Does Orlando have self-esteem problems? Did Tampa before getting the NFL in 1976? Atlanta was a minor league sports city until the Falcons came in 1965 or 66.
    BTW: The Players Championship is the fifth-biggest tournament but it's the PGA Tour that promotes that more than Jacksonville itself. As it should because, it's the biggest tournament the Tour runs.
     
  5. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Jacksonville has a lot of space to host stuff. It has one of the largest land areas of any city in the country.

    This doesn't even count places like Fernandina or Amelia Island. (Surely those two places are shitholes also.)

    The haters would love it if they folded up shop, and an otherwise friendly, clean, civil community loses its big league meal ticket, but it's not happening.
     
  6. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    BYH to the white courtesy phone
     
  7. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Re: Crap ... what's going to happen to that surge of NFL interest in Jacksonvill

    If Kansas City, Indianapolis and Buffalo are "major league" cities then so is Memphis.
     
  8. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    Compare the average income and poverty rates of Memphis to most NFL markets and I think the discrepancy becomes clear.
     
  9. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    You're preaching to the choir about Memphis. As we used to say in Nashville, if you gave Memphis to Arkansas, you'd double to IQ of both states!
     
  10. bigbadeagle

    bigbadeagle Member

    I'm going to Amelia for 4th. Staying at my lawyer's condo. I'll tell you just what kind of shithole it is.
    The Bulls did OK in Jacksonville during the brief USFL tenure and the Jags made inroads with south Georgia folks and up into the lowcountry their first few years. What hurts is being so isolated from other Florida population hubs. Orlando's not far from Tampa/St. Pete; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are right on top of each other. Jacksonville is a bit of a haul from anywhere. The southeast corner of Georgia has grown in the last decade but maybe not to the extent to really boost the population areas.
     
  11. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    Ray Charles once played the Two Spot. Many good places to get your drink on, on the island.
     
  12. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    The desire to become an NFL city doesn't mean Memphis is an NFL city just as Los Angeles not having an NFL franchise doesn't mean it's not an NFL city.

    Or ask this: Before the Titans moved there, who saw Nashville as an NFL city? That move may well be one of the most out-of-nowhere moves in sports history. I don't recall Nashville had ever applied for a franchise in previous expansions and no other league, such as the AFL, WFL, USFL, etc., saw fit to put a team there. Yet the WFL, USFL, XFL and CFL all saw Memphis as an untapped pro football market.

    So, yes, Memphis was for many years considered an NFL expansion candidate if only for the fact that there were trying so damn hard. Then Nashville comes out of nowhere and Memphis is asked to babysit for two years. Now it can't even get a UFL team (not that it would want one).
     
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