Credit: ABC
By Sam Neumann on

ESPN brought back a Jacksonville landmark that’s been gone for six years.

The network’s B-roll footage returning from halftime during Saturday’s TaxSlayer Gator Bowl between Virginia and Missouri showed the Jacksonville Landing and a building with the Modis sign. Neither exists anymore. The Landing was demolished in 2019 after closing earlier that year. The Modis signage came down in 2011 when the building became Wells Fargo.

The footage is at least six years old, maybe 14, depending on when exactly it was shot.

This isn’t the first time a TV network has used decade-old footage of Jacksonville. Fox made the same mistake in September during a Panthers-Jaguars game, showing the Landing more than five years after it was torn down.

The Landing opened in 1987 as a festival marketplace on the St. Johns River’s north bank. The two-level complex with its orange roof became part of Jacksonville’s skyline for three decades before struggling financially. A mass shooting at a video game tournament there in 2018 accelerated its end. The city bought out the remaining tenants for $18 million in 2019 and demolished it.

ESPN’s footage appears to be from sometime between 2011 (when the Modis sign disappeared) and 2019 (when the Landing closed).

Networks use old B-roll all the time. The practice usually goes unnoticed because most cities don’t change that dramatically year to year. But Jacksonville residents caught this immediately because the Landing was the most recognizable piece of the downtown skyline for three decades.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann