This is just one of the several scenarios wherever likely to Jacksonville is in fact a superior idea.
The Saints have been forced to go away New Orleans thanks to Hurricane Ida, and will play at minimum their initially residence recreation — Sept. 12 versus the Packers — on the street. In relatively of a astonishing transfer, they selected TIAA Financial institution Area in Jacksonville, house of the Jaguars, as their “home stadium” for 7 days 1.
Why Jacksonville, of all places? Nicely, it turns out there was a process to the Saints’ madness.
The group is at the moment practicing in Dallas, and while the Cowboys start out on the road, their stadium is unavailable for the NFL’s opening Sunday due to a concert. The league not too long ago ruled that all of their games need to be played in NFL stadiums, so they turned to Florida in endeavor to keep neighborhood to both their exercise site and their lover base.
So again, why Jacksonville? Why not Miami or Tampa, both of which have open stadiums on that Sunday? In accordance to Nola.com, the selection was in huge aspect an attempt to maintain effectively-traveled Packers supporters out of the “home” activity.
Miami and Tampa are significantly even bigger journey locations, primarily the former, and would likely see a large influx of Packers enthusiasts. In addition, with the Buccaneers becoming the Saints’ division rivals, they feared a number of Tampa Bay followers would demonstrate up and root for the Packers.
The Saints reportedly even checked Expedia to see how simple it would be for Environmentally friendly Bay lovers to journey to each individual of the three cities, locating that Jacksonville would be the most hard and costly of the 3 solutions.
The Saints also praised Jacksonville the town, as properly as the Jaguars group for allowing them to action in. But it’s clear that a main precedence was to limit the amount of money of Packers enthusiasts. Let us see if it works.