The Jaguars are 1,500 season ticket sales away from the start of a waiting list for tickets. That news was provided to jaguars.com by the team's ticket department.
"Business has been real good lately. We sold about 3,000 new season tickets in the last month, which leaves us about 1,500 seats shy of having a waiting list for non- premium seats," Scott Loft, Jaguars executive director of ticket sales, said. "We'd like to think that within the next 30-60 days we will have these sold."
The likelihood of that happening has the franchise wearing a broad smile. The Jaguars would join 23 other teams in the NFL believed to have waiting lists for tickets.
"People are more hesitant to give up their seat, which stabilizes the season ticket base," Loft said of the effect of a waiting list.
A second fact that has the people at One Alltel Stadium Place smiling these days is the group sales situation for games against the Steelers, Cowboys, Giants and Colts. All 5,400 group-sales tickets for each of those four games are gone. Group-sales tickets remain for the Jets (1,500), Houston (3,000), Tennessee (1,800) and New England (1,200) games.
The team currently has a season ticket base of 56,715 for the 2006 season, an increase of 2,209 season-ticket sales over last year's 54,506.
Premium-seat sales are included in the 56,715 figure, but the current 1,500 unsold season tickets do not include unsold premium-seat season tickets. Currently, 1,569 premium seats remain unsold.
"It would put us in the top 5-8 in the league in club-seat sales," Loft said of the club seats the Jaguars have sold to date. The Jaguars have one of the largest club seats capacities in the league.
"It's real important to sell the remaining club seats for us to be able to compete with all of the other NFL teams, due to our low pricing in the general bowl. We think we'll still be in the bottom five in pricing around the league, so selling all of our tickets is crucial," Loft added.
When you crunch the current ticket numbers, the verdict is tasty. Eighty-nine percent, 48,510, of the team's 2005 season ticket holders have returned. New season ticket sales for 2006 are 8,205. The Jaguars have sold more season tickets for '06 than they have for any year since 1999 and this marks the fourth consecutive year the season ticket base has increased.
"The biggest factor in the last month was the announcement of the schedule. Having two Monday night games showed Jacksonville the rest of the country thinks the Jaguars are serious contenders and potentially one of the elite teams in the league," Loft said. "We're coming off 12-4 and have a great schedule, so, the stars are in line, but we can't take anything for granted."
What all of this means is that Alltel Stadium shouldn't be nearly as yellow in color for the team's first home Monday night game since Dec. 3, 2001. When the Jaguars played the Steelers on Sunday night in the 2004 season, thousands of Steelers fans waving yellow dominated Alltel Stadium.
"There will be no Steelers, Cowboys, Giants or Colts tickets put out for single-game sales because we've already sold the 5,400 groups-sales tickets for those games," Loft said, but he acknowledged the likelihood of Steelers fans in Alltel on Monday, Sept. 18.
"We don't think there will be nearly as many as the last time and if there is, the majority of (those tickets) will have been sold by (Jaguars) season ticket holders. We know there will be some (Steelers fans) here because they've found a way to infiltrate every stadium in the NFL," Loft said.
The Jaguars don't expect to have any home-game TV blackouts this season for the second consecutive year.
Season ticket holders will receive the first opportunity to purchase any of the unsold group-sales allotment. Any group-sales tickets remaining unsold would be put on sale to the general public on Aug. 26. Any unsold preseason tickets would be put on sale on July 29.
