Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars are a National Football League team that plays in the South Division of the AFC. In 1989 a group called Touchdown Jacksonville! formed and began the push to award a NFL franchise to the area. The group officially filed the application with the NFL in 1991, however it was not until November 30, 1993, that the franchise was granted. The former Gator Bowl stadium was demolished the following month, making room for the Jaguars stadium. The Jaguars home venue, Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, aka Alltel Stadium 1997-2006 was completed in 1995 and the team played their first game on August 18. They finished the 1995 season with four wins and twelve losses.

The 2009 Jacksonville Jaguars season was more defined by the question of whether or not to draft QB Tim Tebow, then is was by the on the field success of the team. The Jaguars have the unenviable position of being in the same division as the Indianapolis Colts, and to be located in a geographic area hit particularly hard by the economic downturn.

The Jaguars attendance has been trending down, and took a big drop in 2009 as a big section of their fan base have been adversely affected by the economic slow down. It doesn’t help that the team’s performance has also been trending down. They finished 2009 with a 7-9 record, and only attracted 397,214 to their home games in 2009. http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2006

That is down from a high of 534,866 fans in the 2006 season. The Jaguars only have the capacity to bring out about that many fans each year, which ends up being nearly half of the 1.3 million person population of the Jacksonville metro area. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/30/football-values-09_Jacksonville-Jaguars_306892.html

This has led to wide spread speculation that the Jaguars will be one of the NFL team to relocate to Los Angeles when the stadium situation in that city sorts itself out. http://www.inquisitr.com/53749/are-the-jacksonville-jaguars-headed-to-los-angeles/