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C-U businessman Khan buying Jacksonville Jaguars

Tue, 11/29/2011 - 2:59pm | The Associated Press

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars have reached an agreement to sell the small-market franchise to a Champaign-Urbana businessman Shahid Khan.

Majority owner Wayne Weaver made the announcement Tuesday, hours after he fired coach Jack Del Rio and gave general manager Gene Smith a three-year contract extension. He said Khan will have 100 percent control of the team.

Weaver called Khan “a great American success story” and said the Pakistan-born entrepreneur will keep the team in Jacksonville.

Khan is the owner and CEO of the Flex-N-Gate Group based in Urbana. Khan, a prominent donor to University of Illinois athletics, had been a candidate to buy controlling interest in the St. Louis Rams last year.

The sale of the franchise and the firing of Del Rio are the NFL city’s most significant news since the team’s inception in 1993.

Read more in Wednesday's News-Gazette.

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welive wrote on November 29, 2011 at 2:11 pm

maybe he is useing some of that money from all the lay offs at his plants.As a former employee who has been laid off from there.I want to say thank you

 

UIUCHoopFan wrote on November 29, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Furloughs for football! 

Unless he's moving the team to CU and providing jobs for this area I say whoop di frickin' do!

Dilbert wrote on November 29, 2011 at 3:11 pm

Dittos to the first couple of comments. As one of many laid off from that place,


(and in the long run healthier and happier for it, an awful place to work), I have to ask,


how rich does one person need to be? How many toys does he need?

peabody wrote on November 30, 2011 at 11:11 am

Quick, someone local is being successful! Drag him down!

1time2live wrote on December 01, 2011 at 12:12 pm

@peabody if you have never worked for the flex-n-gate family then you really have no idea about just how screwed up and backwards every manager and HR person is thats employed there... that being said I am sure freezing our salaries and laying off all kinds of people is not what helped him buy the NFL team from jacksonville... although if you ask the employees... (the reall workers on the floor) I am sure they would tell you they are very unhappy with the way thier company has treated them lately. (Wich they are instructed to never speak to any media in risk of certian termination.) Congrats to those who have been laid off and found other jobs. I am sure you are much happier.

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