I am a south florida native, grew up in Illinois (where there was only a snow bowl.) and I live on Amelia Island, 40 minutes north of Jax. We will be overrun with Bowl fans and are damn glad and proud of it. There's more to Jax than meets the eye or the press. Great corporate buildings, cruise ships will become permanent fixtures after this so I don't have to leave out from Ft. Lauderdale anymore to the Bahamas. Yeah Baby...Go EAGLES!
Greetings, I read the posts on Jacksonville with some interest, as I headed the competing effort to bring the 2005 Super Bowl to Oakland. When Jacksonville was awarded the game in November 2000, I was informed that they had over 17,000 hotel rooms under the NFL contract, which binds Jacksonville area hotels to set rates and room blocks, all under NFL control. Well, I recently was informed by the NFL that of the 17,000 rooms Jacksonville promised the league, they only had contracts for the 3,500 on the cruise ships -- that's it. I also learned that Jacksonville never had NFL contracts for 17,000 rooms - just letters of support. Oakland's bid had almost 8,000 rooms under contract and a letter from the San Mateo County CVB pledging 12,500 rooms, plus agreements to provide over 1,000 buses, limos, and taxis. So, contrary to popular belief, Oakland's bid was much better. The Super Bowl should be in Oakland. Thanks, Zennie Zennie Abraham Chairman and CEO Sports Business Simulations "Learn To Run" 510-444-4037 (0) 510-387-9809 (c) 510-291-3131 (fax) www.sbs-world.com http:
Pivo, I can't give you Pheonix (Desert), Houston (Cow Town with no beach), Chicago or NY (Frickin' Freezing) as places I'd rather live than Jax. Sorry, I live in Michigan and the weather here is ridiculouos. Jacksonville is downright tropical compared to anything north of Kentucky.
Zennie what's the big friggin deal about how many rooms, buses, limo's etc...How 'bout Jax is an awesome town, with awesome people, awesome entertainment, awesome river (1 of only 2 that run S.to N. I might add.) And an awesome attitude of gratfulness to be hosting the Superbowl. Quit your damn whining, sit back in your barkalounger on game day sipping your chardonay. Madden ain't coaching anymore!!!!
Shrew, you're the one who needs to chill because that comment is much more interesting and informative than your cheerleading--though I have no complaint with your first comment. The post is explicitly titled "How did Jacksonville get the Super Bowl?" and so zennie is perfectly on target by exposing some insider "how" data and in fact the type most of us would leave to read more frequently.
I, for one, would like to see river orientation determine the Super Bowl venue more often.
Come on theshrew, zennie wasn't impugning Jacksonville as a city at all. He was just pointing out that there aren't the proper amount of amenities required to handle a sudden influx of that many people. Us Hurricanes fans would love to have the NHL All-Star game here in Raleigh (shut up, it would sell out in minutes), but we also realize that we don't have the necessary amount of first class hotels that an event like this requires. The Draft in Raleigh went perfectly fine, but the Draft ain't the size of an All-Star game.
Just a quick note about the river thing. I moved to Jacksonville in 1989, and heard this growing up. Before that I lived in Radford, VA and heard the same thing except instead of the St John's River, it was the New River (both said the Nile was the other one). A river flows downhill to the nearest body of water, theres tons of rivers that flow away from the equator, just thought I'd throw that in there.
When the Superbowl game to Tampa in the 80s (the first time), there was not much to do here. There were strip clubs and warm weather. That's about it. The Super Bowl pretty much brings its own party. Detroit sounds ridiculous in February though. I would like to find out what they had to do to convince them to hold the Super Bowl there.
I don't mean to "dis" Jacksonville; I'm glad for them.
as the media hype trundles fwd and I see BSG complaining about Jacksonville - I've decided that I couldn't care less about where the super bowl is. I'm not there, I watch it on TV. The complaining about it being in Jackonsville would rationally be confined to the 100,000 (?) people that are going to be in town for the event. I guess it is like an NFL conference and you obviously want to put it in a nice spot so attendees can enjoy themselves but for the guy at home on his sofa all that matters is the game is on the field. i don't care what it outside the stadium. but you put enough media in a place for two weeks they don't have enough to do so the game isn't enough of a story. not to discount the whole big money/business angle of hosting a super bowl. it's big. but i don't see how it matters to the 80 million people watching it on TV in North America on sunday.
