A.G. Gancarski
Spoiler alert: no.
It’s easy to get swept up in the endless wave of Are the Jaguars Moving? I’ve done it myself.
It’s easy to see things like games in London, enthusiastically advocated by an owner with a pro soccer team in that same city, and wonder why he wouldn’t just pull up stakes.
I’ve done it myself.
There was a time when it seemed more plausible. Like when the city’s General Counsel sent the Jags a Notice of Default. From that moment on, however, communication between the COJ and the Jags improved.
Shad Khan got his scoreboards and his pools, and was All In for the re-election of Alvin Brown, amidst other interesting political plays.
He said he was going to take an active role in the political process back then.
You best believe that.
Lenny Curry won, and since that time, Curry has been building a relationship with the Jaguars’ owner.
Khan, he says, is a tremendous asset. Khan even got a Tribute: a shoutout of “special thanks” on the Inauguration program.
Still, British tabloid fabulists would have you believe that somehow Lenny Curry, who is nothing if not a very public football fan, a student of the game who played in high school, who peppers his speech with sports metaphors, and who seems like a sure bet to offer play by play on radio or television during a Jaguars’ preseason game, is going to be the mayor who loses the Jaguars.
“Fulham owner Shahid Khan is considering selling the club and buying Tottenham in a deal that could also see his NFL team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, move into the new White Hart Lane. Standard Sport understands Khan’s plan is at an extremely formative stage, with only informal discussions having taken place with advisers over the possibility of a dramatic deal that would change the football landscape in London,” and so on.
I’ll bet they were extremely “formative” and “informal” discussions.
“It is believed that Khan would prefer a more permanent residence, assuming that the rest of the NFL’s owners do not object to further matches being played overseas,” continues the work of fiction.
So much passive voice that you oughta check that sentence for a pulse.
The reality though is that there is a functional, ride or die symbiosis between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the City of Jacksonville. There are plans afoot to maximize opportunities and stop sabotaging efforts to build Jacksonville’s global brand. The Jaguars, right now, are the infomercial for Where Florida Begins.
(It would help if that infomercial came with a better offensive line.)
Shad Khan will do business with Lenny Curry every bit as readily as he does with Rick Scott. Politics is a transactional game, and alliances are most natural when priorities are shared. In this case, it’s hard to imagine where priorities meaningfully diverge.
