Expand<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThis is historic,\u201d Hogan said. \u201cIt\u2019s never happened. We\u2019ve never seen a regular-season NFL game played in Orlando, and now we\u2019re going to see a lot of them in 2027 \u2014 and hopefully some playoff games on top of that. By the time we sell out the \u201927 season, the country is going to go, \u2018Ohmygawd, we knew Orlando was a beast and a monster in sports and now they continue to show why any major league sport needs to move a team to Orlando.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added longtime Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer: \u201cThis is electric \u2014 one of the biggest days in Orlando\u2019s sports history. We are challenging our community to sell out the stadium in 2027. We\u2019ve been working for at least 10 years to get just one Jags or Bucs regular season game. To end up with a whole season is tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was always taught in journalism school that journalists shouldn\u2019t be cheerleaders, and I still believe that. Except for today. Because today, I am cheering for my city. A few months ago, I wrote that the Jaguars had essentially already decided on Orlando and were just waiting for the NFL owners to make it official. The league vote at the time felt like a formality, and now that formality is complete. The paperwork is stamped. The decision is real.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars are coming.<\/p>\n
Think about what this means for a moment. We\u2019re not talking about the Pro Bowl. We\u2019re not talking about a preseason game. We\u2019re not talking about a neutral-site one-off like we\u2019ve seen in London or Mexico City.<\/p>\n
We are talking about meaningful, standings-counting, playoff-impacting NFL games being played in Orlando for an entire season. We\u2019re talking about an up-and-coming Jaguars team under young, charismatic coach Liam Coen that might be making a Super Bowl run in 2027!<\/p>\n
Kudos to Hogan and the other city and county leaders who made this happen. Kudos to Jaguars team president Mark Lamping for pushing this deal across the finish line.\u00a0 Kudos to the owners of the Tampa Bay Bucs for not throwing a hissy fit and objecting to the Jaguars playing an entire season so close to Tampa.<\/p>\n
How awesome is this going to be? For one season at least, Jaguars fans won\u2019t be exclaiming \u201cDuuuuval!\u201d; they\u2019ll be bellowing out, \u201cOooooor-lan-do!\u201d Or, better yet, \u201cRoarrrrrrrrr-lan-do!\u201d<\/p>\n
Get your season tickets, baby!<\/p>\n
Cue up some Skynyrd, put on your Trevor Lawrence jersey and your fake Shad Kahn mustache and fill up that Yeti with some Busch Light because we\u2019ve got some serious tailgating to do!<\/p>\n
Can you believe it?<\/p>\n
Can you conceive it?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve got seven or eight Jags\u2019 regular-season home games in Orlando! And guess who\u2019s on the Jags\u2019 home schedule in 2027? That\u2019s right, both the Bucs and the Dolphins!<\/p>\n
Sorry, Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Sorry, Miami.<\/p>\n
But Orlando is a Jags town now!<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been waiting for decades for an NFL team to embrace the biggest media market in the country without an NFL team. The Bucs held training camp out at Disney for a few years, but were gone as soon as they built their own training facility in Tampa. The Dolphins, even though they are the state\u2019s oldest, most established NFL team, have essentially punted on trying to build a fan base in Central Florida.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only fitting that it\u2019s the Jaguars who have embraced Orlando. After all, we have always been their biggest TV market by a mile, which is why this a win-win for everybody.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars get to cultivate a market they should have been cultivating years ago. Meanwhile, this is not only great for the city\u2019s sports fans; it\u2019s great for the city\u2019s business leaders as well. It means national TV broadcasts with aerial shots of downtown Orlando. It means NFL teams, NFL owners, NFL media and NFL sponsors staying in our city on fall weekends. It means Orlando on the NFL ticker, the NFL highlights, the NFL conversation every single week.<\/p>\n
For one season, Orlando moves from being a \u201cgreat event city\u201d to being a pro football town.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t underestimate how important that distinction is.<\/p>\n
Orlando has spent years \u2014 decades, really \u2014 building itself into one of the best event-hosting cities in America. World Cups, bowl games, NCAA Tournaments, WrestleManias, mega-conventions, Taylor Swift concerts, you name it. If there\u2019s a major event that needs hotels, restaurants, transportation, and infrastructure, Orlando can handle it.<\/p>\n
But the one thing Orlando has never had is the most powerful sports league in the world setting up shop here.<\/p>\n
With all due respect to the NBA and MLS, nothing says \u201cbig league\u201d like the NFL.<\/p>\n
And make no mistake about it, the NFL will be watching closely. Very closely.<\/p>\n
Leagues don\u2019t do things like this blindly. Owners don\u2019t approve temporary relocations without understanding the bigger picture. This is an opportunity for the Jaguars, yes. It\u2019s an opportunity for Orlando, absolutely. But it\u2019s also an opportunity for the NFL to see what Orlando looks like as an NFL city in real time.<\/p>\n
Will the city support it?<\/p>\n
Will the fans show up?<\/p>\n
Will the corporate sponsors engage?<\/p>\n
Will the logistics run smoothly?<\/p>\n
Will the stadium feel big-league?<\/p>\n
Will the TV ratings pop in this market?<\/p>\n
This is, in many ways, an audition.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas didn\u2019t get the Raiders overnight. The city hosted big events, big fights, big games and proved it could handle major league sports before the NFL finally put a team there. Markets grow and change. Opportunities like this are how that change happens.<\/p>\n
For years, Orlando has been known as a tourism capital, a convention capital, a theme park capital. All true. But cities evolve, and Orlando has been pushing hard to add another label: sports capital<\/p>\n
Hosting an NFL team for a season doesn\u2019t just help that argument; it supercharges it. It\u2019s going to be unlike anything this city has ever seen on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s another thing people shouldn\u2019t overlook: this will likely turn a lot of Orlando residents into Jaguars fans. Kids who go to games. Families who adopt the team. Businesses that partner with the team. That kind of connection doesn\u2019t just disappear when the Jaguars go back to Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how fan bases grow. That\u2019s how regional teams expand their footprint.<\/p>\n
So no, the Jags are not becoming the Orlando Jaguars. But for one year, they will be Orlando\u2019s NFL team. And how this city responds \u2014 the energy, the support, the turnout \u2014 will say a lot about Orlando\u2019s sports passion.<\/p>\n
For years, Orlando has said it wants to be seen as a big-league city.<\/p>\n
Well, the NFL is as big league as it gets.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hear it, Orlando!<\/p>\n
Say it loud and say it proud!<\/p>\n
The Jaguars are coming!<\/p>\n
The Jaguars are coming!<\/p>\n
The NFL has handed Orlando one season.<\/p>\n
What we do with that one season could shape our entire sports future<\/p>\n
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show \u201cGame On\u201d every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com\/listen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando, this is no longer a drill or a dream. This is no longer speculation, rumor or civic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[97595,23171,121,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-213776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-2027-season","tag-camping-world-stadium","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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