by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
This Saturday’s Atlantic Coast Conference Championship isn’t just a first for the conference. It’s Jacksonville’s first chance to impress as host city and game organizers hope a week of sun, fun and, most importantly, fans will help convince the ACC to keep the game in Jacksonville.
The City’s contract with the ACC keeps the game, and its expected $20 million-plus economic impact, in Jacksonville through next year with an option to extend through 2008. With much of the conference’s administration arriving early in the week, local organizers have several days to reassure the ACC that it made the correct decision in bringing the game to Jacksonville.
The conference wants to see fans in the seats and a festive game-week atmosphere. Organizers don’t expect attendance to be a problem with local favorite Florida State University matched up against Virginia Tech, well-known for bringing its rabid fans in tow when it comes to town.
And thanks to an increasingly crowded slate of big-time sporting events scheduled for Jacksonville, the City has become adept at keeping visiting fans entertained. The City’s pledge to spend $700,000 on a family-friendly Fan-Fest at Alltel Stadium’s south end was an important component of Jacksonville’s winning bid for the game.
Fittingly, Jacksonville takes a team approach to hosting its sporting events with the Gator Bowl Association filling the role as coach. The GBA has been working with downtown Hyatt General Manager Phil Tufano for months to plan accommodations for the ACC administrators. Most of them will be staying in Tufano’s hotel.
“We want them to feel at home here and look at Jacksonville as their home for the future,” said Tufano, also a GBA member. “We want to do all we can to show them what a warm environment Jacksonville can be. We want them to see us at our best.”
Tufano would be glad to welcome the ACC back past 2006, because the game translates into filled hotel rooms for the Hyatt and other Jacksonville hotels. The Jacksonville and the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau expects this year’s game to fill about 30,000 rooms. That number approximates the impact of the 2002 Gator Bowl, which matched the same two teams.
Mike Sullivan, director of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s Sports and Entertainment Division, will use his weeklong run of access to ACC officials to press the City’s case for keeping the conference’s baseball tournament in Jacksonville when that contract expires next year.
Like the football championship, the baseball tournament could pay increased dividends to Jacksonville once its novelty as host city wears off. The City looks to Atlanta’s decade-long run as the host of the Southeastern Conference championship game as a model. That game generates about $50 million a year for Atlanta.
“If we get a long-term contract, I expect it to grow to the kind of impact we feel every year with the Florida-Georgia game,” said Sullivan. “Fans get familiar with a City and they know where their friends are going to be and where the parties are set up. It would be profitable for the ACC and for Jacksonville.”
The Jacksonville CVB estimates the Florida-Georgia game generates about $20 million annually while the Gator Bowl generates $15 million-$20 million per year.