A.G. Gancarski
Updated as the Mayor’s Office offered details contradicting the Council document.
Disputes continue in Jacksonville City Hall, including about the time-honored practice of free tickets to Jaguars and Jumbo Shrimp games and other significant cultural events.
The Mayor’s Office and City Council, which don’t agree about much these days, are saying the other side in fact uses more free tickets than they do.
A document compiled by the City Council and disputed by the Mayor’s Office says the vast majority of complementary entries of late went to the office of Mayor Donna Deegan, a function of the Mayor’s Office receiving and distributing the tix.
While this practice didn’t begin in the Deegan administration, it’s been spotlighted this year, as the Republican-controlled legislative branch has battled with the Democratic chief executive.
The premium portfolio offerings, of course, are for NFL games. Per the Council doc, the Mayor’s Office and invited guests scored five out of every six of the nearly 600 tix doled out in 2025. That’s up from 2024’s 62%.
According to the Council document, the Mayor’s Office also got 97% of the 6,726 tickets for events at VyStar Arena, 87% of the 260 for Daily’s Place, 84% for events at the Performing Arts Center, 90% of the EverBank Field events not including the Jaguars, and 99% of the Jumbo Shrimp ticket distributions.
Meanwhile, the Mayor’s Office says the story published originally misrepresented the facts.
“The story this morning misrepresents who tickets go to. City Council has used and requested more tickets than the Mayor’s Office. The attached spreadsheet has multiple tabs that show the number of requests and breakdown by number of tickets/events for each year for the Mayor’s Office and City Council. This list does not include the Jaguars Suite which has 24 tickets per home game split 50/50 between the administration and Council. Keep in mind that the 409 tickets recorded in this spreadsheet are out of the more than 10,000 tickets that the city receives as part of the agreements for its venues. The vast majority of these go to city employees that are not in the Mayor’s Office or City Council – or they go unused.”
The Mayor’s Office also claims the City Council is the bigger beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse.
“Between the city suite for Jaguars games, which is split 50/50 between the Mayor’s Office and City Council, and ticket requests for city-owned venues, City Council has utilized 632 tickets vs. the Mayor’s Office using 341 tickets from 2024 to 2025. Any other tickets go to city employees or community members that request them – or the tickets go unused. All tickets belong to the city and the distribution is administered by the Mayor’s Office, as it always has been,” a spokesperson said Saturday.
It’s uncertain how community members know how to request tickets, but given Jacksonville’s lackluster concert and entertainment options compared to Florida’s other major cities and even St. Augustine, perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Custody of tickets, as we noted in this week’s Jacksonville Bold, has been a controversy amid the politically charged era in Jacksonville these days.
City Council President Kevin Carrico has filed an amendment to legislation about ticket distribution that would end the freebies altogether for Jaguars games.
Deegan says she’d like to “look at all tickets for city-owned venues as part of this process.”
One comment
Frankie M.
August 23, 2025 at 2:21 pm
Looks like entitlement doesn’t just extend to the libs…looking at you Terrence Freeman. Like Pete Prisco says “what’s good for me is good for me.”