MVN - Most Valuable Network

Jaguars and city continue to fight perceptions based on bad information

As a Jaguar fan, it is something that always irritates me.  Any time the national media delves into any sort of commentary involving the fan support in this town, they always fall back into the same stereotypes and misrepresentations that tend to portray the fans in Jacksonville as dispassionate fans that only pay attention to their NFL franchise in passing, favoring college football as a vehicle for expressing their love for the game.

It all sounds logical until you bother to look at the actual numbers. 

The team has had blackouts, although not nearly as many as the national media would like to portray the number.  There were three games blacked out in 2007, but those were the first blackouts in more than three years for the Jaguars.  In fact, in a recent article about David Garrard, ESPN swerved into the fan support issue and took every bit of bad information, reporting it as fact.  

The article touched upon the fact that the Jaguars fans have yet to embrace the team.  One of the key points that they focused on to support this premise was the fact that the Jaguars played to a league worst capacity of 88.5% in 2007.  They use this number as indictment number one against Jaguar fans. 

What is the reality? 

The capacity percentage that they are using includes nearly ten thousand seats that were covered to reduce the overall capacity of the stadium for NFL games.  That shrinking of the stadium brought Jacksonville Municipal Stadium more in line with the average stadium capacities throughout the league, although they are still on the high side of that average. The “capacity” figure that ESPN has been using only covers tickets sold for the games vs. what the stadium capacity is without the covers.  When you take that additional inventory out of the mix and run the numbers again, the Jaguars are actually among the higher rated teams for that statistic with better than 95% capacity. 

ESPN continued their filtered reporting by mentioning the fact that Jacksonville is certainly a football crazy town, but that the bulk of that passion is focused on FSU, UF, UM, or UGA.  Again, that representation is false.  They mentioned that you hardly ever hear any discussions about the Jaguars when people are talking about football.  Being an avid listener to the local sports talk shows, it is clear that they are basing this on something that they were spoon fed by some talking head in New York or Los Angeles. 

Even during the stretch of the off season where there is absolutely nothing to talk about regarding the Jaguars, people are calling local talk shows to find topics that they want to discuss on a daily basis.  Some of the more highly rated broadcasts on the radio during the off-season include any shows that center on NFL, or more specifically, the Jaguars.  If ESPN bothered to look at the actual numbers rather than relying on someone that did not do their research, they might have discovered just how incorrect their assumptions are.

Again, ESPN focused on a poll that was done last year by ESPN The Magazine which ranked the Jaguars as the least popular NFL franchise in a national ranking. 

When a franchise is as consistently ignored by the national media in the manner that the Jaguars are, is that really a shocking result?  The Jaguars have certainly gotten more exposure by making their playoff run in 2007.  They had to have gotten the attention of people that did not really know much about the team prior to that run.  However, on any given Sunday, the Jaguars were normally an afterthought when ESPN and other national networks discussed the NFL.  The media outlets fixated on their national darlings, and gave the bare minimum in coverage to the small market franchise. 

If there is any question about how little regard the national media had for the Jaguars, look at the number of nationally televised games they had in 2007.  Despite the fact that the team usually drew solid ratings when they were given a national stage, the networks remained skeptical, limiting their exposure dramatically.

So, is it really a surprise when the team ranks at the bottom of the heap in a national poll? 

If the same poll was run locally, ESPN might discover that the support for the Jaguars in the Jacksonville market is off the charts compared to the national viewpoint.  If people looked at nothing but season ticket sales, and looked at what the ratio is for citizens to season ticket holders in the Jacksonville metropolitan area, the team has to draw 1 in every 20 individuals living in Jacksonville in order to sell out a game.  If that same ratio was applied to any big market franchise in the NFL, it would force teams like New York to build a stadium that could seat more than half a million fans. 

Jacksonville consistently ranks near the top of the league for citizens to season tickets.  The only franchise in the league that ranks higher is Buffalo.  The difference is that Buffalo’s market is shrinking rapidly, and Jacksonville’s is growing.

Finally, the magazine reported that season ticket sales only increased by 10% coming off of a successful season.  Again, that sounds bad.  However, the reality is that the renewal rates are among the highest in the league for a team that does not have Private Seat Licenses, or long-term contracts.  Each seat renews annually.  The Jaguars increased season ticket renewal rates by 10% in 2008 over 2007.  That puts their number at nearly an 85% renewal rate in the smallest market in the league.  Considering the fact that the economy is in a significant downturn, to have an increase in renewals is actually an encouraging situation, and one that the Jaguars organization is very happy to tout.

On top of the overall renewal rate, the Jaguars can further boast that they still have nearly 40% of their original season ticket holders despite the fact that they no longer have the multi-year contracts or PSL’s to contend with like other franchises.  Again, that is a tremendous statistic that shows where the core support is for this team in Jacksonville.

The city certainly has problems that will need to be overcome. 

There are no stadium naming rights currently.  But, this again comes back to the simple fact that companies will only put a $60 million commitment into something that will give them the type of exposure that will make that investment worthwhile.  With the new schedule, the Jaguars are going to be finding more time in the spotlight based on their 2007 success. That should help the process significantly.

The blackouts that returned for the first time since 2004 appear to be a thing of the past, but the team has to be aware of how close to the razors edge that is.  The organization appears to be keenly in tune with what the fans want, and they are working to make sure that the product on the field continues to draw bodies into the stadium on ten Sundays a year.  Despite being one of the smallest markets in the league, the Jaguars have done a solid job of keeping their ticket prices that are the third cheapest in the NFL. 

ESPN did another poll that they barely referenced in this particular article where the Jaguars organization ranked ninth among all professional sports franchises in their Ultimate Franchise rankings.  For “most bang for the buck” where they weigh the cost of attending a game with the success the franchise enjoys on the field, the Jaguars ranked fourth among all pro sports franchises right behind the Indianapolis Colts.

Because Jacksonville is not a regional or national team, they have to rely almost solely on their local fans to support the franchise.  That fan base continues to grow and mature, and as it does, the team becomes more entrenched in the Jacksonville market.  Unfortunately, that will not get much national attention, which is why the Jaguars are normally on the list of franchises that national pundits target as being a franchise that is ripe for relocation.  The truth is, that is not the case at all.  Unfortunately, when the national media wants to promote a perception, right or wrong, they will perpetuate it by continually reporting it as fact. 

As Jacksonville continues to grow, the talk will dissipate.  Until then, we will be forced to deal with the mass misinformation campaigns that have become the norm any time the Jaguars are discussed in the national media where the topic swerves away from reporting specifics about the players or on-field information, and focuses on the business side of the game.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:57 am and is filed under Jaguars' Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.