Quote:1)  Yes, you can certainly argue that media laziness drives much of the coverage.  But ESPN sure wasn't lazy when they offered their OTL special on the Jaguars' attendance woes.  Do I deny the Jaguars could have done better attendance wise during that time?  Absolutely not.  But if nobody cares about the Jaguars as you assert, and ambivalence/indifference does not drive ratings, which drives the content decisions media entities make, why run a 30 minute show on the Jaguars attendance, especially when, during the season the show was aired, the Jaguars were not last in attendance?

 

2)  Again, the Jaguars were not last in attendance in 2009.

 

http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2009

 

I reiterate I realize the Jaguars attendance was far below what the team is capable of drawing and should be drawing.  But I'm left to wonder if the team was not last in attendance, why single them out for derision for non support?  If there is an objective league standard for support, trash every team that fails to meet that standard, including-but not EXCLUSIVELY -the Jaguars.  I don't think that's too much to ask or being hypersensitive to require a supposedly impartial commissioner to do.

 

3)  For the record...for the umpteenth time...I do not require everything written or reported about the Jaguars to be "glowing" or "fawning."  Anyone who has read my posts over the years knows I haven't been that way when it has come to Gene Smith's picks, David Garrard's picks, the Jaguars' overall records, etc.  Just within the past few days, I've written about how atrocious the OL has been and have expressed concern about Joeckel.  But the articles in question promised coverage of three teams in yesterday's MMQB-Tennessee, Tampa and Jacksonville.  It delivered extensive coverage of Tennessee, gave two brief and marginally tangential blurbs about the Jaguars, and did not mention Tampa at all.  A Tampa fan-not a Jacksonville fan-gave similar objection to the oversight, and KING APOLOGIZED for it!  Now it's possible you think King's apology was disingenuous, patronizing or otherwise less than sincere.  But if he's capable of duplicity here, why isn't he capable of being biased, and why wouldn't that bias appear in his columns?  Perhaps it isn't about being hypersensitive.

 

4)  Insult is no substitute for logic.

 

Your attendance figures are pointless. 

 

The perception was out there that the fans weren't supporting this team, and when the prevailing view those outside of Jacksonville get is one of a half empty stadium, it perpetuates the stereotype.  5 years ago, the rumor mill was chalked full of reports that the team was for sale, and that there was a possibility based on the lack of attendance, and the blackouts that were occurring at the time, the city was in jeopardy of losing the franchise.  That stereotype and the stigma attached to it have only recently started to dissipate from the narrative in the national media.  That's my point about lazy journalism.  Once the perception was out there, the parrots took off and ran with it, and it took us years to shake it.  There are still those who think this team is a prime candidate for relocation, simply because they've never bothered to do a lick of research. 

 

The narrative that this team had a lack of fan support was a direct result of a string of blackouts, and half empty stadiums for home games.  It was completely justified because at the time, the fans weren't showing up.  They weren't buying tickets.  Toss in the overtures and subsequent denials at the time that the team was for sale, and it made sense that all of the relocation talk included Jacksonville. 

 

Was ESPN out of line for reporting on the ticket sales woes?  I don't think so.  And it was truly one of the only newsworthy things happening with this franchise at the time.  I was at those games, and it was ugly.  Why was this team singled out?  Because it plays in the smallest market in the league.  Ever since we hosted the Super Bowl, the media has in general had a bias against the city despite the fact that Jacksonville did a fantastic job in hosting the event.  If you talked to anyone in attendance who wasn't in the media, they loved the experience.  It was only the media that had issues with the smallest market in the league hosting a Super Bowl, and they allowed their disdain to taint their view of this city.  When the struggles started and blackouts piled up, this was just an easy target to take shots at us again.  I never took any of it personally.  I know every time a report would surface, there were the usual suspects who would pounce and complain about all the disrespect.  In the end, who cares? 

 

At the end of the day, all of that negative reporting about attendance that ESPN and other outlets did blew up in their face.  If they intended on getting a team plugged in out in Los Angeles, they failed.  It motivated the masses to wake up, get off their duffs, and start supporting the team no matter what.  As a result, we've seen a real change in fortunes here, and it's only gotten better since Khan took over as the owner. 

 

People get too wrapped up in negative stories about this team when they surface.  The fans in this town have some seriously thin skin, and they take this crap way too personally.  We're here.  We know exactly what's going on with this team.  We also know that negative reporting has zero negative impact on anything happening here.  You're more than welcome to feel slighted when a stinking column on one of SI's websites doesn't mention the Jaguars sufficiently to your liking.  I personally don't care. 

 

I'm sure King was completely sincere in his apology, and he probably lost a good nights sleep when he realized he'd shown such disrespect to Tampa.  We should demand an apology for not saying enough about the Jaguars.  That should heal all the wounds people have suffered over the indignities of being snubbed by the media, right?

 

It's not an insult to say our fan base is among the least secure in the entire NFL, and that they take things way too personally in the media.  Your thread here confirms that better than anything I could ever say. Fretting over stuff like this is just a silly waste of time. 

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