Quote:So let me get this straight?

 

Indy didn't consistently fill the RCA dome until well into the Peyton Manning era, after getting the team in 1984, and it's justified by saying it takes time to build a fanbase, yet Jacksonville got a team in 1995, didn't consistently fill the stadium, and we're automatically among the worst fanbases in football, even though our crowds in the first 3-4 years of existence were larger than anything gIndy has cobbled together even in the height of the Manning era?

 

I guess 20 years in Indy is somehow > 20 years in Jacksonville, eh?

 

As far as the sport being nonexistent to a city...what were there no televisions in Indy, or did none of them get channels showing NFL football?

 

What, when the Super Bowl was being broadcast to the world, Indy was getting a 3 Stooges marathon?

 

They still can't sell out a loser. Until they drafted Luck they were having serious issues with season ticket renewals, and they didn't sell out the 2012 season through season tickets from what I recall. It's still a fair weather town that will only support a winner. If Luck takes a left turn or has a career ending injury and they're a 4-6 win team for the next few years they won't be selling games out and they'll be the next Tampa Bay, a "GREAT FOOTBALL TOWN!" with a season ticket waiting list that suddenly evaporates.

 

That said the NFL seems greatly interested in keeping a team there for some reason because they've continually bent over backwards to make sure Indy doesn't have a down year. In the late aughts when they were about to run up against the cap HARD the NFL raised the cap significantly to make sure they wouldn't go through what the Jaguars went through.

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