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Jacksonville's attendance woes have reached rather dire straits; the team likely won't sell out a single game in 2009, and sold less than 50,000 tickets for its home opener in Week 2 (with less than 40,000 people showing up). So, perhaps not surprisingly, Jaguars team owner Wayne Weaver is talking about moving the team -- at least on occasion.According to the Orlando Sentinel, Weaver said that, if the NFL expands to an 18-game schedule in the near future as expected, the Jaguars would seriously consider playing some home games in Orlando.
"There's certainly the possibility that we would play some out-of-market games," Weaver told the Sentinel. "If it happened, Orlando would be the best option and most reasonable location.
"In the past, we have reached out to try and cultivate that market and haven't had as much success as we would have liked. We probably need to do a better job. That's a given. We are looking at a long-term strategy and thinking out of the box on how we can build a fan base in Orlando."
If this strategy sounds familiar, it's because the Bills have employed a similar plan using Toronto. Prior to the 2008 season, the Bills agreed to play eight home games in Toronto between 2008-12, one regular-season game per year plus a few preseason contests -- the Bills beat Pittsburgh in the 2008 preseason, and lost to Miami last regular season in games played at Rogers Centre. They will "host" the Jets on Dec. 3 north of the border to fulfill their 2009 obligation.Jacksonville might not be the only team to explore moving games to other markets -- both to build up an extended fan base and to ensure sellouts -- if the NFL has the type of attendance woes that have been forecast. Should the regular-season schedule expand to 18 games, the need to find people willing to buy tickets would only increase.
"We know that we can't be a viable NFL city if we only sell 46,000 seats in a 66,000-seat stadium," Weaver said.
Even if the Jaguars follow through with this idea, Weaver did not indicate that the team would look into permanently relocating from Jacksonville to Orlando. Still, a strong show of support from the Orlando area would definitely open some eyes within the Jacksonville organization.
Orlando, too, would be quite an attractive spot for the NFL to setup shop -- Jacksonville has already hosted a Super Bowl, and the city of Orlando would no doubt be a contender to do the same if it landed an NFL team.
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