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

You pose all excellent points, as opposed to other posters who simply scream "Jacksonville sucks," and believe that's the only reason they need to urge a move to LA.

I have a questions from the LA end: After losing two LA teams in the mid-1990s, the NFL has had numerous chances to put a franchise there since then. Instead, they went to Charlotte, Jacksonville, Nashville, Cleveland again, Baltimore and St. Louis, either by expansion or moves. If the NFL thought LA deserved another team, wouldn't they have done it by now?

 

From what I could gather at the time, the expansion that resulted in the Houston Texans was pretty much set up to give a team to Los Angeles. All L.A. had to do was show up. But they couldn't get a cohesive plan together while Bob McNair showed up with everything in place.

Coincidentally, before moving to Nashville, one city Bud Adams used to try to leverage the Oilers a better stadium was Jacksonville.

 

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

No one in L.A. has lined the money up. It appears that might be changing.

Fortunately for Jacksonville, Wayne Weaver did line up the money during the early 90s expansion.

Unfortunately for the league and for general interest overall, Jacksonville has done little to put its stamp on the league, its in a small market and nothing will be lost by its move should it happen.

Nothing will be lost if they stay either, to be fair.

But anyone with a functioning synapse in their brain knows L.A. > Jacksonville.

 

And I've never once tried to compare cities. There is no comparison, although Jacksonville doesn't have earthquakes and mudslides and has had only one hurricane as high as a Category 1 hit it in recorded history. Jaguars fans also don't beat opposing fans into a coma like some Dodgers fans seem to enjoy doing. But L.A., I suppose, will get an NFL team when the city shows it cares.

 

The main function of the L.A. market for the last 15 years has been to extort taxpayers in other locales into funding new stadiums or massive renovations. It worked great in Seattle, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix, Houston, and probably three or four other places. But the stadium boom is done for the most part. I think they're still going to use L.A. to extort Minnesota into a new project, but after that, if the threat of L.A. hasn't worked yet it probably won't.

 

Blame the idiots who approve said tax-funded stadiums.

 

Running a successful (financially and artistically) NFL franchise in Jacksonville is and always will be relatively hard work due to market size. Not impossible by any means, just harder than doing so in LA. It's not criticism of Jacksonville as a place or its current ownership to say that, just common sense.

 

Los Angeles might be bankrupt in two years. That's a conversation Jacksonville hasn't had, in a hard-hit region.

 

The only reason the NFL is even considering LA now, other than someone finally getting around to building a stadium, is because it's clear it can't be used anymore to extort taxpayer money for a new stadium. In other words, LA can't raise the value of every team just by its very existence -- it actually has to have a team now.

The history of fan and corporate support in LA is not stellar. LA may have what Hubie Brown famously calls tremendous upside potential, but there is the strong possibility someone else's crap team will be blown off, at least after the first few years' novelty wears off.

Meanwhile, no other cities are available that will shell out big bucks for a stadium, so, say, if the Chargers move to LA, you'll have a hole there while the franchises that didn't move continue to struggle.

Hence, why the NFL is locking out players. I think the owners are finally getting a sense that the gravy train is over. Of course, they want to fuck over players well beyond what that slowing down of the gravy train may necessitate, but the glory days of easy, endless growth are gone.

 

Based on my experience covering the NFL, which I did full-time for five years and on the side for another eight, I think it is the worst NFL city by far.

I've covered games in each of the 32 cities and if I had to rank them 1-32, somebody has to finish last.

It's a NFL town where most of the fans care a lot more about the college teams that over an hour away. In how many other cities is that the case? In some years that might be the case in Atlanta. Even when the Saints were bad, they seemed to do pretty well.

It's my opinion that Jacksonville is the worst NFL city in the country. Based on who the NFL contacted about moving, some people seem to agree with me.

Of the five teams contacted about moving to LA, for three or four of them, the only reason they'd leave would be stadium issues. The other is the Jaguars. What does that say about the NFL's opinion of the Jaguars?

 

The main thing it says to me is that the people who travel the country on NFL- or media-related expense accounts don't particularly like Jacksonville as a dinner destination. This reminds me of all the bitching when the Super Bowl was there, you would have thought they were playing it in Kabul.

 

I thought Jacksonville did the best it could for the Super Bowl there. That said, people are going to complain endlessly about any venue where it's not 80 degrees and sunny during the first week in October. It will be pretty boring if the only SB venues are TB, Miami, Arizona and San Diego. The only exception to that is New Orleans, where everybody would be too drunk to care what the weather is.