(06-07-2023, 09:37 PM)Eric1 Wrote: https://twitter.com/JStCyrTV/status/1666612203405885442

He says the price tag for playing games in downtown Jacksonville during construction is two more years of construction time and $190 million more dollars.  That's to preserve two years worth of NFL games.
Preseason doesn't count, 7 games one year and 8 games the next gives 15 games if no home playoff games. Be super optimistic and say 18 games. Then you have two FL GA games and 2 gator bowls.  Assuming each NFL game brings in 10,000 out of town visitors and each CFL game brings in 70,000 out of town visitors, that's over $400 per visiting butt in seat.  That sounds like a horrendous investment for the city to make.  The visitors will not spend that much money when they visit. 

Another way to look at the number is it changes their ask from the city from $800 million to $1 billion.  A 25% increase.  Not exactly marginal.

Consider the alternatives.  He mentioned building a temporary stadium somewhere else in Jax.  He mentioned a cost of $125 million to do that.  That's inaccurate.  Look at where the Chargers played for 3 years after they left San Diego.  Three years! The place didn't even have 30,000 seats!  The UNF soccer stadium is concrete and has 12,000 seats.  It would cost less than $50 million to get it up to 40 to 50,000 seats with temporary prefab steel structures. And if UNF decided they wanted to leave it in place afterwards, no demolition cost. There's a small chance those stadium upgrades bring the Jacksonville Armada back as a USLC team.  That's probably not enough to keep FL GA but it would be enough to keep the gator bowl.  The reduced budget divided by the reduced return on investment would work out to about $200 per visiting butt in seat.  That's still high-ish, but low enough that you start to factor in the intangible spiritual and reputational value of a home playoff game actually being in Duval County rather than Gainesville or Orlando.

Then ask would it really be that bad to move the games? The city would never actually do this, but suppose they wanted to charter buses for each game.  60,000 fans in buses that hold 56 passengers each, rented and used 18 times at a cost of $1500 per bus per day works put to $30 million.  That's ridiculous of course because Florida does not have 1,100 spare charter buses sitting around, but I thought it would help put that high number into context.

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