A.G. Gancarski
Those who might worry that the Florida/Georgia football game will leave Jacksonville anytime soon can rest a bit easier, as the City Council is about to approve an extension of the agreement for the city to host the Florida/Georgia football game until 2021.
The legislation (2017-322) cleared Neighborhoods, Community Investments, and Services on Monday morning, its second committee stop before Finance on Wednesday morning.
Each team gets a guarantee payment of $250,000 per year, plus a one-time signing bonus of $125,000 upon contract execution, and $60,000 annually for travel and lodging.
Jacksonville can recoup that money by programming events at the amphitheater and the flex field; the schools don’t get a piece of that action.
In NCIS, some questions were raised for Dave Herrell, the head of Sports and Entertainment.
The city is committed to buy $1,000 tickets according to the deal, Herrell confirmed.
A $500,000 base payment, Herrell said, was required to keep the schools happy — and this is part of the package of neutral-site games.
While terms on the renewal sound sweet to those on the outside, Herrell called the game an “incredible branding opportunity … a win/win.”
“The Georgia/Florida game is in our DNA,” Herrell said, with “branding exposure” and “good ROI” galore.
“Other communities covet events like this,” Herrell said, noting that places like Atlanta pose threats with new stadiums.
Also obligatory: maintaining a minimum seat capacity of 82,917, which requires the installation of temporary seats — a hard cost of $2.1M in 2016.
After the 2018 game, Herrell said work would begin on the extension.
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Beyond direct recovery of the investment, there also are more holistic benefits to the larger economy: $35M of them, according to a post-game analysis.
The 2016 iteration of the game saw a diverse array of programming options around the event: a number of University of Florida basketball games, the Florida/Georgia Hall of Fame Ceremony, and even a concert by the Avett Brothers put on — events designed to appeal to the kind of people willing to camp out in Jacksonville’s “RV City” for days on end.
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Back in 2016, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry discussed the importance of re-upping the deal, a negotiations process he said was rooted in “relationships 101.“
Curry added that on his second day of office, after the inauguration festivities, “one of the first calls [he] made” was to the schools’ athletic directors.
“Our team got to work on it,” Curry said. “We are about solving problems and getting things done.”
“The biggest obstacle,” said Curry, was that there “hadn’t been activity in recent years.”
The Curry administration had to “demonstrate how much we care,” the mayor said, “spending time and showing commitment.”
“Blocking and tackling … that’s Relationships 101.”
For Curry, the kind of football fan whose television is as likely to be turned to the NFL Network as a news program, there simply was no room for error — the deal had to be done.
And if this deal clears the full Jacksonville City Council, the game is on lock throughout the rest of the decade.
