Cool, Stephen. I'd simply add that Khan does have quite a bit holding him here. Exclusive membership in a very valuable club and a stadium deal that likely locks him in beyond the period in which a team or teams will be placed in Los Angeles *and* opposition from the Cowboys and Texans to a team in San Antonio.
It is lazily tossed around that he has no investment here. He has more of an investment here than most anyone else in the entire City, and that can't be denied. What he has in abundance, because of his wealth, is the appearance of options. When it comes to moving the Jacksonville Jaguars, appearances lie. Especially if their creative efforts to make the franchise more profitable pan out. That's why the critique of the scoreboards (IMHO) has been so brain-dead.
Good points, but I'd still offer that there is a degree of flexibility in the NFL and that may increase soon after this year (just a hunch) with all of the snafus going on that are hurting PR and hurting teams by alienating fans.
But I digress, Khan doesn't have, nearly to the degree that Rummell has, an emotional attachment to the city. The success of a OneSpark or downtown real estate really has no bearing on the success of the Jaguars. Overall, a happy/healthy city will do Khan well. But we're finding out that it's a (imho) much more difficult game to develop downtown successfully than to ride the nearly guaranteed base returns that ownership of an NFL team provides, and we're finding out that with downtown so far gone, still, that giant scoreboards mostly on the city bed tax's dime make people happy. So to that end, OneSpark, downtown investment, etc etc are mutually exclusive to the Jaguars, and thus Khan is rooted moreso in a team than the city. Anything else is a splash gift for PR at this point, and with no players in town, he's held up as some mere god and his every move talked about (in almost entirely a positive light).
The same thing that draws me to post on these forums even though I haven't lived in Jax for 8 years is the same thing that Rummell has that Khan likely never will, even after years of owning the Jags. That is hometown pride and a true emotional attachment. Combine this emotional attachment with Rummell's permanent residence there (with his family and kids), his brain, and his money, and you have the ingredients of a much longer term view/investment in the city than someone who just bought the local sports team and so far is all about making a splash.
Anyway, people's comments about KYN are interesting. KYN itself should have considered themselves a 5th startup and proven out before spending money on overhead. If they knew they were supposed to bring 4 other startups to the next level, they should have kept overhead to their own somewhat minimal salaries before taking on money for real overhead, or in their business plan they should have laid out that they would need x, y, and z resources to sustain themselves to be able to sustain and grow other businesses at that scale, and taken on that overhead amount plus $1M for the other 4 firms.
What it sounds like is there are 2-3 guys in the entire city willing to shell out what amounts to minimal, minimal money. A million here and a million there is nothing if there are dozens of qualified, good ideas floating around.
