Jacksonville is a center for sports and entertainment, and our momentum should continue.
Why? The impact can be measured and benefits from Jacksonville and throughout Northeast Florida.
Sports and entertainment events are based on the competitive strengths of our community already has. That's also why the City recently partnered with Gator Bowl Sports and JAX Chamber to create the new Sports Council Jacksonville as a public- private partnership to promote Jacksonville as a first class location and destination of professional sports, amateur and youth as well as for greater entertainment and cultural events.
As mayor, I want our city to leverage our existing resources to improve our quality of life, adding jobs and revitalize downtown.
In April, the second festival of crowdfunding a spark brought thousands of people to a vibrant city center. The event shows that Jacksonville is "open for business” to support entrepreneurs, promoting innovation and fostering new businesses. A spark reported that an estimated 260,000 people attended the five-day event to visit the artists, enjoy live music and art, and enjoy the best of what Jacksonville has to offer.
In May, we expect more positive performance thanks to The Players Championship. Last year, players attracted more than 175,000 fans at Stadium Course, with 50 percent of them from outside Northeast Florida. The annual event had an economic impact of $ 151 million - while diffusing an international audience of over 850 million viewers. In recent years, the city has partnered with the JAX Chamber and Visit Jacksonville to expand that experience in downtown Jacksonville.
We hope more dynamic events, which is why I defended the sport and entertainment as a priority. In trying to improve our city and raise our international profile, these events attract visitors and attention to Jacksonville
For example, match of the finals of the U.S. men before the World Cup against Nigeria Football fans will draw from far beyond Jacksonville, and play an international television audience on ESPN and UNIMAS. And on June 22, Sir Paul McCartney will play his first full concert here since 1964.
And we have not even discussed our Jazz Festival success, or Florida Country Superfest at EverBank Field, June 14 and 15.
Investment in sports and entertainment does exactly that.
Jacksonville is a sports town. We have a team of NFL football , a championship team Arena Football League , a team of minor league baseball , a basketball team ABA championship, two universities in Division I, a rugby team championship and a new team NASL Soccer brand. Received the annual Florida -Georgia Football Classic and the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (recently renamed TaxSlayer Bowl). And you can hardly go a weekend without a 5k running somewhere in the city.
Jacksonville is also the entertainment center in our region. With numerous festivals and concerts, including annual events such as the Jazz Festival Jacksonville, Worldwide Celebration of Nations, and great nearby attractions like the Florida Country Superfest, even more people are attracted to our city in the country and the world.
In addition to serving as a valuable service for our local residents, these events attract many visitors and tourists who otherwise would not come to Jacksonville. In particular, these events add to our vitality greater Downtown area, leading to more consumers (residents and visitors) and providing a springboard for our downtown revitalization efforts.
Our city is strategically located to benefit from tourism -oriented events. We are a day trip from major markets like Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa and Miami, which gives us the opportunity to take advantage of the fans of these cities with our own sports and cultural events.
Although there is no exact measurement, it is clear that sports and entertainment are an important tourist traffic flow to Jacksonville, including regional and national convention traffic. And tourism is big business here, generating $ 684 million in revenue for our community in 2013,
According to a study by Visit Jacksonville. In addition, more than 22,000 local jobs related to tourism and hospitality. These jobs account for 5.7 percent of total employment in Jacksonville - or nearly one in every 18 jobs.
According to the same study, without state and local tax revenue coming from tourism, Jacksonville average household would pay an additional $ 550 in taxes to maintain the current level of government services.
We can be sure that our tourism numbers get bigger as more important are the hosts sporting and entertainment events that attract visitors from outside Jacksonville.
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