by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
After a half-dozen years of scrambling to sell tickets, the Jacksonville Jaguars are almost to the point of being able to sit back and not worry about fans in the stands.
They’ll be there.
The Jaguars players start training camp Saturday morning, aiming to equal last year’s 12-4 record, but the front office team already has emerged a winner with four, 67,164 sellouts already deposited in the bank and four more within reach.
“It has been a good year,” said Scott Loft, the team’s director of ticket sales and marketing. “There has been a lot of hard work over here.”
Sold out are the Sept. 10 opener against Dallas, the Monday night games against Pittsburgh (Sept. 18) and the New York Giants (Nov. 20) and the annual match against division rival Indianapolis (Dec. 10).
The team is close on the other four regular season games, said Loft. About 1,000 Club Seats remain for each plus around 1,500 general bowl seats for the New York Jets (Oct. 8) and Tennessee (Nov. 5,) 2,000 for New England (Christmas Eve) and 2,500 for Houston (Nov. 12).
There will be none of the dreaded “blackouts” — all of the games will be on local television.
Even the preseason games should be well attended, said Loft. Those are against Carolina (Aug. 19,) where some Club Seats and 1,500 general bowl tickets remain, and Tampa Bay (Aug. 26,) — some Club Seats and 3,500 general bowl.
The Jaguars’ attendance has been declining since the glory years of the late 1990s when the team came within a game of the Super Bowl. Owner Wayne Weaver made major changes, bringing in a new general manager and a new coach, and the team has rapidly improved in the three years under the new regime, successively going 5-11, 9-7 and 12-4.
The training sessions will be open to the public through Aug. 11. There are about 2,250 seats in grandstands along the east side of the practice fields and parking is available in the stadium lots.