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The Jacksonville Jaguars may need to find a new place to play if they can reach an agreement for stadium renovations with the city. The leading contender? Daytona International Speedway, via ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio.
The Jaguars recently proposed a massive two-year project to upgrade their home field that could cost up to $2 billion. This would also require roughly $1 billion in taxpayer money, hence the hypothetical nature of this plan.
The city of Jacksonville simply isn't equipped to host an NFL-sized crowd outside of the existing stadium. The nearest football stadiums large enough to host the Jags are in Gainesville and Orlando, each of which is well over an hour away from the city.
Daytona is also a bit of a drive from Jacksonville, but it can host 101,000 fans. The most obvious question raised by this bizarre alternative is: wouldn't a football field look ridiculously small inside a 2.5-mile oval racetrack?
Yes, probably. The field would be way too far away from many fans to just seat the stadium normally as if it was a NASCAR race. It would take a significant logistical effort to deliver an acceptable viewership experience for a large number of fans.
A logistical effort equates to a large financial investment; however, Jaguars president Mark Lamping isn't too concerned about that. “I hope we have to deal with that issue, because that means we would have a stadium deal,” Lamping said.
The other options under consideration include Jacksonville's minor league baseball stadium and the University of North Florida's track and field stadium. If those don't sound like venues that are ready to host NFL games, that's because they aren't.
It would also take an investment of about $125 million to make either option feasible, but refer to Lamping's previous sentiment: that's a problem the team is okay with having.