The runaway success of Florida State’s spring game at the Orlando Citrus Bowl — more than 50,000 appeared for the annual scrimmage held in Orlando while Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee underwent construction — has Florida Citrus Sports thinking big.
Who could blame them either? They have landed some marquee events in their renovated stadium. There is a new college football opening game to prepare for, WrestleMania 33 in April, the bowl games continuing to gain prestige in the new college football bowl landscape. There are big things coming to the Citrus Bowl for sports.
The one holy grail that is missing? The NFL.
There is no doubt Orlando is a football town at its heart. College and pro football dominate this area. Any trip around Downtown Orlando on Sunday will reveal a cavalcade of NFL jerseys, as it would in almost any city.
Yet for more than a decade, possibly even two decades, the NFL has not visited Orlando.
Steve Hogan and Florida Citrus Sports wants to change that and expects to have a NFL game in Orlando by 2017, he tells Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:
“I promise you, I guarantee you, we will have NFL football in this stadium in 2017 — one way or another,” Hogan told me after Florida State drew nearly 50,000 fans for its Spring Game at the Citrus Bowl on Saturday. “We’re absolutely focused on that and we’re going to be back in the (NFL) business.”
Throughout much of the 1990s, the Citrus Bowl hosted preseason games regularly. The Dallas Cowboys, Houston Oilers, Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers were among the teams to visit Orlando. Those games slowly went away for one reason or another. The stadium was not up to par for the NFL’s new standards, teams started wanting to get the home gate for their preseason games.
Orlando though remains very much a battleground. NFL fans in the city see it play out on TV. The Jacksonville Jaguars have designated Orlando their secondary TV market and so have all their road games aired in Orlando. That tends to upset a lot of Miami Dolphins fans. And then geographically, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the closest team to the city.
There would be plenty of interest in bringing a game to Orlando no matter who plays.
With Los Angeles getting a NFL team in the Rams this year, Orlando is now the largest television market without a NFL franchise. This is a somewhat untapped resource.
The city will not host a team until there are some more major stadium renovations — the Citrus Bowl renovations helped make the stadium competitive again, but not enough to attract a franchise. But an annual preseason game rotating among the three in-state teams certainly seems realistic.
The Jaguars had shown interest in regular games in Orlando in the past when Wayne Weaver owned the team — he has since sold it Shahid Khan — as a way to continue growing the franchise’s fan base. Certainly the other teams could compete for some time in Orlando too with a one-off game.
Florida Citrus Sports certainly has big ambitions. They always have. And this is both big and realistic for the city.
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Uhh, no. We’re a soccer town now.
And if they want the NFL, they better get rid of the Astroturf.
They are looking for just a preseason game. With the soccer team leaving for its own stadium, it makes sense to go for a preseason game at the Citrus Bowl. Football can be played on turf (better than soccer for sure). It is a win-win.
Don’t expect a full-time team in town unless they build a new stadium.
[…] Citrus Sports president Steve Hogan said last week he was hoping to bring the NFL back to Orlando. His dream was specifically for regular season games, although preseason games seemed more […]