Jaguars owner Shad Khan hugs Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan on June 26, 2024. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on February 3, 2025 at 4:01 pm
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After reading the recent Jax Today editorial that argued that the city of Jacksonville’s expenditure of $750 million for a new stadium for our NFL franchise borders on a reckless gamble, I was reminded of a conversation that took place after the American evacuation of Saigon in April 1975 between an American colonel and a North Vietnamese colonel.
“You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the American. The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark for a moment. “That may be so,” he replied, “but it is also irrelevant.”
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Many of the points Mike Clark made in his editorial are solid. Such as:
- Yes, Jacksonville has committed much of its discretionary income by funding half of the $1.5 billion stadium, limiting the city’s options to fund other crucial priorities
- Yes, the city has huge infrastructure needs in terms of affordable housing, and building flooding resilience to climate change, not to mention maintaining roadways and building for the future
- True, there’s little insight on how to fund a new jail or pay generous benefits for police and firefighters
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And yet, it’s irrelevant. The stadium deal is set. The die is cast.
Stadium supporters will tell you that the future economic benefits of keeping the Jaguars in town and building up an entertainment zone on Downtown’s doorstep will, in time, make the stadium costs worthwhile, and more.
Also believed but not as openly stated is this: Shelling out a huge pile of taxpayer money for a football stadium is a tough nut to crack, but there’s something even worse for a city – losing your NFL franchise. That’s reputational suicide for a medium-sized city with big ambitions.
Bringing the NFL to Jacksonville to help build “a world-class city” (a brilliantly aspirational phrase that means many things to many people) has been a cornerstone of Jacksonville economic development planning since the Jake Godbold administration in late 1970s. Colt Fever, anyone?
And guess what? It’s worked, even if our team has been mostly a cellar dweller. We have an NFL team, baby, and the NFL is the biggest and baddest professional sports league anywhere. The shine on Jacksonville from being an NFL city is real. People from far away no longer say, “Jacksonville, now where in Florida is that?”
Clark makes another excellent point by calling for a summit to prescribe the budgetary “tough love” Jacksonville needs to somehow climb out of the financial chasm created by the stadium deal.
But we’ll need more than an austerity plan from some smart accountants.
Jacksonville needs to grow its businesses, its educational assets, its cultural offerings, and yes, its tax base.
The best case: Jacksonville, after decades of fits and starts, morphs into the type of city that attracts ambitious and successful people from around the world to work and play and stay here, for reasons that include but also go far beyond the Jaguars.
In other words, a world-class city.
