After flirting with teams ripe with wandering eyes in New Orleans, Baltimore, Houston, and Atlanta, the City of Jacksonville finally landed their National Football League team seemingly against all odds. Despite being the smallest TV market, by far, of all the cities bidding for an expansion team in 1993 the ownership group headed by Connecticut shoe executive J. Wayne Weaver won the right to put the NFL's 30th team in Jacksonville, Florida for the 1995 season.
The Jaguars name pre-dates the franchise by a few years, chosen in a name-the-team contest on December 8, 1991. Jacksonville Jaguars was chosen because it sounded good and in-part due to the oldest known jaguar who was then a resident of the Jacksonville Zoo; unfortunately the jaguar died before the team ever played a game.
