They penciled in a Super Bowl and called it economic impact. I know the sentence, and I know the font: the big round number on the slide, set in bold, with the footnote about methodology set in the size of an ant’s apology. I spent years at the You Know Who Post in a cardigan that cost more than an upper-deck season ticket, writing that the problem with stadium deals was who was doing them, and that a better mayor from a better party would negotiate a better split. I believed the split was the story. It turns out the study is the story, and the study is written by whoever wants the money.
Here is the record. Jacksonville taxpayers are committing $775 million to renovate the Jaguars’ 31-year-old stadium, Reason’s Jon Loesche reported Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. Democratic Mayor Donna Deegan closed the deal, and the city council approved it in June 2024; the talks started under her Republican predecessor, Lenny Curry, whose administration negotiated a May 2023 memorandum of understanding that would have split the cost of the stadium and surrounding development 50–50, and who later urged the council to pass Deegan’s version, calling it a “win for taxpayers.” An August 2023 study by Tourism Economics, commissioned by the Jaguars, projected $21.7 billion in economic impact between 2028 and 2052, starting from $10.3 billion in direct spending; Deegan later touted a $26 billion impact over the 30-year lease, a figure the team’s own stadium page repeats. About $700 million over 25 years is attributed to “mega events visitor & operator spending,” with examples including the Super Bowl, the NFL Draft and College Football Playoff games. In October 2025, Reason notes, owner Shahid Khan told talkSPORT that a Super Bowl “needs infrastructure besides the stadium, hotel rooms, infrastructure, and so on, and Jacksonville doesn’t have that.” The city has separately given Khan an incentives deal worth up to $82 million in grants for a Four Seasons hotel, part of a roughly $134 million package for his riverfront development. Economist J.C. Bradbury of Kennesaw State called the study “propaganda.” “The goal,” he told Reason, “is to concoct a big number, not an accurate number.”
Now the numbers you can count without a consultant. The stadium is city-owned, the team’s own FAQ says, and in 2026 it is down to 42,465 seats, with 27,308 offline. Sunday, the Jaguars beat the Colts 42-7 in front of 42,156, the team’s site reported — their first game at home since Sept. 27, with the next three on the road and the next home date Nov. 29. They play six regular-season home games this season, having shipped two to London, Reason reports; in 2027 they play in Orlando; the Florida-Georgia game, one of the existing events the study counts on, is in Atlanta this year and Tampa next. The study projects 848,100 attendees a year, 62 percent of them at Jaguars games, leaving about 322,000 for everything else — a number Reason says the pre-existing events alone would nearly fill. The team’s FAQ lists “protecting the taxpayers” as the first priority of the deal and promises an August 2028 opening. Fine. I hope it opens on time and the canopy cools the place by every degree they say. But read what the alibi is. Not the stadium. The number. A projection built partly on an event the owner says the city can’t host, started under a Republican who called it a win for taxpayers, closed by a Democrat who touted $26 billion. Both parties are the help. One brings the memorandum. One brings the ribbon. The billionaire brings the study, and the study brings the Super Bowl that isn’t coming.
Deb says the church once approved a new parking lot because the youth pastor projected a bus ministry, and twenty years later the lot is lovely and there is still no bus. Buck says he went to Sunday’s game, and that 42,156 people sound exactly like 42,156 people, and that the upper deck was very quiet and very economically impactful. I love them. They are seasoning.
“Economic impact” is the alibi. The Super Bowl in the spreadsheet is the story. Sit with it until it confesses. A city that owns the building and is putting up $775 million is renting the forecast from the tenant, and the tenant’s forecast includes a night the tenant has said won’t happen. I know what it is to get a number from the government that was really somebody else’s comp; I paid mine, and I am not here to talk about it. Maybe the renovated stadium earns every dollar back. I hope it does; Jacksonville deserves the parade. But a public deal sold on a big number instead of an accurate one is not development. It is advertising with a bond rating. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask the Jacksonville City Council, out loud, before the next incentive lands: who checked the $21.7 billion, why is the Super Bowl still in it, and what does the city get back if the mega events never come?
Sources:
- Reason, Jon Loesche, “Jacksonville’s $775 million stadium deal was sold on a Super Bowl the Jaguars’ owner says won’t happen,” Nov. 1, 2026
- Jaguars.com, John Oehser, “Game Report, 2026 Week 8: Jaguars 42, Colts 7,” Nov. 1, 2026
- Jaguars.com, “Stadium of the Future: FAQs,” accessed Nov. 2, 2026
— Theo Ashford-Lindström
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