New York Jets Training Camp in Cortland May Be Affected by the Lockout
Since Rex Ryan became the head coach of the Jets in 2009, he’s turned around the culture of the team from lovable losers to perennial winners.
As any great football coach knows, you don’t contend for a Super Bowl without a meticulous game plan that starts in training camp and continues throughout the season.
One of the staples of Ryan’s tenure in New York has been the annual training camp in Cortland, a small college town in central New York that Ryan particularly likes because it is quiet and has few distractions. This enables the players to focus on football and become close as a team.
Home of the Division III Red Dragons, SUNY Cortland’s football stadium has become a home away from home for the Jets each summer. But with the NFL lockout hovering like a dark cloud over the 2011 season, the Jets relationship with Cortland may be affected.
Manish Mehta of the Daily News reported this week that the lockout could potentially have a devastating effect on the city of Cortland if a deal between the owners and players is not reached reasonably soon.
The Daily News has learned that the NFL lockout may affect the Jets’ training camp agreement with SUNY Cortland. The team has two years remaining on a three-year contract signed last year with the university. If there is no training camp in Cortland this summer, the Jets would be required to hold camp at the university through 2013, according to the team.
There are also two two-year team options to extend the partnership. If training camp this season is abbreviated due to a lockout, it’s uncertain whether the Jets would be required to hold camp in Cortland in 2013.
“Any conversations along those lines are far too premature at this time,” team spokesman Bruce Speight told me about the consequences of a shortened training camp.
The fans won’t be the only ones who will be losing out because of the lockout. Plenty of local businesses will suffer if there are no NFL games—or training camps—for fans to attend. It’s no secret that the Jets’ presence in Cortland has been huge for the small town each summer.
The three-week training camp in 2009 had a reported $4.2 million impact on the area. Last year, the Jets entered into a three-year deal that would keep it in Cortland through 2012. (Per terms of the agreement, Cortland prepared two grass fields and renovated dorms. Last year’s camp attracted approximately 41,000 people and had an economic impact of $4.7 million, according to a study by the university).
For a small college town, that’s a decent amount of revenue to miss out on if training camp is cancelled or shortened. I personally was planning on making the trip up there this summer to check out the training camp atmosphere. It would be a shame if the lockout disrupted one of the Jets new favorite traditions.
Like everything else in this post-lockout era, we will just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Nothing the fans can do now but wait and see what happens next.
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