Celebs at football stadiums doesn't mean anything imo...the stadium does not provide an intimate atmosphere..which directly correlates to a host of issues that are spiraling,including putting a poor product on the field for over a decade. Do people understand that Seattle is now 1 and 5 away, and undefeated at home, do people realize that two years ago, we were 1 and 7 at home and 6 and two on the road. Keeping telling yourselves that's just coincidence.All folks have to do is see what's going on in Seattle...They put specifics into the blueprint to make things intimate, they didnt want the big empty soul less bowl that was poppin up around the league, some things happened during the construction where they had to change things a bit and wound up with the seats being closer to the field than they originally expected.. Well, look at that business, their 12 th man is a business, a cash cow money making power house of an investment, and it's all because of the building...People go to the games to be a part of the experience and what that type of energy can feel like..and let me say from experience ( orange bowl) when as a fan you can collectively come together in a game and impact the game with your energy, it's addictive.. It's time to address the # 1 issue besides fielding a winner.. If they renovations are done correctly and with some intellect, then we might have a chance to develop a culture that doesn't have to rely on just winning.
Right, but there are teams just as bad that aren't having attendance as low as Miami's. IMO, there is also a big demographics issue here as well.
Have you ever been to Seattle? Its completely different than South Florida. The type of things people in Seattle do for entertainment are very different than what people do for entertainment in South Florida. Anyone watch that garbage show "Real Housewives of Miami"??? Those are the type of people that you need to cater to if you want entertainment dollars in SoFla. Sad, but true. People like us that spend dozens of hours every week on football are an extreme minority, and our entertainment dollars are going toward Sunday Ticket and Redzone.
Wrong. It's the city. The Miami Heat had two of the top 3 players in the NBA gifted to us, and 3 of the 10 players in the league sign. And the fans are timid, bored and barely make a peep. Half of them don't even bother to sit down until midway though the 2nd quarter, and the other half leave with under 2 minutes in the game and the game close. Miami fans suck plain and simple. I'm not saying our fanbases suck, but our attendance and knowledge of when and how to cheer sucks. Outside of transplanting people from Seattle, no new stadium will do anything. I've told you this at least 20 times here, I've been to game at JRS when the Hurricanes were playing and the crowd noise and atmosphere was as loud and imposing as any event I've been to. If 50K people standing and cheering and stomping at JRS makes the place rock, then surely 75K Dolphins fan can do the same. Build a stadium like Seattle and all the douche-bags in the lower ball will tell you to sit down and shut up like they do now.
The thing about this town is that it WANTS to be a football town. It's begging for a great team to throw it's money at, the economy sucking or not. I know people have brought this up before, but what the Heat have done/are doing can't be overstated. They're a huge reason there's so many visible Orange seats on Sunday's.
Thats great in theory, but I'm not sure its reality. The Heat averaged 20k in attendance in 2008. They avg 20k in attendance in 2012. I don't really see any type of correlation.
I can't help it if they put their stadium downtown understanding conceptually the urban angle, and the connection to the city it would represent..I can't help it that they are geniuses, and were dumb. Seattle fan is not a hardcore sports fans, it's the building stringer.
Probably, that imo is one of the reasons why LA no longer can support even 1 NFL team let alone 2 as they used to do. Could be futbol is just more popular among a huge portion of the demo that in other cities are NFL fans.
The economy isn't great, but it's not that much worse than it has traditionally been, except for a few boom years from 2005-07. Again, most people make more money now than they did back then and Dolphin ticket prices aren't much, if any, higher. The Heat plays 5 times as many home games as the Dolphins, not including the playoffs. With the playoffs it is 6-7 times as many. So over the course of a season, South Floridians spend a whole lot more on Heat tickets than on Dolphin tickets. In 2011, the last full NBA season, the Heat drew 810,930 fans in the regular season and probably another 200,000 or so during the playoffs. The Dolphins drew 487,089, or approximately one half of the fans the Heat drew. If you account for the premium on Heat games (especially playoff games) in the secondary market, South Floridians spent a lot more on the Heat than the Dolphins. And the argument that it is the economy is further negated by the drop in attendance over the last 2 years. The economy has not gotten worse over the last 2 years; it has gotten better.
Well, they look at it beyond the football aspect. They look at it as an asset they want to maximize in every way possible. As you point out, it could be to the detriment of it's core business... football. Never damage the core biz.
Not so, in fact since the Mariners have returned to being craptacular their attendance has fallen off the most in MLB, when a team wins it just helps.
I think LA can, mainly because attending live NFL games is becoming a small percent of the league's revenue stream. You don't need to draw to 70k fans necessarily.
The Marlins spent half a billion dollars on a new stadium and had poor attendance all season. Even before they flopped. South Florida is a crap market attendance and the fanbase is fickle. I would vote NO on a new stadium, it is a racket and only benefits the owners, not the fans.
I agree with 100 percent about the etiquette of a fan..they have no clue, but there is an excuse which you obviously don't agree with...the building sucks man, the stands are much too far from the action, thus resulting in pathetic fan, and emotionless team, and an experience that cannot stand on its own...
Too many LA people are fans of their hometown teams or sport (I'd guess only about 25% of the people here are FROM LA. Another 25% are from other states. The other 50% are from Mexico).
Actually they averaged about 18K that year. Unless you're talking about the 07-08 season, when they averaged about 19.5K. Either way, you're essentially proving my point in that the team's expectations pretty well mirrored attendance. http://www.databasebasketball.com/teams/teamatt.htm?tm=mia&lg=N
There is a lot less to do in Seattle than Miami, is my point. If you put me in Miami and tell me I can do absolutely anything I want, going to a live football game isn't very high on the list.
BUT... LA needs a stdium. And that's a HUGE expense. Hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think the property and management company that is invovled would need to see it's money back mainly from attendance, concessions, parking and other events at the venue. The TEAM may get TV revenue, but the stadium does not. Financing a profitable stadium here that is state of the art, but still makes profit is the biggest stumbling block.
What? The argument was that people attend less Dolphins games because attendance at Heat games has increased. What exactly is this increase in attendance at Heat games????
huh??.. Developing a 12 th man by construction, marketing, and then capitalizing on it is bad business..Seahawk players, owners, fanbase, and local economy are in love with their building and their 12 th man.
Same with Miami, and in LA you have a competent Galaxy team to mop up local support coupled with satellite feeds of their favorite futbol teams in other countries. What that does is carve a huge swath of fans from what would usually be a NFL mkt in size and composition.
The stadium doesn't create the most vibrant fan atmosphere, but that isn't where the attendance problem comes from. The Dolphins sold out that very same stadium for a few decades until recent years. That said, I've love to see them move the seats closer to the field, etc.
In fairness, attendance would've remained steady if the Marlins were successful. Once they started playing poorly (and the Heat were starting their playoff run) attendance dropped off a cliff. That should've been expected though.
Let's put Seattle aside, as maybe it's a special case, but I can tell you froma ctual experience that alot of other NFL stadiums aren't as loud or atmospheric as you think they are. I was in Pittsburgh for the Dolphins-Steelers game opening night 2006 with Culpepper and a supposed Super Bowl team. While Heinz Field is a great place to watch a game with nice sight lines and seats pretty close to the field, it was not deafaningly loud, nor did the fans stand the entire game. I was in the lower bowl 15 yard line about 25 rows up and the ratio of standing to sitting, loud applause to simply watching the game, was no different than at a Dolphins game.
Basically you have to jettison a 750 million dollar asset, then spend another 800 million to replace it. A deficit of 1.5 billion is not something any wise businessman would engage in. About the only thing that can be done is to hollow out JRS and build the damn thing correctly, Joe Robbie's vision was offbase and it has haunted the franchise imo. While we are at it, tear down that damn bubble, I'll drive the first bulldozer into the thing
Yeah no. First of all, you're taking a macro approach to a micro problem. The average individual in Miami is not making more than they used to. Not even close. There are richer people getting richer and that skews the numbers but Miami was one of the hardest hit American cities with the recession. The average sports fan can't justify a couple of hundred dollars for a few hours of a team losing. Secondly, you're talking about filling up an areanas that has less than a third of the seats at SunLife. If SunLife had that many seats there'd be a line around the block for tickets right now. They are both pulling in the same upper middle income crowd. The difference is the Dolphins need the middle and lower to show up to fill all their seats.
You mean to tell me you would rather be at a pool party than at the Dolphins game sweating next to some dude that is drunk and has shirt off?
disagree, Seattle is a bursting metropolitan city, the building being put where it was connects the city to the team, The stadium was built to attract the fan to the stadium, the views, the sounds, the intimacy,the atmosphere was all part of the plan...so before anyone continues this argument with me, my theory has not only been built, it's showing the results of such progressive thinking, exactly how I said it would. Put the fu&$ in stadium in the middle of nowhere, in this town...disconnect that will eventually deteriote if the team falters, it cannot stand on its own merits, it's own lure.
And the Dolphins have a major problem with where their seats are located and I don't mean in relation to the field. The upper bowl is just way too big. It's the largest upper deck in the league and that means you continually are stuck trying to sell the least desirable tickets. That's why they ought to install new video boards where the upper endzones seats are, instead of in between the lights and eliminate those seats that they can't sell anyway.
It's the exact opposite of what it used to be down here. In the late 80's and early 90's, the Dolphins were a perennial playoff team that finished above .500 every year while the Heat were a new, struggling franchise. The tables have turned, though I'm willing to bet if the Heat weren't as successful as they've been, the Dolphins ticket sales would be better than they are now, despite their record the last decade.
It's why Canadian NFL won't work too. I'm from Toronto and a bad Leafs team will always get 1000X the turnout of a great NFL team. Heck, the Argos won the Grey cup (WOOHOO!!!!) but I doubt they have wait lists for season's tickets next year. In fact, by brotehr-in-law and I paid $150 each to go to the LA Kings second roun playoff series game versus the Blues, the one where they clinched and moved to the Stanley Cup final. It was in Los Angeles at the Staples center. It did not sell out. Scalpers sold tickets below cost. We sat about 12 rows from the glass. In Toronto you'd have paid $1500 per ticket, not $150. Easily. So, yeah, it has to do with what sport the local population lives and dies for. Toronto = Hockey Green Bay = football. Miami = ? Los Angeles = Lakers
