by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
It’s “business as usual” for the Jacksonville Jaguars as football fans brace for a possible lockout with players and owners discussing a new collective bargaining agreement.
Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver, along with Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Macky Weaver and Senior Vice President of Stadium Operations/CFO Bill Prescott, met with the media Tuesday to talk about the franchise and next season.
“On the business side, I really think we’ve found the right template to fill up the stadium,” said Weaver.
“Two years ago, coming out of ‘08, we recognized that we were going to have trouble in this economy filling up this stadium. We didn’t realize that we’d lose as many seats as we did in 2009,” he said.
Despite losses in 2009, group sales increased from 32,000 in 2008 to 60,000 in 2009 to 87,000 in 2010, said Weaver.
The challenge is to maintain that level, said Weaver, and improve in the area of premium seat sales.
“(The sale of premium seats is) not a challenge unique to Jacksonville,” said Weaver. “All 32 teams, even some of the power markets, are struggling to sell premium seats.”
He explained that it was the organization’s challenge to create an atmosphere at the stadium that could not be duplicated or improved by staying at home.
“We’ve had a lot of dialogue on how we enhance the experience for our premium seats,” said Weaver.
“And not only with the premium seats, but the entire stadium experience. We just have to make sure we deliver an experience that you can’t get at home,” he said.
That experience can be enhanced by infrastructure and concession upgrades at the stadium, and also by the product on the field, he said.
“You can’t experience the excitement of a 59-yard field goal at home,” said Weaver. “You can’t experience the excitement of a Hail Mary at home.”
One of the improvements to that experience will be replacing the roughly 800 television screens at the club level and suites to convert analog technology to digital.
“It will be much more interactive and provide a different experience in these premium areas,” said Weaver.
“There’s a lot of things we have to do. I just learned today that we have to do something to change our beer coolers to make sure that our beer is cold and we have more capacity when we have a full house,” he said.
The technology upgrades could cost about $3 million to $4 million and the beer upgrades will cost about $250,000, but Prescott believes the latter is more important to a majority of the fans.
“The beer lines to keep the beer cold are about 15 years old. We replaced the equipment at four concession stands at the beginning of the season and we were impressed with the results, so we will make the upgrades throughout the rest of the stadium,” said Prescott.
“I’ll argue with Wayne that the upgrade to the beer service is more important than upgrading the televisions,” he said.
Other issues that were discussed:
• The team will continue with its model of building through the draft, but will have an eye on the free agent market, if there is one, said Weaver. The rules for free agency are contained in the collective bargaining agreement.
• If the right quarterback is available at the right time, the team will draft a quarterback to develop, but the pick will not be looked at to immediately compete with David Garrard for the starting position.
• Weaver is in favor of an 18-game season. “It’s something the fans want. They don’t see the value in paying for preseason games. They want more competitive games,” said Weaver.
• Orlando could be considered to host a preseason game. “Since Orlando is part of our television market, it makes sense to start to consider that for the future of the franchise,” he said.
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