Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping will meet with Daytona International Speedway representatives on Friday to discuss the possibility of NASCAR’s premier racetrack potentially serving as a temporary home for the Jaguars in the future. He doesn’t sound convinced that much will come from the meeting, though.
In an appearance on 1010XL earlier this week, Lamping said Daytona isn’t the team’s top choice in the event that the Jaguars play games outside of Jacksonville during a renovation of TIAA Bank Field.
“One thing Daytona has going for it is that they’re used to big crowds,” Lamping said. “It’s pretty close. You just have to worry about going back and forth up I-95. So if you’re going to invest a bunch of money in a facility … they’ve hosted football there before.
“There will be some issues with that as it relates to infrastructure, so we’ll see how it goes. But again, that’s going to add cost to the project, so we’re going to have to figure out who pays that cost. The preference, if we are going to take games away from Jacksonville, we’ll look at all alternatives because you never know what you may discover, but as you sit here today, you’d have to say Gainesville and Orlando are more prepared to host NFL games right now than doing games at the speedway.”
The Jaguars are hoping to reach a deal with the City of Jacksonville on a massive renovation of their home stadium. While a four-year renovation of the stadium could allow the team to stay at TIAA Bank Field during construction, a two-year project would force the team to play elsewhere.
There are local venues in Jacksonville like Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida, but that facility would require a significant investment to be ready to host NFL games.
While the idea of the Jaguars playing games on the front stretch of NASCAR’s most iconic track is fun, it seems pretty low on the list of possibilities.
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