Jacksonville Jaguars

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The Jacksonville Jaguars is one of the youngest football teams of the National Football League. They call Jacksonville, Florida their home and play in the updated and renovated former Gator Bowl. They came about in 1995 and have pretty much been a fair football powerhouse since their first season. The stadium that they play in is an historic landmark. Built in the Great Depression out of steel trusses, the mammoth Stadium is now called Jacksonville Municipal Stadium but most people around the Northeast Florida area still call it the Gator Bowl.

Florida had not seen any new NFL teams since the Tampa Bay Bucs were added in the 1976 season. Even though the state of Florida already had 2 pro football teams, the state was and still is such a football-crazy area of the USA, adding a third team to the stateýs NFL roster posed no problem. Jacksonville, Florida is the largest land-area city in the US and the fan base for the Jaguars is spread out over about 1000 square miles of territory. It includes all of Northeast Florida and a large part of Southeast Georgia.

Jax was in the running in the 1990s for their team against North Carolina, Missouri, Maryland, and Tennessee. Many thought that since Florida already had 2 pro teams that is really was not fair that the state should get a third pro football team. But a group was formed in Jacksonville to bring a team to town and in 1991 they placed a formal application with the NFL. Governor Jeb Bush was included in the original ownership group along with Tom Petway. They had already named the team the Jacksonville Jaguars and with the leadership of Wayne Weaver, the founder of shoe company Nine West, the city of Jacksonville was destined to get their pro football team.

A few hurtles had to be overcome in the beginning with the renovation of the Gator Bowl being one and the selling of the first seasonýs tickets being the other one. A first drive to sell the not-so-cheap season tickets resulted in over 10,000 seats being sold in 10 days. On November 31, 1993, the day after Jax was announced as the 30th winning NFL franchise; there were 25,000 fans on hand at the Gator Bowl to celebrate the official announcement. That day, official season ticket sales were a kick off and within ten days, sales for season tickets had passed the 55,000 mark.

The Gator Bowl game at the end of 1993 was the last game in the old stadium. The revered Bowl was pretty much demolished and replaced. The replacement consisted of reinforced concrete superstructure status and all that really remained of the old stadium was the West upper deck and a small portion of the ramping system. The first game played in the new stadium happened in the 1995 season with a preseason game of the Jacksonville Jaguars against the St. Louis Rams.

Jacksonville's first 1996 season was a big success. They were winners of 6 of their final seven games in the season and ended up with a 9-7 record. This got them the 5th seed in the AFC playoffs where they would face off with the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo. They beat the Bills 30-27. Then they faced the Denver Broncos who had a 13-3 record for that year and were the powerhouse of the AFC. Even though Denver was a super team that year, the Jags, lead by mark Brunell, beat the Broncos 30-27 in Denver. When the team returned home, they were greeted by over 40,000 devoted fans at their home stadium.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are set up to have a very illustrious future and if the fan base around Northeast Florida has anything to say about it, Jacksonville will have a pro football team for a long time to come.

Freddie Brister is a big fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New England Patroits. Check out his Jacksonville Jaguars Gear at http://www.sportsfantreasures.com/nfl-jacksonville-jaguars.htm or his New England Patriots Gear at http://ezinearticles.com/?New-England-Patriots&id=1786605