by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Jaguars and the City took their debate over Alltel Stadium advertising to the airwaves Thursday morning as both sides presented their case on the Lamm at Large radio show on 930-AM.
In consecutive one-hour segments Dean Bonham, the City’s chief negotiator, and Bill Prescott, the Jaguars’ chief financial officer, provided their perspective on the ongoing talks, which are largely focused on which party will control advertising rights inside the stadium as well as negotiations for the next stadium sponsor.
The City is seeking a comprehensive solution to all of the problems that currently divide City Hall and Jacksonville’s flagship sports franchise. Bonham has offered the team a proposal that would give the team rent deferrals on the City-owned stadium, forgive code violations created by existing advertising and open up new revenue streams to the team worth about $50 million.
But the deal is contingent on Bonham getting involved with negotiations for a new stadium sponsor. Alltel’s deal runs out in January 2007. Prescott said in a previous interview that the team doesn’t want Bonham involved in those talks as long as he’s also negotiating for the City on the advertising dispute.
“His work with the City right now necessarily puts him in an adversarial position to us,” said Prescott. “And we are obviously reluctant to have someone working as an adversary in one set of talks out negotiating on our behalf to find a stadium sponsor.”
Bonham told Lamm that he shouldn’t be viewed as an adversary to the Jaguars. His primary goal, he said, was to find a solution that would be in the best financial interests of both the City and the team.
Bonham said it would be beneficial to both parties to give him a seat at the negotiating table with potential naming stadium sponsors. Bonham told Lamm that he’s negotiated some of the most lucrative naming rights deals in the world including a recent $11 million-a-year deal for London’s Millennium Dome and a deal for San Diego’s Petco Park.
Jacksonville’s stadium should fetch somewhere between $2.5 million and $4.5 million a year from a naming sponsor, said Bonham. He guaranteed he’d get a deal done if allowed to enter negotiations.
“The NFL is the most prestigious brand in sports today, and that’s worldwide,” said Bonham. “Put an NFL logo on the stadium and the value goes up significantly.
“I’m telling you on the air, publicly, I can sell the naming rights.”
Bonham questioned the team’s efforts to sell those rights. He wants to see where the team is in finding a sponsor, but said the team isn’t talking.
“I’m not 100 percent sure they’re out there trying to sell the naming rights,” said Bonham.
Further, Bonham questioned whether the team is holding out on revenue from its current deal with Alltel. That money is supposed to be split evenly with the City, but Bonham said he suspects that certain aspects of the team’s agreement with Alltel are paying only to the Jaguars. Bonham wants to see the team’s advertising agreement with Alltel and has set that as a condition to getting a deal done.
Prescott said the suggestion that the City is holding out was “disingenuous.” He said the Alltel advertising agreement was fully vetted with City leaders and audited by an independent firm when it was negotiated.
Bonham said he didn’t want to be viewed as an adversary to the Jaguars. He is simply trying to broker a deal that will allow the Jaguars to survive in small market Jacksonville while still keeping City Hall responsible to the taxpayers, he said.
Alltel Stadium is a public asset, he said. It’s the City’s responsibility to pull as much revenue out of that asset as possible. In addition to finding the most lucrative naming sponsor, that means bringing in profitable events on days when the Jaguars aren’t playing — the Florida/Georgia game and Monster Truck Show for instance — and selling advertising during those events.
Problem is, said Prescott, that the Jaguars’ stadium lease clearly gives the team the advertising rights for recently installed electronic ribbon boards regardless of whether the Jaguars are playing.
The parties almost reached an agreement wherein the team would have accepted a $9.6 million buyout in exchange for the advertising rights during non-Jaguar events. But the team would only give the rights up for four events: Florida-Georgia, the ACC Championship Game, the Toyota Gator Bowl and the Monster Truck Show. The City wanted the rights for other, as yet unspecified events, while the team wanted to keep the ribbon boards ad-free during those events.
Without those advertising rights, the City would have a tough time bringing events to Alltel, said Bonham. Event sponsors would likely skip Alltel for venues where they could sell ads, he said.
“If we can’t sell electronic ads, an event that would come in here will go somewhere else where they can bring in that ad revenue,” said Bonham.
Bonham said the two sides haven’t talked in several weeks. He offered to “lock myself in a room” with team negotiators until an agreement was reached, but he declined the opportunity to face Prescott on air. After Prescott had the first hour to himself, the Jags CFO offered to debate Bonham on air. But Bonham said he wanted his hour uninterrupted to make his case. He also said he doesn’t negotiate in public.
Throughout the sometimes testy negotiations, Bonham said the team had never held the threat of moving over the City’s head.
“Wayne Weaver, Bill Prescott, (team counsel) Paul Vance, these are guys that are committed to this community. They’re just trying to do what’s best from a business standpoint,” said Bonham. “I know they don’t believe this, but what I really want is for them to be financially solvent in Jacksonville.”