MARK LAMPING: You know, most of what we have to share relates to 2026. But because so much of what's influencing 2026 is the construction, we thought it would be appropriate to give everybody an update on what's going on. You can see there is a tremendous amount of activity.
Before we get started, while there has been a lot of discussion for a lot of years, and there has been a lot of moving parts during that time, all designed to deliver on Shad's vision of a stable Jaguars NFL franchise here in Northeast Florida for generations to come.
There was a whole sequence of things that needed to happen and needed to happen in a certain order. What I find particularly exciting is that these things are actually coming to life right now. So if I started with one of the first things we had to do is get all the football staff out of the stadium to enable renovations to occur.
Here we are sitting in the Miller Electric Center. We had to get the whole business staff out of the stadium so they could come in, do a lot of demolition, because all the space -- most of the space that football and business was using is all being repurposed.
And right across the parking lot, unfortunately that palm is blocking the view, is a new office building. We moved in there Monday. So the business staff is settled in in a new office building. Football staff has been here for a while. The stadium construction is under way. You know, everything that led up to just getting to the point where you could begin construction.
The promise of the Four Seasons Hotel, I mean, you can see it right across the way. The new marina behind the Four Seasons, that new public marina opened last this summer.
So if you got out there you could see all the work that's actually being done. The river walk in front of the Four Seasons and this new marina, that will open the same time as the marina, so you can expect that sometime this summer.
There is a marina building that's connected to the marina that includes a restaurant, Asado Life, opening their second location. First location is down in St. Augustine. That will open up early this fall.
And all the funding is in place to finish the North Bank Parks. So all of those things were integral components of Shad's vision to have a community and a location that not only would uplift its residents, but also create a place where an NFL franchise can thrive for generations to come.
So it isn't just promises. These are promises that are being fulfilled, which is a great thing.
So let me start with a construction update. Now that -- and a lot of this is in the release that's in front of you. Now that the season has ended, major construction, as you can see, continues both in the bowl and outside the stadium.
There is 75 deep foundation elements that have already been completed outside the stadium. So if you look at some of that steel right out there and you see that that steel is connected to a big concrete piece of structure, that goes way down. That provides the structural integrity for what ultimately will hold the roof over the stadium.
So 75 of those have been completed. 100% of those outside deep pile foundation elements will be completed by August. So a lot of work that needs to get done between now and August.
There is actually six big cranes. They call them crawler cranes because they move around. As the work progresses, those cranes move. So there are six of them in operation outside and inside the stadium.
One of the interesting things, this crane right here is our problem child in that that one goes around the stadium this way and you get to a real pinch point. When you come back in a few months, you're going to see a large portion of the player parking lot here at the Miller Electric Center will be removed. On a temporary basis. The players will park out here.
So that's moving along. All of the structural steel will be completed by November. There is 100 steel trusses that are being installed as we speak right now. We opened up a big staircase by gate one earlier this year. That was open for most of the season.
The second grand staircase is right behind us. That will open early during the 2026 season. Then there will be similar staircases on all four corners of the stadium along with escalators that will run in tandem with the stairs. The escalators will come at a later date. Before 2028, but they won't be this year.
Main concourse expansion is under way. You can get a sense for how wide the concourse will be. If you look at the outer edge of that steel, that's the width of the concourse. The concourse is about four times the width it is right now.
So if you ever find yourself on the main concourse during a Jaguars game or in the upper deck, there is significant crowding. All that crowding will be relieved because there will be significantly more room for our fans to find their way.
But we got a long, long way to go. We've currently completed 15% of the project. We're progressing well. We're on schedule, but have a long, long way to go.
Currently there is an excess of 550 full time workers working each day on this project, and that will continue to ramp up.
One of the other commitments of this project, we always said that if the end result was just a shiny new football stadium, then collectively I think we would've missed a huge opportunity. So we are really proud of not only the community benefits agreement, but also to make certain commitments to make sure that during the construction period our project benefitted the community to the maximum that it could.
So we call these community construction metrics. We're running ahead on all of them. Local small and emerging businesses, running ahead of our goal. Local business participation, running ahead. As we sit here today, we've got over 140 local contractors that have already been doing work on this project.
That also means a lot of local people are being put to work. There is a big issue in the construction industry in the building trades as it related to getting labor in the pipeline. That's why if you listen to Haze's radio station you'll here Miller Electric recruiting for employees to come through their training program.
So we had a goal in terms of trying to include as many apprentices as we could. We're ahead of that. Had a big "Buy American" goal as well and running ahead of that.
So we feel good. Still got a long, long way to go and there will be continued progress to be made, but we are exceeding all of the goals that that we voluntarily agreed to with the city of Jacksonville.
Let me just take a minute. This is a time lapse drone video. I think we're going to post this on the website after this, okay? So this was actually taken yesterday. Okay, so this is the southeast corner. Some of the things you can see here. During the playoff game there was a big sky bridge that connected this to this; that has been torn out. These ramps are in the process of being taken out.
You're going to see seats that will be taken out in each of the four corners. If you look here you can get a look about what's happening in the north end zone. A lot of that seating has been removed. That's being removed to allow to put in the additional structure necessary to support the temporary seats that will go in for the Florida-Georgia game. This is that grand staircase near gate one that we opened earlier this year.
You can get a sense now for the width of this concourse. During the regular season -- well, you can see it stopped right there, and now it's eventually going to wrap all the way from this staircase to the other staircase, eventually around the entire stadium.
If you look inside the bowl, you can see the seats have been removed in the upper deck and there has been demolition down near the field level. This will be rebuilt in time for this season but that's allowed to get in there because all the work that's being done is those are some field clubs being put in.
Now we're coming into -- that was that crane that I was talking about earlier. So this is that pinch point as you come around here. This is the Miller Electric Center. We're all standing right there. I'm standing there. You're all sitting there.
And you'll get your first glimpse, here is another look at some of the seats that have been removed. In this corner right here you'll actually be able to look from outside the stadium inside the seating bowl, so this gives a real example of how those seats get cut out.
If you recall the design, the reason for that is to create a breezeway in each of the four corners to not only provide great decks to overlook the river and downtown, but also to provide ventilation through the stadium to keep it even cooler.
The sky deck at this end, which is usually a group sales/tailgateing area, that will be closed for next year. This is the Northeast corner. As you're wrapping around you can see all the work that's going on.
The first part of the construction for the grand staircase that will be located in that corner. Again, you can see how pieces of the stadium have been removed. Ultimately, we come back in because not only the main concourse but the upper deck will offer 360 degree circulation. You can't do that now.
You'll be able to walk around the entire stadium, both the main concourse and the upper level. They're a little further along on this side of the stadium in terms of the steel construction. Ultimately, all this comes up, all this steel is scheduled to be done by November, so there will be work going on during the season.
That is one of the primary reasons, the steel will cantilever over the upper deck. That's why we have to close the upper deck. Wouldn't be safe for people to be up there.
And so that concourse will wrap in front of what is currently the club seat entrance. This is on the eastside of the stadium. You can see these ramps are all in the process of being dismantled.
So this gets us back to where we are.
That's our office building we moved in Monday and that's the Four Seasons. Behind that is the marina that I referenced a few seconds ago.
We'll post this on our website. Feel free to access it there.
Okay, so let me turn to 2026, which is really some of the meat of what we're talking about today. Remember that when we first laid out this construction plan we were going to be playing outside of Jacksonville for the 2026 and the '27 seasons. We got a lot of feedback. Part of our community huddles, we heard from fans, heard from other stakeholders, heard from elected officials, that they really wanted to try to limit that to one season if we could.
We agreed to do that, but we knew there will be some sacrifices we would have to make in order to make that possible. So to stay on schedule we have to change what the experience inside the stadium will be like for our fans this year. Lower capacity, closing the upper deck, and coming into certain parts of the lower deck where some seats are being removed. Principally to remove those seats in each of the corners open up the breezeways to increase the comfort inside the stadium.
So the capacity will be 42,507. That includes 1,260 standing room only tickets. This is a decrease from 68,300.
So of the 27,637 seats that will taken off line this year, over 22,000 of them are located in the upper deck. So the 400 level is closed and there are some seats that are impacted elsewhere.
On the 200 level in each the four corners; there is some rows in the north end zone. Some of those being removed to create compliance with new NFL broadcasting rules as it relates to camera locations. The lower level south end zone and lower level club, some seats being removed, and then will come back and replace most of those seats.
And also the north end zone spa deck and sky patio in the south end, both of those will be off line this year. Again, all that is laid out in the press release.
Season ticket renewal information will be shared with our season ticket members in the coming days. Any season ticket holder whose sets are impacted by this construction will be contacted individually by their account service representative with the Jaguars.
All of those the season ticket holders in the upper deck will be given the first chance to relocate down the lower level if they chose to. In addition to that, we will be offering some pricing incentives to those displaced season ticket holders.
We are also accepting new season ticket deposits. We have been for a while. But we are not assigning those seats until we get through this process of relocating any existing season ticket holders that are displaced. Then we'll begin filling in, assuming we have inventory available, with new season ticket holders. We do you have room for new season ticket holders, but the interest has been very high.
So that's basically the major changes as it relates to the stadium for the 2026 season, okay?
Another component of this, and again, a lot of these things are tied together that is allowing us, although doing it in a somewhat disruptive way to play our games at EverBank Field in Jacksonville this year.
So international games. That's the next topic. You may have seen an announcement this morning from the NFL regarding the London games next year.
So first, it's important to remind us all that the NFL requires that 32 teams play certain games at international locations once every four seasons.
Now, this game is separate from the annual game that we play in London, and our turn to be selected for those was originally scheduled for 2027. So next year when we're playing outside of the Jacksonville, one of the games we won't be playing in that temporary location will be an international game.
The other game was scheduled for 2030, okay? So as we looked at the complexities of the construction schedule and all of this was -- the two games was anticipated because that was part of our negotiations with the City of Jacksonville.
So we've always known the Jaguars had the ability to play two games outside of Jacksonville during the 2026 season. One of the reasons that was important is because we have to have all of our preliminary work done by the end of the 2026 season, because once the season ends, things go really gangbusters.
So we can't be catching up on work we got behind on. That's why you're seeing so many people working now. In the event that we got to where the season was starting and we had some projects that had to get completed and would've been difficult to do that while the games were being played, it was our hope -- and again it remains our hope -- that the 2026 schedule would be what we call a doughnut schedule.
So you would have games and a break in the middle, and during that break, construction would be ramped back up to get inside the stadium.
So we know that at a minimum there will be a two-week window. Now, the NFL schedule is one of the most important things that the league does. It drives so many things. It's a subject that the league and 32 clubs take the greatest amount of interest in.
What the league does, is offer the opportunity for teams to provide their suggestions on what they'd like their schedule to look like. Sometimes you may have some dates that otherwise your stadium would be occupied, which would make having an NFL game not impossible but difficult.
So every year we would put down the Florida-Georgia weekend as we would prefer not to be playing a home game on Sunday when Florida-Georgia play on Saturday. So we give all our requests to the league. Again, no guarantee we will get that, but don't be surprised to learn that we're going to ask for a bye week after our second London home game.
If we're granted that, then that two-week window becomes three weeks. In addition to that, we're going to ask that we play a road game either before our first London game or after our bye week.
So if that happens, then from a construction perspective we have the optimal schedule which gives us almost a month-long doughnut right in the middle of the season.
Again, this isn't guaranteed. The league always tries to cooperate, but there are overriding issues which outweigh many times what one individual club may want.
But we know at a minimum we're going to have two weeks. Cross our fingers we could have as many as four.
Again, the two games in London, trying to create this doughnut schedule, that's one of the trade-offs to playing in Jacksonville this year. Again, like I said, this is not something that should come as a surprise.
The other piece that was interesting in the second game, keep in mind I mentioned we were scheduled to play an additional game in 2030. We work with the league. The league has agreed to move that game to 2026.
So what that means is we're getting a game back that will be in Jacksonville in the new stadium at full capacity, and we're giving up a game at reduced capacity in the stadium here. Also helps us regarding the construction.
So that's happening for sure. So we think -- obviously many fans want every single game to be played here in Jacksonville. We understand that. But in this particular case, trading a game in a stadium under construction with reduced capacity and getting a game back in our brand new stadium, we think that makes sense for all involved.
So that's something that we're looking forward to.
Obviously questions about the last topic, this is not in the press release, but I think we're getting very close to a resolution on where we'll be playing in 2027. We have every expectation that it will be taken up at the upcoming owner's meeting, which is scheduled for Phoenix at the end of the March. Then we'll be able to move on at that point and begin planning.
So with that, that's the end of any prepared remarks. If there is any questions I'll be happy to take them.
Q. Is there any consideration looking beyond the '27 season of trying to get out of that required annual London game?
MARK LAMPING: We don't have to get out of anything. In fact, our London commitment has been something that's been rolling. It's been renewed year after year. You know, there is a lot changing on the international front with the league. There is a lot that's going to be changing here locally.
I think you can expect us to take a close look at what our London strategy is moving forward. Not to suggest that we're going to stop playing a game in London, but it's something we will look very closely at.
Q. Two questions: Wanted to make sure I had my facts straight. Two games in London, are they both home games, or is it like a couple years ago where one was officially a home game and one was a road game?
MARK LAMPING: No. These are games that if they weren't going to be played in London would be home games here in Jacksonville.
Q. So of the eight designated home games for 2026, two of them will be in London in 2026?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah, we have a total of ten games including preseason. Two of those ten will be played in London.
Q. I remember a few years ago that the '27 season -- the '28 season was probably one of the most successful in terms of local revenue created for the club because of the success of the '27 season on the field. Considering how well the team did --
MARK LAMPING: 2017 and 2018, right.
Q. Yeah. So considering how well the team did on the field in '25, how much will the reduced capacity impact local revenue creation this upcoming year?
MARK LAMPING: Well, it is going to impact it. You can't lose a third of your inventory and expect to generate the same ticket revenue. We're going to try, that's for sure.
I would expect that we would have a big change in the supply demand dynamic. I think this will be a pretty electric experience for our fans. It will be a smaller capacity, but should be packed each and every game. Hopefully given that we give priority to Jaguars fans first. You know, we have a strong schedule next year with teams that bring a lot of fans with them. Hopefully our fans will take up most of those tickets before visiting fans have a chance to purchase them.
But the other part of this is we've known this all along. This was one of the trade-offs that we knew we had to make. One aspect of this that's been incredibly uplifting to us is how supportive our partners and sponsors have been to work with us through this situation.
For example, maybe taking other benefits, keeping their investment the same but adding other benefits to offset for the lack of capacity. The one thing to keep in mind, I don't want it belabor it, but this is an important point, is we made a conscious decision collectively once we figured out it was possible to pretty much do something that has very rarely, if ever, been done on this scale. That's produce a new stadium from an existing stadium.
So there are trade-offs that come with that. One is the one you just mentioned. You're going to be doing construction while you're playing games. There is logistics, cost impacts of that. There is headaches that are part of that.
There is economic impacts that are related to that. The other thing that we did when we chose this renovation approach, we were able to do it in a much more sustainable way. We were able to do it much more efficiently.
We said at the time that doing a renovation versus a new build collectively saved about $1 billion. I would suggest it's more than that. Look at the pricing of new-build stadiums out there.
So all those things weigh. So, yes, going to have to be conscious of what the local revenue is for the 2026 season and the '27 season, keeping in mind collectively with our partner at the City, both of us have come up with a pretty efficient way to deliver a stadium that convinced an NFL team to sign a 30 year lease.
Q. You guys still control the London game at Wembley?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah, the one thing that's different with these resolution games that the league refers to, when they can take one game every four years, the league operates that.
Q. Right.
MARK LAMPING: So while we will be the designated home team for both the game at Wembley and Tottenham Hotspur. The league will Hotspurs game, as they do for all the other games there, and we will operate 100% the Wembley game.
Then the economics of those, the structure of the economics are different from our game at Wembley versus Hotspurs.
Q. Do you have an agreement with the league -- I know you had one through last year -- to do that annually still?
MARK LAMPING: I think we just signed the extension that allows us to play the game this year.
That shouldn't signal anything other than the league likes to keep their options open. For the most part.
Q. I think before in one of the older state of the union addresses, London revenue made up like 11 percent.
MARK LAMPING: That was at the beginning. It's nowhere near that high anymore. We've made significant progress here in Jacksonville and economic motivation will change even more once we move into the new stadium.
So we're all -- these are all the things we need to consider when we go back and look at our strategy.
Q. In the past you've been able to protect games, big games here as opposed to --
MARK LAMPING: Yeah.
Q. Will you worry about that with a limited capacity or do you still have the ability to tell the league, hey, we would like to protect this opponent in Jacksonville?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah, I don't think we're going to say, okay, let's not protect the most popular game because we're going to sell it out anyway. I don't think that's fair to our fans that are going to be there. Keep in mind our hope is that most of our seats will be occupied by season ticket holders, core fans.
We're going to rely on them for a long time. Whether you're a season ticket holder or whether you buy single tickets or don't go to Jaguar games, you can still be a fan and we still appreciate your support. But I think we will be guided by protecting -- and we can protect two games -- that we will assess which of those games would be best received by our fans to be played here.
There is also good discussion and probably a better level of communication that we've had since I've been here in terms of what football thinks from a competitive standpoint. They may not -- they may like a matchup at home against a certain...
Q. How important is that relationship with the football side of things?
MARK LAMPING: It's incredible. I mean, again I'm not being critical to anyone who proceeded James or Liam or Tony, but this is at a whole other level. There is a great level of respect for what each side of the organization does.
There is tremendous sensitivity from a business standpoint. We know the best thing for our -- to meet our objectives is to win football games. Anything we can do to support the football team. And the football team knows they have a much better chance of winning on Sunday if the place is packed.
Just as an aside, we've had some great environments over the 13 seasons I've been here. I don't think anything showed what this market is capable more than our playoff game against Buffalo this year. You saw the stands, unlike a lot of times when the Bills roll in here, it was still dominated by Jaguars fans. They were loud and it was great.
And I think that was appreciated by the football side and was really appreciated by all of us on the business side that yes, we're correct. If we put the right product on the field and give our fans the right product for them to enjoy in the stadium, we're going to get an unparalleled experience.
Q. In terms the 2027 home game location, you said we may learn about that in March?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah. I think the process for that is it needs to be first approved by probably two ownership committees. Ownership committees convene next week in Palm Beach, Monday and Tuesday. So this matter will probably go in front of two committees next week.
If it comes out of those committees, it goes to a vote of 32 owners. That proposition was no different than what we had to go through to get our 30 year lease extension approved. Looks like we're on that timetable.
Q. We may not know until March though, correct?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah. Well, it can't be officially 100% guaranteed until the full ownership body of the National Football League votes on it. That can't happen until the end of March.
Q. What factors, if you can explain, are in play in terms of making that decision as we're going to play at this stadium or this stadium? What goes into that decision?
MARK LAMPING: A whole variety of things. You know, what do our customers want. That's why we did a lot of surveys of our season ticket holders. What do our sponsors want. What do our employees want. We also want to make sure that wherever the games are played, it's played in an NFL-caliber stadium. We think it's really important that games are played in front of a full house.
And, it needs to be convenient for Jaguars fans to get there, and also in a market where there is enough football fans to be able to buy what will be tickets that Jaguars fans will not purchase.
Those are principally the things we looked at. There is no secret. We spent a lot of time looking at Florida Field in games, but we talked about some of the challenges there. Spent a lot of time at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.
The NFL has certain requirements. The logistics have to work out not only for the home team but also the visiting team. Locker rooms, space on the sideline so that you can continue to support a high quality television production. Those are probably most the things we considered.
Q. One last thing. You mentioned the steel beams. You said that is to support I guess the roof?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah. Eventually what will happen is those steel beams will encircle the stadium, and then all of the load that is created by the new roof will be supported by those steel beams.
Q. Those should be in place by November?
MARK LAMPING: Yeah. Steel beams on the outside by November. Then the next thing that's the most important piece, which is really critical, and I don't want to get into too much detail because if you ask me questions I'll probably have to make something up, there is what they call a compression ring which sits on top of those.
It's that compression ring that ends up supports the roof. There is a steel cable net structure that basically lays on the field, lays over the seating bowl, and once you got the compression ring in place, and the compression ring is expected to be in by next February and we can't miss that; that's a really critical path date.
Once you get that compression ring, then slowly you can raise that cable net structure up to the roof, and to that structure is what you attach the roof structure.
Q. Is the build on pace to be on budget? Or how far over?
MARK LAMPING: That's a hard question to answer right now. What I would say is this is different than other projects, okay?
If we were building on a green field site it would be a lot easier. For example, with new stadiums, a lot of times they'll discover differences that were like unforeseen conditions. We didn't know there was environmental problems under the ground.
Early on in the process -- and most of the unforeseen conditions in new stadiums are all subsurface stuff. If we were building new we would be through that which gives you more certainty.
Unfortunately that's not this process. Because it's a renovation and there is existing systems in the building that will be reused, some will be removed, as I've said before, there are surprises around every corner.
So discovering these unforeseen conditions lasts a lot longer for us, so our cost projections literally change in real time. If I gave a number today it would be outdated a half hour from now.
I did say this a few weeks ago: We will be over $1.4 billion. What that number will be, we won't really know with great certainty until we get through a lot of the renovation stuff that's going on inside the stadium.
Q. And you mentioned briefly international game in the '27 season. Do you have an idea on how many?
MARK LAMPING: Well, in 2027 our agreement with the city of Jacksonville would allow us to play up to three. We know we're playing one for sure because that's the resolution game that the league is going to take from us, okay?
Then beyond that we haven't determined yet. I would think we will continue our annual game in London, but there is a lot of pieces that need to fall in place for that.
Beyond that, one of the reasons we had the ability to go to three games was done if there was scheduling issues or something like that.
Q. How much pride do you and Shad take in this project being here? Seeing the Chiefs possibly moving Arrowhead out of the state, seeing the Bears possibly moving a new stadium in Indiana, how much pride do you take that you were able to do this here?
MARK LAMPING: Well, that's all a credit to Shad. Shad spent a lot of time doing due diligence on the purchase of the St. Louis Rams, so knows that market well. I was born and raised in St. Louis. I know what it's like to a young sports fan in a community to lose your team. We did it multiple times in St. Louis, okay?
You know, owners that move their teams from one city to another, their legacy in that city is never the same. Now, they may have a greater legacy where they moved, but it affects them. I think Shad and his family are extremely proud that they could make it work here without having to sacrifice those things that were important to everybody in this community: That we have a stable, financially strong, consistently competitive football team that provides our fans and the community the type of experiences they deserve.
So once we were able to work closely with the city to come up with that approach, I said, yeah, I certainly don't want to near the end of my career be moving a team or be part of moving a team. Wouldn't be my decision.
I think Shad and his family, you can see, you can visibly see the commitment that that family is making to Jacksonville. Just look. You know, if you look at that building, I can see where Shad's new condo is and I can what Tony and Shauna are moving, okay? It's a big commitment.
Q. Talking about supply and demand as it impacts ticket operations next year. You probably have a lot of interest in probably purchasing tickets, fewer tickets to go around.
MARK LAMPING: Yeah, season ticket holders always get a priority. Season ticket holders always get priority pricing as well. I can tell you if there are tickets that aren't sold by our season ticket holders to try to deal with the revenue impact we're facing, you know, we will probably be pretty aggressive on the secondary market in managing to have the price of the ticket reflect the value based on the demand.
So if we have unbelievable demand for tickets, I don't think that it should be a surprise to think that's going to be reflected in pricing on the secondary market. I mentioned earlier the Bills playoff game. That same dynamic occurred. Season ticket holders were able to purchase their tickets, I think the average increase was seven percent for the playoff ticket for season ticket holders.
So if you talked to season ticket holders and they heard people claim, I'm going online, the tickets are so expensive. The season ticket holders are saying, you know what? Mine were pretty reasonable. What was left, there was such market demand that pricing moves it.
It's not always the Jaguars doing that. There are so many tickets available on the secondary market that don't come through our approved ticket market. Season ticket holders, ticket brokers sometimes if we can't identify them buy tickets and they sell them on the secondary market. Their focus is to simply to try to maximize the revenue they can get from the resale of that ticket.
Q. You mentioned ideally you wanted that four weeks for construction in 2027 or 2026 season. How much of a boost if you get that from the NFL could you see in construction and could we see a half in half in 2027, where half could be in Jacksonville and half could at the other location?
MARK LAMPING: No, that window is more of creating a backup in the event we don't get all the work we need to get done by the start of the season.
There is certain work that has to be done as soon as the season ends. If we don't get it done, this will give us a window to get in. Also allows us to get ahead but not so much it would change in any drastic way the availability of the stadium going forward.
You know, I mentioned that compression ring and that process of raising that cable net. That process takes about ten months. The stadium could be totally done and you couldn't play games there because it takes ten months to raise that cable net structure up to the roof.
Q. What percentage of tickets next season at this point do you expect to be held by season ticket holders?
MARK LAMPING: I'll let you know when we finish the renewal process. Next in the 48 hours, Chris? Yes? Yes.
Q. Where do you stand on identifying a sponsor for the new stadium?
MARK LAMPING: A lot of discussions going on. Has to be the right fit for the sponsor. Has to be the right fit for us. Has to be the right fit for Jacksonville. So that's a priority for us.
Keep in mind that's not the only thing we're working on. We have all the other commercial aspects of the new stadium. We're working with sponsors to try to keep them on board in 2026, and then we will thinking about how do we fit sponsors into our 2027 plan once that location is determined. So got a lot going on. Not surprising as part of that we've really added a tremendous amount of staff on the sponsorship and the ticket sales front.
And in fact, if you drive by the fairgrounds site you can see a building that looks like it's under construction. That was an existing building and that's being remolded, and that will be the sales center for season ticket holder primarily to come in and take a look at their seats and chose their seats for 2028.
We expect that to open sometime late this summer, Chris?
Hopefully July 4th.
Q. When will we see the shiny new roof start to take shape?
MARK LAMPING: I think the first of that will go in second quarter, 2027? Yeah. So first half of 2027. Now, what will happen, you'll see the shiny part of it going on the sides first.
Then what's on the top will go in last. You don't really see that unless you're a blimp shot or inside.
Q. Have you started looking at changes for parking or entering or getting out of the game for the fans?
MARK LAMPING: For this year or in 2028? This year? Yeah, on one hand we're not going to have as many cars parking because we are not going to have many people in each the game. That's a blessing in a way in disguise.
If you look at here, I mentioned earlier we're going to have to make place for our players to park out here because we're going to have to get access to player parking. A lot of the construction work out there you can see.
I don't think the parking experience, I don't know if there is a good thing or bad thing, you can jump in Chris if I'm wrong, I don't think it'll be much different than last year. Maybe be some more lots that are encumbered, but that will be offset by fewer cars.
Probably similar to this year, which was an adjustment to our fans but we don't think it was intolerable.
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