JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The RVs -- some of them had been lined up for days -- rolled into Lot E of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium at dawn on Wednesday, Oct. 28.

More than 80 hours later, The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, a teeming melting pot of red and orange and blue, finally kicked off. The University of Georgia sprinted onto the field with black helmets, but the University of Florida ran the Bulldogs out of the building, 41-17.

The uber-intense annual rivalry was witnessed by 84,604 fanatics and a national audience on CBS. Afterward, the temporary bleachers in the south end zone were removed and covers were placed over some sections in the upper deck.

On Sunday, when the Kansas City Chiefs visit the Jacksonville Jaguars, the crowd is likely to be less than half the size of that swirling Florida-Georgia constituency. It will be the league-leading fourth blackout for the Jaguars, who might well complete the season without a home game on local television; the eight blackouts team officials foresee would be one fewer than the entire NFL total in 2008.

Late last week, when Jaguars owner J. Wayne Weaver openly discussed the team's ticket issues in his exquisitely detailed office, his frustration surfaced only once.

"Sure, it bothers me," Weaver said, frowning and clasping his large, tanned hands. "It bothers me that we've become the poster boy for blackouts. Sitting here as the man in charge of this franchise, yes, it bothers me."

The Jaguars, who didn't have a game blacked out last season, lost 17,000 season-ticket holders this season. When a proposed 75,000-seat stadium in Los Angeles recently cleared the final legislative and environmental hurdles, Jacksonville became, in many minds, the leading candidate for relocation.

Even with the tarps that reduce the official capacity of Municipal Stadium to 67,164, the Jaguars are playing to 68.3 percent capacity, the league's lowest figure, worse than the Detroit Lions (76.5 percent) and Oakland Raiders (77.8), whose on-field product is clearly inferior. Jacksonville's announced attendance for the home opener against Arizona was 46,520, followed by 49,014 versus Tennessee and 42,088 three weeks ago against St. Louis. Media accounts suggest the actual numbers were significantly lower. The average ticket price is $45, third-lowest in the league, but tickets aren't selling like they used to.

There's a lot to like about Jacksonville, an attractive, still-growing city on the bank of the St. Johns River. This past May, Sports Illustrated, citing the city's 1,220 holes of golf, proclaimed it "Golf Town USA." It has Florida's agreeable climate -- without Miami's housing costs.

But is it a sustainable environment for the NFL? Was the franchise, based on the market, dead on arrival when it kicked off in 1995? The Jaguars, instructively, remain the only major league game in town.



Jacksonville is the largest city in terms of square miles (874.3) in the contiguous United States, but the entirety of its metropolitan population is only about 1.3 million, making it one of the league's smaller markets. And although Green Bay, Buffalo and New Orleans technically are less populated cities, they have successfully broadened their fan base to include outlying areas.

The effects of the economic downturn have been harsh in Jacksonville. The housing and construction markets have been hit particularly hard. Unemployment is about 10.5 percent -- still less than half of Detroit's -- but the Lions benefit from a population base of 5 million-plus and from the presence of 17 Fortune 500 companies, which helps ticket sales. As local business leaders point out, Jacksonville has two such companies, both outside the top 200.

For two years now, the stadium itself has gone without a sponsor's name. When the Jaguars acknowledged they might go black for the entire home schedule, the chorus of national criticism began.

Under the headline "NFL has no business in being in Jacksonville," Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports wrote, "Jacksonville as a viable professional sports market isn't going to end well. Eventually everyone will have to admit it."

Jacksonville mayor John Peyton, who said he has read the stories, said the Jaguars' plight derives from the combination of a tough economy, a small market and a big stadium.

"[The Jaguars] are a part of the fabric here, an important economic driver," Peyton said last week, sitting in his downtown office. "It's a wonderful distinction to be one of 32 [NFL cities]. It's a pretty exclusive list of cities and brings credibility to the community."

Tony Boselli, a 6-foot-7, 320-pound offensive tackle from USC, was the first draft choice of the fledgling franchise, the second overall pick in 1995. He was voted to the Pro Bowl five times in seven seasons in Jacksonville, but injuries cut short his career. Today, he lives in the area and works as a broadcaster and entrepreneur.

"I have a great love for this franchise," Boselli said, "and it drives me crazy to see it trashed like this. Unfortunately, in this world, perception is reality.

"It's not fair for everyone to jump on the bandwagon and throw Jacksonville under the bus. It's worked here before -- and it will work again. But yeah, we need to sell more tickets."

A monumental upset

At a hotel near Chicago's O'Hare Airport, representatives of five finalists -- the Baltimore Bombers, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Memphis Hound Dogs and St. Louis Stallions -- made their presentations to the NFL expansion and finance committees in the fall of 1993.

The NFL hadn't expanded since 1976, when the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers came into being, but in 1995, two new teams would open for business. The Panthers were unanimously granted the league's 29th franchise on Nov. 1; five weeks later, Jacksonville scored one of the bigger upsets in NFL history, on or off the field.

By identical committee votes of 10-2 -- the Giants' and Eagles' owners voted for Baltimore -- the Jaguars became the league's 30th franchise. The group that had temporarily dropped out of the process the summer before, the city with the second-smallest television market among the candidates, stunned the major-market favorites in Baltimore and St. Louis.

"It became clear to the committees that the Southeast has become a tremendous area for expansion," then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.

Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt went as far as to call Jacksonville "the new frontier."

"We made a great case," said Weaver, who had built his fortune with a retail shoe empire in Connecticut. "We probably oversold it."

He was smiling when he said it, but today we know that Jacksonville was, in the best of scenarios, a reach. The Jacksonville decision...