The city of Jacksonville is preparing to undergo major renovations to TIAA Bank Field, so major that the facility could be unusable for two full years, Mayor Lenny Curry said on 1010XL radio on Wednesday.
The renovations would take place in 2025 and '26 which, Curry said, would push the Game Formerly Known As The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party out for those seasons, presumably to Athens and Gainesville.
The Cocktail Party took a hiatus in 1994-95 while Jacksonville prepared the stadium, then known as the Gator Bowl, to host the Jaguars, but a break in 2025-26 could be different. And the difference is Kirby Smart
Georgia's head coach has consistently campaigned to keep the game on campus, believing that a recruiting weekend in Athens every other year is more valuable than playing in Jacksonville each October.
“It would be like me saying in June, there’s four weekends you can have prospects on campus — and at Georgia, you can only have three,” Smart said last year. “I’m self-sanctioning an opportunity to have the best prospects in the country fly into Atlanta and drive (to Athens) every other year to see Florida play Georgia.”
“Recruiting is the lifeblood of your program,” Smart said. "I have to do what’s in the best interest of the University of Georgia.”
Obviously, to this point, Smart's superiors have disagreed on how the Cocktail Party's location plays into Georgia's interests. But a mandated hiatus could give Smart a window to keep the game in Athens and Gainesville beyond 2026.
Florida and Georgia's current contract with the city of Jacksonville runs through 2023, with an option to extend it to 2025. So at the very least, TIAA Bank Field's renovations will factor into the next round of negotiations. The city currently pays each school $1.25 million to make the trip.
As for the Jaguars, Mayor Curry believed the team could find an alternate site in Jacksonville to play its home games in 2025-26. He cited the Chargers' temporary move to Dignity Health Sports Park... but the Chargers play in LA. The Jags play in Jacksonville. The only comparable facility in Jacksonville is the University of North Florida's Hodges Stadium, with a listed capacity of 12,000.
This is just me speculating here, but the NFL has made no secret about the fact that it'd like to park a team(s) in Europe full time, and to this point the league has turned the Jags into London's de facto home team. Just today, the league announced Jacksonville will be the first team to play back-to-back London games, versus Atlanta on Oct. 1 and Buffalo on Oct. 8. One has to wonder if, rather than play at Hodges Stadium, Orlando, Gainesville or somewhere else, the NFL turns the Jacksonville Jaguars into the London Jaguars for those seasons.
Of course, there is risk in Jacksonville not improving TIAA Bank Field as well. The Florida-Georgia contract expires in 2025 and the Jags' in 2029. Even if Jacksonville has to temporarily kick its tenants out, the end result will be something worth coming back to, Curry believes.
"I really believe it's going to be a major renovation but when it's done, you'll think you're in a brand-new stadium," he said.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.