Given Their Stadium Situation, Jacksonville Jaguars Are Thinking Of Moving To Daytona As Of Now

In case the TIAA Bank Field repairs go as expected, the Jacksonville Jaguars are reportedly preparing moving to Daytona as their temporary home stadium. The Jaguars proposed on Wednesday to refurbish their home stadium, a process that would force them to play elsewhere for at least two seasons.

Given Their Stadium Situation, Jacksonville Jaguars Are Thinking Of Moving To Daytona As Of Now

A pivotal time has come for the Jaguars organization. Catching up with Jacksonville president Mark Lamping a few days after plans to demolish TIAA Bank Stadium and effectively build a new stadium in its place for between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion made that much very evident.

“It would be an interesting solution, but would also require significant investment in terms of infrastructure,” Lamping said, per VenuesNow.com. “It can accommodate a big crowd. It would be a little wonky, but it’s worth considering. After the renovations (in 2016), it’s nice.”

The need to temporarily move the Jaguars is complicated by two factors. The closest football-specific stadiums are in Gainesville and Orlando, and it would be prohibitively expensive to convert viable possibilities in Jacksonville to be NFL ready. Mark Lamping, the president of the Jaguars, agreed that the notion had potential.

He is certain that the Jaguars will secure the financing they require to move forward with the project they have been working on for close to seven years. But in actuality, they must be.

“What we said, Albert, is we cannot extend our lease in Jacksonville without a solution to the current stadium,” Lamping says. “And we’ve been pretty direct with that. That was the premise when we first started talking about this in 2016. We focused on those cities that have found themselves in bad situations and wanted to do everything we can to avoid that. Whether you look at St. Louis, Oakland, San Diego, all those situations had several things in common.

“They were generally smaller markets, [and] they had aging stadiums without a stadium solution. And the team was not compelled by any lease to have to stay in that market. Unfortunately for the NFL fans in those communities, they lost their team. That’s not any type of situation that we want the fans in northeast Florida to endure. It was because of that, that we tried to get so far ahead of this.”

Daytona International Speedway president Frank Kelleher stated that the facility would consider the possibility of acting as the Jaguars’ temporary home stadium in a statement provided to NBC Sports.

“Daytona International Speedway is a world-renowned sports and entertainment venue and hosts a full schedule of events each year,” Kelleher said. “As good neighbors in the Florida sports community, DIS will be speaking with the Jacksonville Jaguars to see if we can assist them with their potential upcoming facility needs around our scheduled events.”

 

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