With planned renovations to TIAA Bank Field on the table, the Jacksonville Jaguars will need a temporary home for the 2024 and 2025 seasons and one intriguing possible venue is gaining steam.
This week, Frank Kelleher, president of Daytona International Speedway, spoke about possibly hosting the Jaguars at the historic track, adding that they’ve had conversations with the team and made positive progress.
“We’ve spent time in Jacksonville meeting with their leadership and a variety of follow-up phone calls with architects and engineers and design firms, you know, really looking at our property, our footprint and understanding what is available,” Kelleher said, via New4Jax.
Daytona has hosted football before and held a women’s professional soccer game last year, so it’s not as far-fetched an idea as previously thought. And the track’s history of hosting events outside the world of racing might be helping Daytona’s case.
“It’s kind of gone from, ‘Yeah, I think we can do non-stick and ball sports at Daytona,’ to “Here’s images of what we pulled off and it was a world-class event, a world-class pitch,” Kelleher said. “So, we absolutely have the acreage and I feel like we offer things that other venues don’t.”
Upgrades to the Jaguars’ stadium are estimated to cost roughly $2 billion and will take 30 months to complete. That means that one way or the other, the Jaguars will have to find a place to call home for a while.