Sports

Many faces, names of Jacksonville's football stadium

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Jacksonville's first football venue was built in 1927 and 1928 with a seating capacity of 7,600. Known as Fairfield Stadium, its primary purpose was to serve as home field for Jacksonville's three new high schools Lee, Jackson and Landon.
The stadium was rebuilt and renamed the Gator Bowl and has hosted an annual post-season college football game of the same name since 1946. It has also hosted the annual Florida-Georgia game for decades.
Gator Bowl games became a nationally televised, New Year's Day tradition.
The North American Soccer League's Jacksonville Tea Men planed in the Gator Bowl from 1980-82, and continued as a United Soccer League team through 1984. The USFL Jacksonville Bulls also played in the stadium in 1984 and 1985.
As soon as the Jan. 1, 1994 Gator Bowl game ended, demolition began on the old stadium to clear the way for a facility up to NFL standards that would be the home field for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Construction took under 20 months and cost $134 million, $60 million of which was provided by the city of Jacksonville.
Jacksonville Municipal Stadium was completed in August 1995 in time for Jaguars inaugural first home game.
Alltel purchased the naming rights in 1997. It was called Everybank Field for 10 years, including 2005, when Jacksonville hosted Super Bowl XXXIX.
In 2003 and 2004, $47 million in improvements to the stadium were implemented before the Super Bowl. These included the addition of the "Bud Zone" and escalators in the north and south end zone.
The stadium continued to host college games, including what became known as the Toyota Gator Bowl, which later became the TaxSlayer Bowl.
EverBank acquired the naming rights in 2010 for $3 million per year. The deal was renewed for $43 million over 10 years after the 2014 season.
In November 2013, Jacksonville's City Council approved $63 million in improvements to EverBank Field, toward which Jaguars owner Shah Khan would contribute $20 million. Renovations included two end zone video scoreboards 362-foot-long that were the largest HD LED of their kind in the world, a platform area in the north end zone with two wading pools,

Jacksonville's first football venue was built in 1927 and 1928 with a seating capacity of 7,600. Known as Fairfield Stadium, its primary purpose was to serve as home field for Jacksonville's three new high schools Lee, Jackson and Landon.