Where’s Bob Buckhorn?
August 16th, 2011
Please don’t tell Joe and your constituents that you’re clueless about Bucs football. You recently sat on the damn Tampa Sports Authority board. You know the Bucs’ attendance and all about the heinous blackouts that torture your city’s citizens.
The Jacksonville mayor, per Mike Florio of Profootballtalk.com, is now pounding fans in his town to buy up tickets and kill the evil blackouts.
“With the NFL lockout, it has been a difficult off-season for many NFL teams. Jaguars’ ticket sales were slowed by the lockout and now the team faces a Herculean task in trying to sell over 5,000 season tickets in the next few weeks in order to have a chance to avoid the dreaded blackouts for home games this season,” Brown writes.
There’s more to the Jacksonville mayor’s words to fans. Joe suggests you click through.
Of course, Joe knows politicians have far better things to do than worry about Bucs blackouts. But Joe would love to see Mayor Buckhorn sleep an hour less tonight and conjure a way that he’s going to fight blackouts that stain the community’s reputation around the world.
Silence is tantamount to accepting the cloud of blackouts than hangs over his city.
All the money that tourism brings the area, and all the tax revenue that is invested in Tampa’s tourism image in other cities, one would think the Mayor would refuse to see Tampa blasted across America for not selling out Monday Night Football in October.
Try something, Buckhorn.
August 16th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Thomas 2.2 – Your comment here was deleted because it is 100 percent off topic. You and others have been asked before to keep comments remotely on topic, especially out of the gate. Have some respect. Those topics you brought up will be addressed by Joe specifically in the next 24 hours. –Joe
August 16th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
With a concerted effort every Bucs fan who cannot make a game can chip in Ten dollars. That times a couple hundred thousand of us will be enough to buy up the extra tickets. No more blackouts. If all the sports writers and fans worked together we could do it. Same as doing a pay per view.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
TopDoggie, I love your name and admire your altruism. Now for some cold hard facts. When the Bucs don’t sell out a game, there are 28 to 30 other NFL teams who will. Gross receipts will go into a cumulative pot that at some point will be shared equally by all 32 teams under a sophistocated division of revenue formula. The Glazers and every other owner is going to get paid. Take your ten bucks and take your kid or a neighborhood kid for an ice cream sundae and enjoy!!
August 16th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Jacksonville’s mayor may be more concerned about the team relocating to LA than mayor Buckhorn is about the Bucs. With Farmers Field in the works the Jaguars continue to be a team tossed around for possible relocation. Outdated ballpark, minimal fan support, and poor television market make them prime for the plucking.
August 16th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
@Macabee I think that the home team still gets to keep 60% of the gate receipts – 40% go into the pool. Means there is a considerable incentive to try to sell out the games. (Home teams also get private box revenues, concessions, etc.)
August 16th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Ravelston, you’re probably right. I don’t know exactly how the formula works, but after the TV revenues are added in, they’re getting paid. My point to TD is the little guy shouldn’t have to make up the difference.
August 17th, 2011 at 1:22 am
Why do we even need the mayor? How about fans actually just buy tickets because we want to go see our team play IN PERSON on Monday Night Football. There’s a reason why God invented DVR.
How often will we get to see Josh Freeman play against someone he idolizes and studies day in and day out in Peyton Manning. If I could only afford to go to one game this year, this would be the one.
If they can afford it, fans should show up. Especially if anyone is worried about our reputation.
August 17th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I still can’t get how anyone can think requiring a sell out 72 hours before kickoff is a good idea. It’s stupid and it hurts the fanbase.
August 17th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
I don’t think individual season ticket sales actually declined too much when compared to other areas. During the Gruden days, tons of tickets were bought by local companies.
I vaguely remember an article when Gruden was fired that talked about all of the local companies not buying tickets anymore.
The purchase of tickets by companies was key to avoiding blackouts. People around here never were big spenders on sporting events. There was even an article about this on bucsnation. “Bucs in 4th most overextended market in the nation”
August 17th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
@CRRays I agree. With all the money the networks are shelling out I’m surprised they aren’t squealing like stuck pigs about the blackout rules.