The Jacksonville Tea Men were a soccer team based in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Overall, the Tea Men played a total of four years in Jacksonville, first in the major league-level North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1980–1982, then in the lower level American Soccer League in 1983 and United Soccer League in 1984. The NASL incarnation of the club was Jacksonville's first professional soccer team, and the first major league-level sport franchise ever based in the city.
History
The team originated as the New England Tea Men, who joined the North American Soccer League (NASL) as an expansion team for the 1978 season. Their owner was the tea company Lipton, who gave the team its unusual name in reference to the Boston Tea Party.[1][2] In their first season the Tea Men had a contract to play at Foxboro Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, home of the New England PatriotsNational Football League (NFL) team. The team made the league playoffs and sold well in their first season. In 1979, the team was unable to renew their lease for Foxboro and were forced to play home games at the much smaller Nickerson Field, leading to a precipitous decline in ticket sales.[3] They were able to return to Foxboro 1980, but under a new, restrictive lease that forced them to play many games at off times. Ticket sales plummeted even further, and Lipton decided to relocate the club to Jacksonville, Florida, drawn in by pledges of season ticket sales of 14,000 seats.[1][4][5]
By attracting the Tea Men, Jacksonville got its first ever professional soccer team, as well as its first major league-level team in any sport. Lipton, which had already lost $1 million on its franchise, decided to retain the Tea Men name, not wanting to lose the marketing tie-in or spend any further money on rebranding. Many commentators, and even the players themselves, noted the name made no sense in a Florida city with no connection to tea, but it stuck regardless. The team made arrangements to host indoor games at Jacksonville Coliseum and outdoor games at the Gator Bowl Stadium.[1]
North American Soccer League (1980-82)
The Tea Men started their run in Jacksonville with the indoor 1980-81 season. An 8-10 record left them out of the playoffs, but their performance would improve during the 1981 outdoor season. They finished with an 18-14 record and qualified for the playoffs, where they defeated the Atlanta Chiefs in the first round and won the first game of the three-game set with the San Diego Sockers before being eliminated.[6] Despite drawing strong crowds to their first outdoor games, peaking with a crowd of 17,128 at their Gator Bowl debut, attendance waned later in the season, eventually dropping to around 10,000 per game. Actual season ticket sales topped out at around 4,500, nowhere near the promised 14,000. Lipton, which announced that it had lost $1.7 million since the relocation, wanted out.[7] At the urging of mayor Jake Godbold, a group of Jacksonville investors raised funds to lease the team from Lipton and keep it operating the next season.[1]
The 1981-82 indoor season would see the team take a step backwards, finishing 7-11 and again outside of the playoffs, and they would fare even worse in the 1982 outdoor season. They finished tied for the league's worst record at 11-21.[8] Furthermore, their average attendance of only 7,160 fans per game fell well short of the projection of an average of 12,000 per game that was needed to break even financially. The investment group that had been leasing the Tea Men from Lipton returned the franchise, and Lipton, fed up with all of the red ink, looked to unload the financial albatross for good. The corporation started shopping the team around and twice announced pending deals: one with a group in Milwaukee and one with a group in Detroit. These deals both fell through before they were completed, though, and the franchise was eventually sold to Jacksonville businessman Ingo Krieg. His plan was to see if The Tea Men's economics could be improved by staying in Jacksonville and moving down to the de facto second division American Soccer League. [1][9]
American Soccer League and United Soccer League (1983-84)
Though it had operated since 1933, the ASL was barely hanging on in the early '80s after a long period of decline. The Tea Men were one of just six teams in the ASL heading into its 1983 season.[10] Despite the fact that Lipton now had nothing to do with the team at all, Krieg kept the Tea Men name to try to win over existing "Teas" fans. Dennis Viollet stayed in town and assumed head coaching duties for the ASL Tea Men, and four players from the 1982 NASL team would also stay in northern Florida to join him.[11] The reborn Tea Men were the class of the league, finishing the regular season with an 18-7 record (five wins better than the second best team) and winning the championship finals two games to one over the Pennsylvania Stoners.[12]
At the ASL's annual meeting the following January, league owners voted down an application for an expansion team in Fort Lauderdale because ASL by-laws allowed the owner of the "dormant" Miami franchise to retain rights to the region and voting privileges. Ingo Krieg chaired the expansion committee and was frustrated that the shrinking league (Oklahoma City and Pennsylvania had just announced plans to go dormant) was unable to prevent its seeming collapse. He worked over the weekend with the owner of the Dallas Americans, Bill Spears, to lay the groundwork for a more stable and financially sound second division league to be called the United Soccer League. Over the course of the spring, the USL attracted three defectors from the ASL (The Tea Men, Dallas Americans and Rochester Flash) as well as two clubs that were effectively carrying on ASL operations in their towns but had re-organized and re-branded (the Charlotte Gold and Oklahoma City Stampede). Four new organizations would play in the new league as well (including the Fort Lauderdale group rejected by the ASL). The ASL was left with no active teams and closed down.[10]
The 1984 USL season kicked off in May. The team brought back Ringo Cantillo (who had played with the Tea Men in the NASL days) and about half of the 1983 championship roster, but Jacksonville was unable to replicate the success of the previous year. They finished last in the league's Southern Division with an 11-13 record and missed the playoffs.[13] They also continued to struggle financially. Despite league-wide measures to control costs such as a tight salary cap and a schedule heavy on regional play to reduce travel expenses, USL owners were still losing money. Last-ditch negotiations took place in February of 1985 to salvage some form of professional outdoor soccer by merging the financially struggling USL with the rapidly shrinking NASL, but these were called off without an agreement on March 5th. Later that month, Krieg threw in the towel and closed down the Jacksonville Tea Men once and for all. Four teams would try to stage a 1985 USL season, but they only made it through about six weeks of play before the bankrupt league was forced to shut down.[10]
