Sunday, November 1, 2009
Situation Analysis
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS FIGHT TO STAY ALIVE
JACKSONVILLE, FL- Nov. 1, 2009-The Jacksonville Jaguars are currently experiencing their most fragile period in franchise history.
Currently the Jacksonville Jaguars are suffering a financial crisis from a lack of community support, low ticket sales, a low attendance rate and public interest in the games, stalled negotiations with the city regarding maintenance of the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, expired contracts and a lack of a named sponsor.
“Changes in NFL economics that result from the new stadiums and the current CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) have made Jacksonville and uncompetitive franchise and with the economy right now, it’s a double whammy”, said Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp, a sports consulting firm.
With declining ticket sales since 1998 the Jacksonville Jaguars are currently the lowest financially valued team of any NFL sports team according to Forbes who ranked them as one of the top five most valuable teams when they entered the league in 1995.
Currently the Jaguars are blacking out their games to try and force fans to physically visit the stadium and purchase tickets. They have even removed themselves from the NFL Sports Tickets so fans outside a 75-mile radius cannot watch televised games.
“The things we’re focused on immediately are; to get a naming-rights sponsor, to get revenue-sharing, keeping the stadium filled, get the (ticket) prices in our general bowl higher/closer to national average, and we need to keep our club seats filled”, said Bill Prescott, Jaguars Chief Financial Officer.
For more information about the Jacksonville Jaguars visit our website at www.jaguars.com.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American Football team located in Jacksonville, Florida. They are currently members of the South Divison of the American Football Conference(AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The club has played all of its home games at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. The team headquarters is also located in the stadium.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
They lost 17,000 season ticket-holders after last season. Most blame the sluggish economy. Wayne Weaver said “We have got a higher mountain to climb because we're a small market and we've got a big stadium," We don't have 75 years of history like the Steelers or the Green Bay Packers. We're a growing community. We just have to have patience."
2.Were there any managerial layoffs due to the low-ticket sales?
Weaver fired his executive director of ticket sales and marketing and his director of marketing just before the season, making employees below them more accountable for day-to-day operations.
3.Will Wayne Weaver expand Jaguar games to Orlando to increase ticket sales?
Possibly, in an effort to expand the Jaguars fan base, owner Wayne Weaver said the team might start playing regular season games in Orlando if the league expands the regular season to 17 or 18 games. He doesn’t expect the league to increase the number of regular season games before 2012 and he said Orlando would have to renovate the Citrus Bowl or build a new stadium to make the plan feasible.
4.Are the Jaguars in danger of having every home game blacked out?
Unless there’s a dramatic surge in ticket sales, the league's 72-hour-in-advance, sellout policy will prevent those games from being televised in the North Florida/South Georgia market.
5.Will the Jaguars move to the new stadium in LA?
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill on Oct. 22 that effectively approved construction on a new football stadium in Los Angeles. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is looking at a team in a tiny market like Jacksonville that won't sell out a single home game this year on one coast, and he’s looking at an unserved market with 17 million people on the other coast. However, Jacksonville has one of the toughest leases to break in the NFL. The team can only break its lease if it loses money for three consecutive seasons or if a judge determines that the city has not properly maintained Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
6.What are the Jaguars plans for the future of the team?
Due to a lack of major corporations in the area and slower growth both in terms of population and income compared to other metropolitan areas in the state, the decade from 1999 to 2008 has been disappointing for the Jaguars in terms of revenue. It is hoped that a stricter emphasis on the blackout rule, along with greater success on the field, will be the solution to the problem of ticket sales.
Executive Bios
WAYNE WEAVER
Chairman & CEO
A highly successful entrepreneur throughout his business career, Weaver brought with him to Jacksonville great energy, enthusiasm and keen business acumen. He wanted a model football franchise and a team that would contend for the playoffs in a short time. Weaver serves as the Jaguars' chairman and chief executive officer, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the team while allowing his staff the autonomy to do its jobs. That's the Weaver way, and it has long proven to be a winning way.
But if football is his passion, Weaver also takes pride and joy in his other businesses. He is chairman and the Weaver family is majority owner of Shoe Carnival, Inc., one of the nation's fastest-growing shoe retailers that is based in Evansville, Ind. He also serves as chairman and CEO of Liz Claiborne Shoes, a wholesale distributor to upscale department stores across the country that is headquartered in Jacksonville. Previously Weaver was co-owner, president and CEO of Nine West Group, Inc., the leading designer and marketer of women's footwear. Throughout his business career, Weaver has maintained a commitment to philanthropic endeavors. Since the awarding of the Jaguars franchise, Wayne and Delores Weaver have focused their charitable efforts through the Weaver Family Foundation and the Jaguars Foundation.
Weaver was born on January 14, 1935 in Columbus, Ga. A high-school graduate, he rose through the ranks of Brown Group, Inc., a major St. Louis-based shoe company. After serving as senior vice president, he departed in 1978 to become president and CEO of Nine West. Wayne and Delores live in Jacksonville. They have been married for 54 years and have a daughter Leigh, a son Bradley, and two grandchildren, Morgan and Nash.
For more information, visit our Front Office Website.
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PAUL VANCE
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FOOTBALL OPERATIONS/GENERAL COUNSEL
Paul Vance was promoted to senior vice president football operations in November 2001 after serving as general counsel to the team since the inception of the Jaguars. Vance is responsible for the Jaguars' salary cap strategy and planning and player contract negotiations. He also oversees the team training and medical functions, the team video and equipment departments and team travel and logistics. In addition, he is responsible for all aspects of the Jaguars’ legal needs and assists owner Wayne Weaver on relations with the NFL involving legal and football matters.
He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1969 with a degree in economics. While at Rochester, he played baseball and captained the school's basketball team. He received his J.D. in 1973 from Columbia, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Paul and his wife, Jane, live in Jacksonville. They have four children: daughters, Kerry and Jamie, and sons, Jordan and Derek.
For more information, download our Administration PDF File
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BILL PRESCOTT
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, STADIUM OPERATIONS/CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Bill Prescott is the senior vice president, stadium operations/chief financial officer for the Jaguars. He is responsible for managing the Jaguars areas of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium as well as stadium concession operations on a year-round basis. Prescott serves as the liaison for the Jaguars and the City of Jacksonville on lease matters and SMG facility and game day operations issues. Prescott oversaw the design and construction of the recent $63 million renovation of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. All of the renovations were completed in time for Super Bowl XXXIX, which was played on February 6, 2005.
As CFO, he oversees the financial operations and information technology of the team. Prescott interacts with the NFL on financial and business matters. He also serves on an NFL committee to review the best practices of financial and business operations. Prescott is also responsible for the financial operations of other Wayne Weaver-related entities, such as the DAR Group, the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation and the Weaver Family Foundation. He has been involved with the Jaguars since their inception and has also handled the Weavers' finances since 1980.
A native of the Bronx, N.Y., Prescott is a graduate of Pace University with a degree in accounting and a master's degree in taxation. Prescott is a member of the executive board and treasurer of Visit Jacksonville, a professor at the University of Phoenix, and former chairman for the Mohawk District of the Boy Scouts of North Florida, an urban scouting program serving the at-risk youth of Jacksonville. Prescott was born May 7, 1956. He has two sons, Christopher and Michael and a stepdaughter Nikki. He and his wife, Kim, live in Ponte Vedra Beach.
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FRONT OFFICE MANAGEMENT
Tim Connolly
Sr. V.P. of Business Development
Dan Edwards
V.P. of Communications & Media
Tim Bishko
Director of Ticket Operations
Sashi Brown
Assistant General Counsel
Skip Richardson
Exec. Dir. of Football Ops. & Facilities
Bruce Swindell
Exec. Dir. of Information Technology
Tim Walsh
Director of Football Administration
Jacksonville Jaguars Background Information
On September 16, 1991, armed with a $60 million commitment from the Jacksonville City Council to renovate the Gator Bowl, Touchdown Jacksonville!, Ltd. filed an expansion application with the NFL. The application listed a nine-member partnership that included Petway and J. Wayne Weaver who now serves as the club's Chairman and CEO. One of eleven cities to apply, Jacksonville was considered by many to be the longest shot on the board. Still, that didn't keep the Jacksonville group from confidently announcing that the team would be named "Jaguars" if awarded one of the two available expansion franchises.
Jacksonville survived the first round of applicant cuts, when on March 17, 1992, at the NFL's annual winter meeting, the list of eleven was reduced to seven. Two months later, the expansion race was narrowed to five possible choices: Jacksonville, Baltimore, St. Louis, Charlotte and Memphis. The remaining applicants' spirits were somewhat dampened, however, when on October 20, 1992, the NFL owners, citing complications surrounding the ongoing NFL labor situation, voted to delay the expansion vote until their fall 1993 meeting. Fortunately, on January 6, 1993, the league and its players reached a seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement. On March 23, 1993, the expansion race officially resumed.
The Jacksonville contingent quickly scheduled a tour of the Gator Bowl for NFL officials, after which Touchdown Jacksonville!, Ltd. managing general partner J. Wayne Weaver was informed that additional renovations beyond those already planned would be necessary to renovate the stadium to NFL standards. Unable to come to a satisfactory solution to the stadium renovation financing problems with the City Council, Touchdown Jacksonville!, Ltd. announced it was withdrawing from the NFL expansion race.
However, community spirit and Weaver's sense of vision prevailed. Less than a month after renovation financing talks broke off, a new plan was proposed that would cap renovation costs at $121 million. Both sides agreed that $53 million would come from city funds and $68 million from team and team-related sources. Additionally, a committee of civic and business leaders agreed to help by selling 9,000 club seats. Weaver, with the new public / private partnership, met with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who welcomed Jacksonville back into the expansion race.
The Jaguars played their first-ever game in Canton, Ohio in the annual AFC-NFC Hall of Fame Game. Their opponent in the pre-season classic was the NFL's other expansion franchise, the Carolina Panthers. From the start, it was apparent that the NFL's expansion draft and the free-agent market had allowed both Jacksonville and Carolina to develop more quickly than expansion teams of the past. Although the Panthers came away with a 20-14 victory, it was obvious that both teams were ready to compete in the NFL. The Jaguars' impressive 4-12 inaugural season record was one win better than the NFL's previous best for an expansion team. The Jaguars have quickly become one of the dominant teams in the NFL and perennial playoff participants. The team reached the AFC Championship game in 1996 and 1999.
Courtesy of The Pro Football Hall of Fame
