by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Jacksonville will add another national championship to its already-long list of premier sports events when the Jacksonville Axemen host the American National Rugby League’s National Championship Final X Aug. 25 at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium.
Axemen coach and team co-owner Spinner Howland said the other league teams that came here to play last season were so impressed with the setup at UNF’s stadium it led to the site being chosen by AMNRL officials for the league’s grand finale.
“The facility at UNF is better than most professional rugby facilities in the United Kingdom.”
Howland and his ownership partner, Drew Slover, attended Thursday’s meeting of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s Sports & Entertainment Board. They were seeking a $5,000 contribution from the JEDC that would cover 10 percent of its budget for the 2007 season.
Howland said the major line items in the team budget are facility rental for five home games and travel expenses for four road games and $43,000 of this season’s $50,000 budget has already been secured through sponsorships.
He pointed out attendance had grown from 800 spectators when the team played its first game last year to 1,200 at the end of the season and the team made the league playoffs in its first year.
“We need more fans this season. We’d like to build our attendance to 2,000 per game,” said Howland.
Board member Beverly Jelinek chaired a subcommittee that studied the impact of the rugby team after its 2006 inaugural season. She recommended adding a link to the Axemen Web site to the sports page of the JEDC’s site that already provides links to the Suns baseball and Barracudas ice hockey teams.
Jelinek said the subcommittee’s findings supported approval of the grant application.
Mike Bouda, manager of Sports & Entertainment, made a motion for the JEDC to apply for a grant from the Florida Sports Foundation. He predicted that based on the team’s first-season attendance figures the FSF would probably award a $2,000 grant and the JEDC could provide the difference up to $5,000.
The motion passed unanimously.
Also at Thursday’s meeting:
• Bouda reported the April 3 University of Florida vs. Florida State University baseball game was deemed a success by the teams and the head coaches and athletic directors from both institutions have expressed their desire to make playing a game in Jacksonville an annual event. Bouda also said there were no incidents and no arrests at the game that put more than 12,000 fans in the stands at the Baseball Grounds and, “that’s very good for that number of people and the rivalry aspects of the game.”
• JEDC Executive Director Ron Barton gave the board members a report on progress toward finding a replacement for Sports & Entertainment Director Mike Sullivan, who retired from City service in March. Barton said more than 70 people have applied for the job. Following next week’s application deadline, Barton said JEDC staff will evaluate the applicants and then present a short list for the board to review and to schedule interviews.