(Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
The Jacksonville Jaguars were challenged to prove the skeptics wrong when the city was awarded an NFL franchise nearly 16 years ago.
As the smallest media market aside from Green Bay, fans were being asked to overachieve in order to sell tickets and keep the franchise profitable as it navigated the early years. For the most part, the fans delivered on that challenge, and for the first few years everything was fine.
The cracks started to emerge as early as 1999. Coming off a 14 win season that concluded with the Jaguars losing in the AFC Championship game in front of a home crowd, the team was already starting to see a portion of their fan base peeling away.
It really does not matter what the team has done to stem the tide either.
When fans grumbled about Tom Coughlin being so much of an authoritarian he was running ticket holders off, the team pressured the head coach to take on a kinder, gentler approach.
Still, when the team struggled during the 2002 season, it was not acceptable to use the legitimate reason that the team was rebuilding after being devastated by salary cap abuse. The same fans who demanded and got Coughlin 2.0 sharpened their attacks on the head coach, and forced Wayne Weaver to make a move to dismiss him and move in a different direction.
The fans got what they wanted.
When Jack Del Rio was hired, most fans embraced the move and were excited about the prospects. He said all the right things, and made it clear there was a new sheriff in town, and things would be different.
In addition to the coaching change, Wayne Weaver went on the offensive, hosting town hall meetings throughout Jacksonville where they solicited feedback from the fans, trying to figure out what the team needed to do in order to reignite the passion within the community for the team they worked so hard to secure.
Fans came out in droves and expressed many reasons for not buying season tickets.
There were certainly legitimate beefs, but there were also many complaints which bordered on the ridiculous.
Fans used the fact that water fountains did not dispense chilled water, or the lack of escalators to the upper decks made them hesitant to buy tickets.
No matter how mundane the complaint might have been, the team listened, and changes were initiated.
It made very little difference to the one thing that really mattered: ticket sales.
The team was still scrambling to sell out the stadium, and was forced to resort to Winn Dixie giving away tickets in 2003.
At the conclusion of the 2004 season, after dealing with sagging ticket sales and 11 blackouts over the previous two years, the Jaguars changed their strategy and decided to "shrink" the stadium. The plan was intended to bring it more in line with the average size of other stadiums around the league. In tarping nearly 10,000 seats, the team felt they would be able to reduce the inventory and increase the demands.
At the same time, the Jaguars also streamlined the pricing structure for their tickets, eliminating dozens of different price points and making it less confusing for the fans. There was some pricing increase as the team attempted to get more in line with the average ticket price in the league, but the Jaguars still were able to boast the second lowest ticket prices in the National Football League.
The plan worked well in 2005 as the team avoided blackouts. It helped that the Jaguars won 11 games and made their first playoff appearance since the end of the 1999 season. It appeared all things were moving in the right direction.
Then the team stumbled down the stretch in 2006 and missed returning to the playoffs by losing their final three games of the season.
2006 was a great home schedule, including Dallas, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Washington, NY Jets, and New England. No matter what happened, there was little doubt the team would avoid blackouts with a schedule this chalked full of star power.
But, the late season collapse left fans with a new excuse for why they would not buy tickets moving forward: Byron Leftwich.
He was the lightning rod in a quarterback controversy along with David Garrard. Fans fell into one of two camps following the 2006 season, either backing Byron, or supporting David. There was little gray area for many fans. One of these players had to go because the controversy was ripping the base apart.
The team responded to fan criticism by cutting Leftwich prior to the start of the 2007 season, putting their hopes behind David Garrard.
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