by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Gator Bowl Association and Atlantic Coast Conference have signed off on the City’s distribution of electronic advertising time and space for non-NFL events inside Alltel Stadium. But the mayor’s office is still waiting for approval from the Jaguars.
The team’s chief financial officer, Bill Prescott said he agreed that “the framework” of a deal was in place. But he said the team was still evaluating some of that deal’s primary components. The team is “struggling” to match the advertising time and space offered by the City with contractual commitments to top-dollar sponsors, said Prescott.
At issue is those sponsors’ access to new electronic signs fronting the upper deck facades. The signs took the place of traditional fixed signs bearing the names of Jaguars sponsors such as Alltel, Wachovia, ADT Security and Red Baron. The team’s agreements with those sponsors call for their names to flash on the electronic “ribbon boards” during non-N.F.L. events. The City split the cost with the team to install the signs as part of renovations in the offseason — the City paid $8 million to the Jaguars’ $5 million. Prescott said the City had previously given the team those advertising rights.
The debate is essentially unchanged from the Florida-Georgia game. Then the City agreed to let the team keep all the revenue from its ribbon board ads, but restricted the ads, content. Alcohol and tobacco ads weren’t allowed in keeping with National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.
The City is once again negotiating access to the ribbon boards with the team, but this time both parties are looking for a permanent solution.
“Florida-Georgia, that was more of a short-term solution,” said Prescott. “What we have now is a framework for a long-term agreement so we’re not going through this for every single event that comes up.”
The City is currently offering a 50/50 split of ribbon board revenue between the team and the Gator Bowl Association for the Jan. 1 Gator Bowl. The GBA would determine how much advertising time would be sold, but two of the team’s biggest sponsors, Wachovia and Alltel, would have priority on the signs. The agreement would give Alltel eight minutes of ad time on the main scoreboard spread over four quarters. One additional Jaguars sponsor would get one minute per quarter. The City figures this would account for 39 percent of the scoreboards’ total ad time
It’s the amount of time offered that the team is still evaluating, said Prescott. The team is conscious of the deadline presented by the Gator Bowl’s Jan. 1 kickoff, but Prescott said all parties had worked too hard to rush the final resolution.
Electronic advertising won’t be available on the ribbon boards for the 2005-06 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship games. The conference has barred “excessive commercialization” that could distract from the single title sponsor. City General Counsel Rick Mullaney told the team in a Dec. 9 letter, that the imposition of electronic advertising could cost Jacksonville the game.
“Electronically animated commercial advertising in the stadium may cause the City to lose the ACC Championship games in 2005 and 2006 and would significantly increase the chances of losing the game in the future,” he wrote.