The Jacksonville Jaguars are looking for a temporary home as they build a new stadium; They have a meeting with the NASCAR track
Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping is scheduled to meet with Daytona International Speedway reps today. The meeting could see the NFL team use the speedway as their temporary home.
Construction on the new stadium is planned to begin in 2025.
The team is drawing up a new stadium in Florida. However, as the team built a new stadium they would need a new place to play for the 2026 and 2027 season.
There’s an option for the team to remain at TIAA Bank Field throughout construction. However, that would significantly increase both the costs and the length of development.
Daytona is located just down the road from Jacksonville.
The speedway is one of NASCAR’s largest. It hosts two NASCAR Cup Series weekends each season, including the sport’s biggest race, the Daytona 500.
If a deal goes through, it wouldn’t be the first time in recent history that a NASCAR track was used for football games. Bristol Motor Speedway hosted games in their coliseum in recent years.
Mark Lamping comments on using Daytona as their field
“One thing Daytona has going for it is that they’re used to big crowds,” Lamping told 1010XL.
“It’s pretty close. You just have to worry about going back and forth up I-95. So if you’re going to invest a bunch of money in a facility … they’ve hosted football there before.
“There will be some issues with that as it relates to infrastructure, so we’ll see how it goes. But again, that’s going to add cost to the project, so we’re going to have to figure out who pays that cost.”
“The preference, if we are going to take games away from Jacksonville, we’ll look at all alternatives because you never know what you may discover, but as you sit here today, you’d have to say Gainesville and Orlando are more prepared to host NFL games right now than doing games at the speedway.”
Other alternatives for a temporary field include Orlando’s Camping World Stadium and The Swamp in Gainesville.
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Jacksonville Jaguars | Daytona International Speedway | NASCAR
