The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team located in Jacksonville, Florida. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Jaguars, along with the Carolina Panthers, joined the NFL as expansion teams in 1995.

Jacksonville football history

Every year the city hosts the Gator Bowl, an annual civic highlight traditionally accompanied by parties, ceremonies, parades and other events leading up to the game. The annual Florida-Georgia game is also played in Jacksonville.

The Gator Bowl stadium was built out of steel trusses during the Great Depression and was frequently built onto, with the final addition of the reinforced-concrete west upper deck coming in 1982. The stadium hosted short-lived teams in both the World Football League (Jacksonville Sharks/Express) and the United States Football League (Jacksonville Bulls) and the occasional NFL exhibition game. The city also hosted the American Football League All Star Game in 1967 and 1968. The city briefly attempted to lure the Baltimore Colts, whose owner Robert Irsay famously landed a helicopter in the stadium as thousands of Jacksonville citizens urged him to move the team there. City leaders also attempted to get the Houston Oilers to move to Jacksonville at one point in the late 1980s. Great efforts were made to lure the Oilers, including the creation of a "Jacksonville Oilers" banner and designation of a specific section of the Gator Bowl as a non-alcohol, family section for proposed home games.

1991–1994

In 1991, the NFL announced that it would add two new teams, originally in time for the 1993 season. The league had not expanded since the 1976 season with the addition of Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers; with the sport growing the NFL felt the time was right to add additional franchises. Five cities were ultimately chosen as finalists for the two new teams: Charlotte, North Carolina; St. Louis, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; Memphis, Tennessee; and Jacksonville. From the beginning, Charlotte and St. Louis were considered the heavy favorites, with Baltimore also a strong possibility. Though not as strong a bid, Memphis was still considered an outside possibility, as the NFL did not have a presence in the area.

For many reasons, Jacksonville was considered the darkest horse in the field. Florida already had two NFL teams: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who played about a four-hour ride away, and the Miami Dolphins. Any expansion team would also have to compete not only with Florida's three major college football teams—Florida State, Florida and Miami- but also the Georgia Bulldogs, who have a fairly large fan base in the Jacksonville area due to Jacksonville's close proximity to the Georgia state line. Also, Jacksonville was the smallest television market in the running; it was the only one not ranked in the top 50 Nielsen markets.