Quote:There were zero blackouts because
a) there were some clubs like Oakland that reduced stadium seating capacity;
B) clubs would often purchase unsold seats
Many teams wrestle with ways to avoid the blackouts. There are only a certain number of teams that can boast a string of sellouts consistently, and aside from Green Bay, they're all big market teams. The funny thing is that many of those big market franchises play in smaller venues than the Jaguars, so they have larger pool of fans to work with, and less inventory to move. And still, there are bigger market teams that don't sell as many tickets as the Jaguars do on a regular basis. Jacksonville and the surrounding area have really had to overachieve.
Finding ways to avoid blackouts wasn't behavior that was exclusive to Jacksonville, but you'd never know that listening to the media.
How do you think Miami has been able to achieve the lack of blackouts? Anyone who has watched a Dolphins home game knows that their attendance at home games is pretty lackluster. Same with Tampa. But, the Jaguars are the team that gets hammered. Or at least they used to. Why? Because the team didn't do a good enough job of reaching out to the business community to take care of buying up those remaining seats. That has changed under Khan's leadership.
You never hear anyone talking about the entire upper deck of that dump in Oakland being covered in tarps to reduce capacity.
When Indy built their new stadium, they made it smaller than their previously small venue in order to anticipate a drop in ticket sales when the team started to struggle again.
During their down years, Carolina was struggling to bring in more than 15-20k for some of their games, but they still claimed a sellout because they had the PSLs that assured people were on the hook to buy their tickets no matter what. Fans just stopped coming to games.
The tacks have a similar PSL situation, but look at the number of empty seats they have there for home games of late.
The Rams are another team that has had so much trouble selling tickets that it's the impetus behind potentially NOT getting a new stadium and ultimately relocating.
Here in Jacksonville, considering the level of production we've seen from the Jaguars, particularly over the past 5 years or so, I'd have to say that the fans here have stepped up and done their job, continuing to grow the season ticket basebdespite the team struggling.