In what’s being billed as a first-of-its-kind agreement in the NFL, the Jacksonville Jaguars have partnered with Cedar Rapids, Iowa–based Eternal Fan to build a fan memorial monument in or near its $1.45 billion “Stadium of the Future,” where supporters can inter sealed urns containing cremated remains alongside jerseys, photographs, hats, and other personal mementos. The space — branded the 904EVER Club after Jacksonville’s area code — sells what the company is calling “Fan Space” at introductory prices ranging from $904 to $5,904, with the monument bearing the Jaguars’ logo and topped by a football-shaped marker.
According to the Jacksonville Daily Record, Eternal Fan CMO Brad Zimmerman confirmed in a May 14 phone interview that those sealed urns can, in fact, contain cremains. The location on the stadium campus is still to be determined, and Eternal Fan says the monuments are portable.
A funeral home owner’s “disruptive” idea
Eternal Fan was founded by Matt Linn, a former college baseball player who now owns a funeral home in Cedar Rapids. Zimmerman described Linn to the Daily Record as “very disruptive in his thinking,” and that disruption looks like a deliberate merger of the mortuary trade with sports fandom — an enterprise category that, until now, has been mostly defined by fans sneaking baggies of ashes past stadium security.
The monument itself will be built by The Wilbert Group. Eternal Fan’s first installation — a piston-shaped monument — already stands at Richmond Raceway in Virginia, and Zimmerman told the Daily Record the company is now courting college athletic departments, concert venues, and additional NFL franchises.
Per Eternal Fan’s own website, “Words such as cremated remains, ashes, or related words are NOT included in programming. Absolutely NOT!” Translation? The marketing language stays squarely in the realm of “legacy” and “Living Memory®,” even though the urn-shaped elephant in the room is, well, an urn.
The data behind the demand
This isn’t a solution in search of a problem. A 2024 Choice Mutual survey of 3,000 Americans found that sports venues were the top-choice scattering site in 11 states, including marquee college football stadiums in Michigan, Arkansas, and Idaho. A more recent SportsbookReview.com survey of more than 3,000 sports fans found that 23% would scatter ashes at a stadium even if it were against the rules — and 54% believe venues should officially permit it under some circumstances.
And that “against the rules” part is where this gets interesting. ESPN reported last fall on a University of Nebraska regent’s proposal — ultimately shelved — to build a columbarium underneath Memorial Stadium’s renovated grass field, along with similar stalled plans near Williams-Brice Stadium in South Carolina. Unsanctioned scatterings, meanwhile, keep showing up in the news. KDKA-CBS Pittsburgh covered a 2021 Heinz Field incident in which a hazmat crew had to remove cremains from the stands — and a Pittsburgh funeral director told the station the practice “is not uncommon.”
Auburn University turfgrass professor Scott McElroy has separately told the Washington Post that cremated remains are hard on grass and soil, which is one very practical reason teams and groundskeepers have historically said no thank you. The 904EVER Club’s pitch is essentially: give us a sanctioned place to do this, and we can all stop pretending it isn’t happening anyway. (Side note: If this works, Eternal Fan might want to approach Disney with a similar pitch for their parks… Just saying.)
