by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The dog days of summer are upon us and even the Jacksonville sports scene is affected. Outside of a Jacksonville Suns home stand and the Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament, there’s not much happening. Even Sports and Entertainment executive director Mike Sullivan would agree.
“Nothing earth shattering,” said Sullivan of current newsworthy sports-related events. “Until football season gets here, it’s a slow time.”
The Sports and Entertainment Board met Tuesday and while the agenda wasn’t packed with anything requiring immediate attention that will have major impacts on the area, there is a variety pack of items that are in the pipeline.
One item is The Players Championship, the annual March PGA Tour gathering that is, arguably, the First Coast’s signature sporting event.
“We want the tournament to have more involvement with downtown companies,” said Sullivan. “There is also the possibility of doing a classic car show downtown, but we are just starting to look into that.”
Sullivan also mentioned that New York-based U.S. Canoe & Kayak is looking to relocate its corporate headquarters and Jacksonville is one city the company is considering.
“I don’t know if our waters allow for much canoeing and kayaking,” said Sullivan. “There are strong currents in the river and waves in the ocean.”
The Toyota Gator Bowl game is six months off and the college football season hasn’t even started, but the SEB is starting to look at its role during the week of the game.
While the Gator Bowl Association handles just about every facet of the game, Sullivan and his board do get involved.
“We put on a luncheon as part of the Hall of Fame ceremony,” he said. “We put together a proposal and work out a plan with the Adam’s Mark. We asked them [the GBA], What’s the best way we can help with the game, straight cash or an event? They chose help with an event.”
Two other college football games are also being discussed.
The board is still actively pursuing the annual Army-Navy game that’s usually played the first Saturday in December in Philadelphia. Representatives from both academies are looking to move the game south for at least one year and Jacksonville is trying to land the 2004 game. Sullivan said he should get detailed requests for proposals by the start of the college season.
And, as always, the board is looking to land an early-season Florida State football game at Alltel Stadium. In years past, Jacksonville has been able to convince an FSU opponent to move its home game against Florida State to Jacksonville in return for a healthy paycheck.
Sullivan is working with GBA president Rick Catlett on getting college games.
“We’re continuing to pursue Army-Navy and there’s always the chance of getting an FSU game,” said Catlett. “A game we’d love to have is Notre Dame-Miami and that may not be far-fetched. Notre Dame said it wouldn’t play Miami again because of the thug image, but a new athletic director and a new coach have cleaned that up.
“Notre Dame probably wouldn’t agree to playing at Miami, but they may go for a neutral site. When the stadium is renovated, we’ll have one of the top five stadiums in the country and that’s a huge attraction.”
Sullivan said the odds of convincing University of Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley to move a second Gator game to Jacksonville — Georgia-Florida is an annual event — are slim to none. Doing so would mean losing a home date with well over 80,000 fans packed into Florida Field.
“Florida won’t move another game here,” said Sullivan. “But we’re always in range of FSU if an opponent is interested in doing it.”