Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp

Professional baseball returned to Jacksonville in 1970 with the arrival of the Jacksonville Suns, a Double-A franchise in the Southern League. The team served as a development affiliate for various major league organizations over the decades, including the Kansas City Royals, Cleveland Indians, Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, and Los Angeles Dodgers, among others.

The Suns played at Wolfson Park, later renamed the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville when a new stadium opened in 2003. The modern facility, built at a cost of approximately $34 million, gave the franchise a downtown home along the St. Johns River and significantly upgraded the fan experience. The Suns won Southern League championships in 2009, 2010, and 2014, establishing Jacksonville as a competitive force in Double-A baseball.

Despite on-field success, the franchise struggled with identity and attendance at various points. When Ken Babby's Fast Forward Sports Group purchased the team in 2015, a dramatic transformation was about to begin that would reshape the franchise's future entirely.

On November 8, 2016, the Jacksonville Suns officially became the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, a name change that generated immediate national headlines — and heated debate. The quirky name, inspired by the oxymoron and the shrimping industry central to Northeast Florida's economy, was met with everything from ridicule to delight. Critics called it absurd; supporters called it brilliant.

The rebrand proved to be a masterstroke. The Jumbo Shrimp's colorful teal-and-orange branding, featuring a grinning crustacean logo, became one of the hottest-selling merchandise lines in minor league baseball. National media coverage gave the franchise visibility it had never enjoyed as the Suns, and attendance surged as curious fans came to see what all the fuss was about.

On the field, the Jumbo Shrimp competed as the Marlins' Double-A affiliate, developing prospects in the Miami pipeline. The franchise's momentum was temporarily halted by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which cancelled the minor league season entirely, but the brand's equity continued to grow even during the hiatus.