When I first heard that the Jacksonville Jaguars were thinking about relocating to Orlando for the team’s 2027 season when their stadium is being renovated, I thought: Cool.
The team desperately needs a place to play. We happen to have one. So if the Jags’ billionaire owner wants to rent our stadium for a season, that sounds like a potential win-win.
But then we learned last week that the Jags aren’t asking to rent Camping World Stadium. They want Orange County to pay the team to play there — at least $10 million.
Jacksonville Jaguars could get $10M from Orange County to play in Orlando in ’27
Yes, the Jags’ billionaire owner, Shad Khan, wants taxpayers to pay him to solve his problem.
“Welcome to the special brand of stupid that is municipal sports negotiations.”
Those are the words of Neil deMause, the author of “Field of Schemes,” a book and website that studies and exposes the way pro sports teams and their wealthy owners fleece American taxpayers.
Think about it: In what other world would a business owner waltz into a town and say: I need space to run my business. I’d like you to provide it for me — and pay me for the privilege?
All that said — and it pains me to say this almost as much as it will please Mike Bianchi — this is probably one of the best, bad sports deals Central Florida taxpayers have been offered in a while.
In the past, county leaders have paid as much as $3 million for single football games — like the NFL’s Pro-Bowl. So if you compare $3 million for a single game to $10 million for being guaranteed at least eight, regular-season games, the latter looks like a T.J. Maxx clearance-rack deal.
There’s some legit entertainment value to having an NFL team play its full season here. Also, the money would come from a pot of hotel-tax dollars set aside to fund sporting events. Now, I’d argue that whole funding scheme is flawed in the first place — just a way for local officials to tie up money so that they can patronizingly tell citizens it can’t be used for more pressing, local needs. But that funding scheme is, in fact, already in place. So, by sports-deal standards, this one’s not bad.
Still, what I’d really like is for one bloody leader in one bloody town to tell one of these billionaire owners: Pay for your own darn business ventures, just like other business owners do.
If neither of the Jags’ only real Florida options for 2027 — Orlando or the University of Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville — offered to pay the ransom money, that would probably do it.
I asked Jags execs why they believed taxpayers in another city should pay to solve the team’s stadium problem and received a non-responsive response. Team spokeswoman Lyndsay Rossman said the team was “monitoring the process in Orlando” and noted that all the NFL team owners would have to approve the deal. It was asking someone what time it is and being given a recipe for gefilte fish.
Team officials don’t answer questions like this because they don’t have to. Most politicians just roll over.
When Florida Citrus Sports CEO Steve Hogan went before Orange County’s hotel-tax committee, members didn’t ask any tough questions. I’ll be curious to see if county commissioners do when ...
