Quote:Sure, the phrase relates to the fact that the stadium lease was to insure that Jacksonville would be provided two pre-season games, eight regular season games, and whatever home playoff games the Jaguars play each and every year of the lease.
By moving four regular season games to foreign soil, Khan has quite effectively bent the stadium lease - actually robbing Jacksonville of positive economic impact similar to what revenue the Florida-Georgia game and Gator Bowl game bring in.
The stadium scoreboard at a bombastic price demand coupled with the immediate declaration that London would be a great place for the Jaguars is a demoralizing way to probe the possibility simply moving the team without challenge.
The city of Jacksonville is in a fine position to counter by broaching the "put your money where your mouth is" lease extension part of it.
If Khan balks, we can expect him to turn to the court of public opinion. Remember from day one he lodged strategic racism allegations against us with the help of CBS NEWS 60 Minutes. That type of negative connotation puts us all in the aggressive posture and masks the amount of prejudice we face just for being the city of Jacksonville, Florida.
The lease may be bent but not broken. In addition to playing one game per year in London I am a strong advocate of playing one pre-seaon game per year in Orlando once the Citrus bowl completes it's $200 million renovation. It is vital we start making serious progress in the Orlando market. The London game does increase franchise profitablility which in turn solidifies our future in Jax. This in the short term is taking revenue from Jax but will be better for the city in the long term. The law of supply and demand also states that we will have less pressure selling out our home games as demand will be increased due to the overall decrease in gross tickets available which willl also be better for our franchise.
I do not see the price of the scoreboards as excessive with bed tax money being used that is already committed to the sports complex . Not to mention these upgrades will increase team revenue which in turn will create more revenue for the city . It will also draw more events to the stadium and help insure we do not lose the Florida/ Georgia game to cities like Orlando or Atlanta which will also help fill our coffers.
As for the new lease I absolutely agree. We need it to be as strong and nasty as possible. If we are going to pay for these upgrades we definitely deserve some peace of mind in return.
I also agree with your court of public opinion sentiment. Not so much on the racism aspect because that was pretty embarrassing and did not say a lot about our lack of cosmopolitan views. It is very strong however considering the black eye that was dealt to the NFL when the Browns and Colts abandoned their cities for supposed greener pastures which ultimately led to football returning to the communities.
