The Los Angeles Buccaneers? - Ingles

Just a few days ago, as the babbling blowhards on a national radio show just began debating the topic du jour — which current NFL team would be moved to the West Coast now that L.A. has approved the framework for an NFL venue — the discussion reached a quick and unusually peaceful culmination.

I'm paraphrasing, but here essentially is how the conversation went:

"The Jacksonville Jaguars are probably already packing the moving vans for L.A.," one of the talking heads concluded.

"No question," said the other. "It's a no-brainer."

Question: When are those of us in the media going to lay off poor, little Jacksonville and the only big-time professional sports team that city will ever have? Why everyone does seemed determined to yank the Jags away from Jacksonville when there's another NFL team in the state with an even more embarrassing recent history of blackouts?
What about the L.A. Buccaneers?

When there is a discussion about moving a team to L.A., why aren't the Tampa Bay Bucs ever brought up? They are located in an area that is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the worst sports cities in America.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg megalopolis is the 14th-biggest market in the country, but does not support two of the most solid franchises in professional sports. The Tampa Bay Rays have proven over the last few years that they are one of the most well-run franchises in Major League Baseball yet the fan base continues to be among the sport's worst.

The fan apathy toward the Bucs is even more baffling because Tampa has always fancied itself as a football town. But I would argue Jacksonville is much more passionate about its perennially mediocre Jags than the Bucs are about one of the hottest young teams in the NFL.

Here's all you need to know about how far the Bucs' popularity has fallen not only in Tampa but throughout Central Florida: As I am writing this column, the Bucs do not even have a radio outlet to broadcast their games in the Orlando market. Radio stations in Orlando used to fight over the Bucs, but now the team has gone through much of the preseason without its games being broadcast in this thriving market.

If you want to accurately compare the Bucs to the Jags then chew on this: The Bucs, who were one of the surprise teams in the league last year with a 10-6 record, were the only franchise in the NFL that blacked out every game. Meanwhile, the Jags, a team the media likes to point to as the dirty-faced posterchild for fan apathy, blacked out none of its games despite being in the nation's 49th-ranked TV market.

The Jags averaged 63,000 fans per game last season; the Bucs had the second-worst attendance in the league at only 49,000 per game. But because there's nothing sexy about Jacksonville — the team or the city — the Jaguars are an easy target.

The media-bashing started a few years ago when the Jags were forced to cover up seats at their stadium in an attempt to avoid blackouts. Everyone ignored the reason for the tarps — because Jacksonville was the smallest market in the league with one of the biggest stadiums (73,000). And the reason it had one of the biggest stadiums was so the city could accommodate the annual Florida-Georgia college football extravaganza.

Another fact everyone ignored: Even with the tarps covering seats, capacity dropped to 67,000 – which is still bigger than Raymond James Stadium (65,857) in Tampa.

"The media has a way of regurgitating the same old stuff without doing their homework," says Jaguars great and Jacksonville resident Tony Boselli, one of the key catalysts behind the Jags' successful season-ticket push last offseason. "When you really look at the facts and Jacksonville's entire body of work as an NFL city, it's been a good market."

The fact is, the Jags, Bucs and even the Dolphins have a lot of work to do this season to avoid blackouts. The rotten economy, coupled with the 136-day lockout during a time when fans and corporations traditionally re-up for season tickets, will likely have a devastating effect on attendance throughout the league.

Of course when the inevitable blackouts happen, the nation's media will automatically emasculate the poor, little Jacksonville Jaguars.

In reality, the L.A., er, Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the team everyone should be pointing fingers at.

This article was written by Mike Bianchi and appeared in The Orlando Sentinel.