Inaugural Bold City Showcase features 3 football games to open season

[gatorman-uf]

Glad to see them doing this. Always surprised that this doesn't happen more often. I stand by the fact that I think Week 1, the local pro sports teams should offer up their stadiums for free for the experience.  

https://www.news4jax.com/sports/inaugural-bold-city-showcase-features-3-football-games-to-open-season

[ORabidOne]

3 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

Glad to see them doing this. Always surprised that this doesn't happen more often. I stand by the fact that I think Week 1, the local pro sports teams should offer up their stadiums for free for the experience.  

https://www.news4jax.com/sports/inaugural-bold-city-showcase-features-3-football-games-to-open-season

Except in Georgia, where Arthur Blank has priced the GHSA out of the business of working with the NFL! $600,000 per event, and we are second fiddle to the professional SOCCER team!

[Jags904]

I’ll be there. Anybody else? 

[Perspective]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't these games be played at Bolles High School and not at TIAA Bank Field? 

Five or six years ago, the Bucs allowed a Tampa team and a Tallahassee team to play their KOC at Raymond James Stadium.  That was a pretty cool experience for the players, even though the stands looked pretty empty.  Five thousand fans would probably be a sell-out at most high school fields, but put those same fans in a stadium that holds 60-70,000 and the stadium looks barren.

The problem that the pro stadiums face is most of them have reverted back to natural grass.  I can't imagine one of those fields being used three or four times in the span of a week, especially if the summer rains come along and the fields get muddy and sloshy.  My understanding is that Bolles has an artificial turf field, so you could play three or four games in one day and the field's basically going to be in the same condition at the end of the last game as it was at the start of the first game. 

All that said, I love what Jacksonville is doing.  I wish the same thing would happen in Tampa. 

[Joshua Wilson]

1 hour ago, Perspective said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't these games be played at Bolles High School and not at TIAA Bank Field? 

Five or six years ago, the Bucs allowed a Tampa team and a Tallahassee team to play their KOC at Raymond James Stadium.  That was a pretty cool experience for the players, even though the stands looked pretty empty.  Five thousand fans would probably be a sell-out at most high school fields, but put those same fans in a stadium that holds 60-70,000 and the stadium looks barren.

The problem that the pro stadiums face is most of them have reverted back to natural grass.  I can't imagine one of those fields being used three or four times in the span of a week, especially if the summer rains come along and the fields get muddy and sloshy.  My understanding is that Bolles has an artificial turf field, so you could play three or four games in one day and the field's basically going to be in the same condition at the end of the last game as it was at the start of the first game. 

All that said, I love what Jacksonville is doing.  I wish the same thing would happen in Tampa. 

Games will be at Bolles School. Not only is there a problem with the grass at the pro stadiums, but security costs also make it almost cost-prohibitive to have a high school game now at a stadium unless you have millions lying around with nothing to do. 

As for Tampa... until they get away from the centralized funding madness... this kind of event will never happen there.

[gatorman-uf]

Bartram Trail 48
Robert E Lee 20
Story

Mandarin 28
Atlantic Coast 12
Story

University Christian 21
Bolles 14
Story

The crowds seemed to be pretty good overall. I hope this becomes something they do every year.

[Jags904]

41 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

Bartram Trail 48
Robert E Lee 20
Story

Mandarin 28
Atlantic Coast 12
Story

University Christian 21
Bolles 14
Story

The crowds seemed to be pretty good overall. I hope this becomes something they do every year.

Over 21,000 there. Awesome experience. The stands were full and it was rowdy. Mandarin brought the best crowd followed by BT. 

BT looked good but Lee will be a different team come October. They had to replace all 11 on offense. Both will be playoff teams. 

Mandarin’s defense looked stout. Beck can certainly make all of the throws. That WR Bryant from AC was the best player I saw all day. 

UC beat Bolles for the first time ever. That was the worst Bolles team I’ve seen. That QB for UC will be a dang good player in 2 years. 

BT was the best team there, then Mandarin. Everyone else was at least a step behind those two. 

We need this to continue every year. And we need it to be at a high school until we outgrow that. And we need more HS games on TV in Jax. 

[gatorman-uf]

4 minutes ago, Jags904 said:

Over 21,000 there. Awesome experience. The stands were full and it was rowdy. Mandarin brought the best crowd followed by BT. 

BT looked good but Lee will be a different team come October. They had to replace all 11 on offense. Both will be playoff teams. 

Mandarin’s defense looked stout. Beck can certainly make all of the throws. That WR Bryant from AC was the best player I saw all day. 

UC beat Bolles for the first time ever. That was the worst Bolles team I’ve seen. That QB for UC will be a dang good player in 2 years. 

BT was the best team there, then Mandarin. Everyone else was at least a step behind those two. 

We need this to continue every year. And we need it to be at a high school until we outgrow that. And we need more HS games on TV in Jax. 

Jags,

With Duval County switching to 6 pm start times, do you think this could be a solution with playing on Saturdays or do you think crowd like this is a mixture of opening week, 2 large public schools nearby (Mandarin/ACHS), and 2 very large good teams in the area? In other words, other than inviting Raines (and there being a better Bolles team) to play do you think this was as good as a weekend they could hope for?

 

[Joshua Wilson]

40 minutes ago, gatorman-uf said:

Jags,

With Duval County switching to 6 pm start times, do you think this could be a solution with playing on Saturdays or do you think crowd like this is a mixture of opening week, 2 large public schools nearby (Mandarin/ACHS), and 2 very large good teams in the area? In other words, other than inviting Raines (and there being a better Bolles team) to play do you think this was as good as a weekend they could hope for?

 

I know the organizers of this personally and it exceeded the numbers they had projected. I think it is called getting the right mix of schools, the right types of rivalries and keeping it focused on the metro area teams. If you try to invite an out of area team to something like this, it might not draw as well. The model for successful multiple games at a single site is sitting with this I feel. Airstream Ventures did a fantastic job.

[Jags904]

5 hours ago, gatorman-uf said:

Jags,

With Duval County switching to 6 pm start times, do you think this could be a solution with playing on Saturdays or do you think crowd like this is a mixture of opening week, 2 large public schools nearby (Mandarin/ACHS), and 2 very large good teams in the area? In other words, other than inviting Raines (and there being a better Bolles team) to play do you think this was as good as a weekend they could hope for?

 

Let me preface this with: it was a better weekend than I ever expected & it is the perfect event to start off a year. It should continue every year but it should be only that weekend. 

 

 

[gatorman-uf]

7 hours ago, Joshua Wilson said:

I know the organizers of this personally and it exceeded the numbers they had projected. I think it is called getting the right mix of schools, the right types of rivalries and keeping it focused on the metro area teams. If you try to invite an out of area team to something like this, it might not draw as well. The model for successful multiple games at a single site is sitting with this I feel. Airstream Ventures did a fantastic job.

 

I agree Josh. Other than adding Raines or Trinity Christian or Ponte Vedra or Fletcher or Sandalwood, I think the games looked good and if Jag's number are corrected with 21K, then that is amazing. 

My question about the success is if it had more to do with it being opening weekend, no mass amounts of college football, and being a fresh new thing for the area. I am more wondering if they did this in week 5 and had the same games would it still be as successful. Anything that grows this level of the sport is positive.

[Jags904]

1 hour ago, gatorman-uf said:

 

I agree Josh. Other than adding Raines or Trinity Christian or Ponte Vedra or Fletcher or Sandalwood, I think the games looked good and if Jag's number are corrected with 21K, then that is amazing. 

My question about the success is if it had more to do with it being opening weekend, no mass amounts of college football, and being a fresh new thing for the area. I am more wondering if they did this in week 5 and had the same games would it still be as successful. Anything that grows this level of the sport is positive.

I think a rotation of games would be great. Bolles was an awesome host. Next year I’d love to see Ponte Vedra vs Nease, Clay vs Fleming, and Raines vs Lee. I think if it’s week 1 next year with those 3 games I listed, it breaks this year’s attendance by a solid amount. 

It has to be week 1 certainly for this kind of success. 

[Perspective]

8 hours ago, Jags904 said:

I think a rotation of games would be great. Bolles was an awesome host. Next year I’d love to see Ponte Vedra vs Nease, Clay vs Fleming, and Raines vs Lee. I think if it’s week 1 next year with those 3 games I listed, it breaks this year’s attendance by a solid amount. 

It has to be week 1 certainly for this kind of success. 

Does one of those six teams/schools have a turf field?  That's the only way you can possibly play 3 games at one site on the same day (especially if you get any rain ahead of or during the games). 

[Jags904]

1 hour ago, Perspective said:

Does one of those six teams/schools have a turf field?  That's the only way you can possibly play 3 games at one site on the same day (especially if you get any rain ahead of or during the games). 

They do not. I was just throwing out teams that draw big crowds, it can only be done at Bolles. UC has a turf field but they don’t have the infrastructure to hold those kind of numbers. 

[Perspective]

6 minutes ago, Jags904 said:

They do not. I was just throwing out teams that draw big crowds, it can only be done at Bolles. UC has a turf field but they don’t have the infrastructure to hold those kind of numbers. 

Thanks.   I wonder if Bolles would be willing to host if they weren't one of the teams playing?   I guess it depends on what they would get out of it . . . concession money?  parking money?  percentage of the gate? 

[Jags904]

1 hour ago, Perspective said:

Thanks.   I wonder if Bolles would be willing to host if they weren't one of the teams playing?   I guess it depends on what they would get out of it . . . concession money?  parking money?  percentage of the gate? 

I don’t think so. I think they’d have to be playing for them to be interested which would be fine. Have a Bolles vs UC rematch