by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The names are still the same — unfortunately — for some of the city’s major sports organizations.
The football stadium and the Gator Bowl have lost their sponsors in the past year and both are still looking. Until someone comes up with dollars, it will remain the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium instead of Alltel Stadium and the Gator Bowl instead of the Toyota Gator Bowl.
And the city’s baseball park, which never has had a corporate name, still doesn’t.
The corporate sponsors for the stadium and the football game decided to place their dollars elsewhere after last season and the hunt has been on for replacements.
“We’ve progressed to the point where there’s ‘significant interest’ among possible sponsors instead of just ‘interest’,” said Bill Prescott, the Jaguars’ senior vice president for stadium operations and the team’s chief financial officer, who is leading the effort to get a name on the football stadium. “We have several companies that are showing a lot of interest.
“But, there’s nothing to report yet. Maybe when we start playing football.” The Jaguars’ season starts with exhibition games in August.
Gator Bowl Association President Rick Catlett said he almost had a title sponsor last week.
“We really thought we had something but then we got a call over the weekend and they pulled out,” said Catlett. “We get close, so close that we think we have something, and then we have to start looking again.”
While no figures are available, both sponsorships will mean significant dollars. The Jaguars split the naming rights money with the city and the package may reach $5 million a year, and the Gator Bowl’s deal may reach $1.5 million.
Catlett also said the association is planning a major effort to keep the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, a success in 2005, its first year, when Florida State played Virginia Tech in a match of big schools with big followings, but an attendance bust last year when Georgia Tech and Wake Forest qualified, matching two small schools with a limited following.
“We’ll have a contingent at the ACC football pre-season meetings next month and we’ll start a ticket sales campaign after that,” said Catlett. Catlett added that Times-Union Publisher Carl Cannon and Ch. 12/25 General Manager Ken Tonning will head the sales effort.
The baseball park is still the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville and it appears it will stay that way for some time.
“We made proposals to quite a few companies,” said Bob Downey, the head of the SMG management company’s office here, “but no takers. It’s still the ‘Baseball Grounds.’”
And the stadium’s tenant, the minor league baseball Jacksonville Suns, thinks that’s a good idea.
“If we had our way,” said Suns’ general Manager Kirk Goodman, “the name always will be the ‘Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville’.’’
A name isn’t an issue on the city’s other big sporting venue: the City Council has decreed that it’s the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, and no corporate name will ever intrude.