In 2005, the Jaguars installed tarps to block off thousands of seats at EverBank Field because the team simply couldn’t fill its stadium. For years, those tarps became a symbol of futility in Jacksonville.
The Jaguars are futile no more: This year they’ve won the AFC South and have already sold out their playoff game next weekend. That raises the question, Will they remove the tarps to sell more tickets?
The answer is no. Mike Kaye of First Coast News reports that the tarps will remain in place, in part because there are corporate sponsors who have already paid to have their logos on the tarps.
The Jaguars have removed the tarps for individual regular-season games when ticket demand was high in the past, but they’re not going to do it for this season’s playoffs.
EverBank Field hosts the Florida-Georgia game every year and sells out with 84,000 fans, many of them in temporary seats put in just for that game. So there’s no question that the stadium can hold more fans. But the Jaguars have capped capacity at about 65,000 and aren’t planning to change that. Perhaps winning a Super Bowl would create the kind of buzz around the Jaguars that would let them get rid of the tarps for good.
