Hyde5: Dolphins attendance drop worst in NFL

Errrr yeah, you can't even get good seats to a Miami Heat game. You might find some individual seats in the nose bleeds for 50 bucks a piece. They are like #3 in attendance. It's not the economy that's keeping the fans away. It's that the Dolphins blow *** through their blow holes and have done so for many years now.

It's not even that the Fins don't win many games, this team has no play makers, and when they finally get play makers, they turn around and trade em away for picks. Easily one of the most poorly run franchise's in the NFL. And people wonder why the fans don't pay money to see them?

 

Since 1999 when the Heat moved to American Airlines Arena, the team has only been outside of the top 15 only 3 times.

Obviously star players generate even more interest, but the Heat have been a consistently winning organization. The Dolphins were too until the last decade showed up.

 

I am NOT screwing with the facts. You are failing to read the evidence posted in this thread, by me, and others like CK.

Those $10 tickets don;t exist.

You buy one, I will pay you $50 for it. Deal?

Those are about 50 Standing room only passes they make available every once and a while. Nobody has ever seen them, but I am sure they exist (one of those deals)

Go by the average ticket price. Go by the average markup on the secondary market.

Heat tickets cost on average...twice as much.

If you go on the secondary market....of the 44 Heat games, about 38 or more will have marked up tickets on the secondary market. The Dolphins will have one game ALL year that will have a marked up seat. This Patriot game.

Now you know....

 

One last time...these are FACTS:

Miami Sports Fans pay twice as much, for twice the inventory of the Heat than they do for the Dolphins.

Nothing pisses me off more than somebody telling me that I am screwing with facts, when they obviously didn't read the thread.

 

Link

I got to that link through NBA.com. If the $10 seats aren't available because they are sold out, then that proves my point.

 

More anecdotal evidence:

For Sunday's game, Sec. 126 (endzone), row 8 is at $210 on Stubhub.

For tonight's Spurs game, Sec 124 (same location, behind the basket), row 20 is at $199.

The average 100 level markup for this Dolphins game is around 75%

The Average 100 level markup for tonight's Spurs game is around 100%

Go see for yourself on Stubhub.

 

those are 50 of 21,000 seats.

Those seats are worth THAT because they aren't seats AT ALL. You understand that those are essentially passes to spend money at the concession stands right?

On the other hand, you can get MARKED DOWN seats for Dolphin games for around the same price.

 

BTW, that link you posted is for individual game tickets, which there are only 500 per game.

So the number of $10 tickets might not even be 50. it might be less.

 

But hey...take it from me and other Dolphin Season Ticket Holders that eat seats all the time.

I CAN'T GIVE AWAY my seats sometimes. and mine are premium.

 

It's impossible. The Dolphins will NEVER EVER move.
Just ask the board.

 

Just to put the Fins attendance issues into perspective, consider Buffallo. Great fans right?

Well a decade worse than ours has caused considerable erosion of their fanabse as well.

Buffalo is 15,000 seats short for Sunday and the game is blacked out and they have more than 10,000 to move for their final home game.

There are lots of teams that are having trouble selling out this season. Even the Jets have been on the evrge of blackouts a few times which should be impossible for the NY market.

There are more teams with varying degrees of attendance issues then there are viable locations for relocation, and the Dolphins and Tampa are the only two that play in revenue generating stadiums. In short, there is nothing to fear regarding relocation for the Fins. If you're a Bills fan however, and you've already moved a home game per eyar to Toronto, that's a different story

 

Also in 2009 Buffalo took the worst hit in the AFC losing 9 percent of their ticket sales. Dont go back into the 80's though because you will see how fickle they can be. Some of the worst attendence back then were the Bills, Pats, and yes, even the Jets. Winning cures alot and winning it all can create such a buzz that a waiting line for tickets will appear.

 

that is a great post bro and you are spot on. i would go to half the home games if I lived down there but why cant the dolphins get some star power like Labron ? the heat's 5th best player is probally more fun to watch then the dolphin's best player . I wonder if Mr Ross is more into the glitter then he is about winning.

 

The future of the front office hinging on whatever manages to happen in the next few games....... ????? Say we lose out, does that make the GM awful? What if we win out? Is he the greatest than ? We try to look at the big picture and use somewhat of a large sampling when judging ones performance. The fans calling for peoples heads cant just simply be brought back by firing 1 person. Those fans are pretty far gone already. They were never really all here in the first place if you ask me.

 

Wow...I think it's obvious now, to me at least why we see some of the performances we do at home..

Daniel Thomas on an interview with Andy kent responds to the game being a sellout..

" REALLY!!!.........lol, dude got so excited his voice cracked...literally.

" that's great."

He also said this..." When you walk out of that tunnel, and you see the stadium half empty, it does get us down"

That's the bottom line right freakin there, it doesn't matter anymore how it got to this point, what matters is the experience, passion, and lack of fan etiquette is impacting this franchise negatively...

The Miami dolphins, trying to win 8 games with 0 home field advantage..

 

Moving the franchise would be the most hilariously over-the-top point-missing in the history of missing the point.

Play better.

 

You're only saying part of what he said to try and support some sort of argument you think you have. He also said having a big home crowd only helps a LITTLE bit.

 

He's acting instinctually, you saw the shock and disappoint all in one clip, he doesn't have a clue about what my issues are with the stadium, and that's fine..

 

lol, he was also joking about it and when asked directly if it helps a team, he said only a little bit. That's because it's the team that has to bring the energy. You could sure the heck here it by the way they played in the 4th quarter against Seattle. That dense crowd was making noise.

But you did leave the part in bold out so I thought I'd put it in...

 

Your responses tell me we've off in different directions, your talking about one thing, and I'm not talking about the little dense crowd in the fourth quarter..damage has been done...even if it lasted 5 mins..

You seemingly don't give any credence to a team of emotional men who might being affected temporarily by a visually disturbing sight in your own stadium...not a lot to be hyped about there bud..

It's a combination of things, the stadium, the years if futility, the fan etiquette, the amount of front running fans..

Only two ways to develop the culture around this mess..Fixing up the image of the stadium and brand, and finding great
players with district intangibles...

 

Na, the direction you're taking is going the wrong way! Once they find some solid players, and win some games against quality teams, only then will it ever change. No one in Miami is going to go to a football game to see a stadium....

 

Hey OZ , is there a chance that Thomas's reaction was real, and reflected what the team felt, and the team actually might of come out flat against the titans because of it?

 

Who cares though? Win some games and get better. The fans will come back. It's up to the team to draw the crowd in and create home field advantages. Not the other way around...

 

This. I live 40 minutes from Gillette Stadium. When the Patriots sucked in the late 80's, I used to walk up to the window, 1 hour before game time and get good seats when the Dolphins came to town. The stadium was a horror show. Metal bench seats, ****ty turf field and the team was bad. Fast forward to Bledsoe and Parcells, same ****ty stadium, better product, couldn't get near the stadium for the Miami game. Gillette didn't open until AFTER the first SB win with Brady. The old, crapass Foxboro stadium was sold out to the max once Bledsoe was drafted and has continued to this day. Put a good team on the field and people will be there. Good stadium or bad stadium doesn't matter. I could care less about the amenitites. I want to see my team play well. Period.

 

In the NFL you can get away with that to an extent because of the built in guaranteed profit margin, but in most businesses you follow that as a plan to go out of business.

But there is no doubt the losing has been the problem. Then fans want the GM gone, and the owner has been deaf to them. That generally results in people turning off to your product. Whether or not you like or dislike the GM if he is hurting your ability to sell tickets, you get rid of him.

 

Did you follow what happened in Detroit ? Firing Matt Millen was the best thing that franchise has done in 25 years.

 

I think many of our out of town posters on this board don't realize how bad the economy is in South Fla. All they know of is what they see on TV about South Beach and the rich people who do live here. They play up the glitz and the glamour.

The reality is that many in South Fla live at or near the poverty line.

I'll also remind people that a lot of our wealthier residents are not native to South Fla, and are mostly still following the teams where they came from.

And in the last 10 years the Dolphins haven't done much to foster love for the team. One of the most destructive was Huizenga's mandate that no Dolphins team activities will happen in Miami-Dade County outside of games. It was was just plain stupid. Thank God Ross reversed that policy.

You add all of that up, and include the worst series of season in 40 years, plus a GM that hasn't produced a winner yet, and is pretty much despised by a large number of fans, and then you hold days when you not onlu insult a lot of the local fans by honoring a college from another part of the state & at the same time honor he opposing teams QB, it adds up to a PR nightmare, and the resultant loss of fanbase.

You can't sugar-coat it, it's all there for most people to see, warts and all. Some here like to put their heads in the sand but it is what it is.

 

That drastic a loss in 3 years (the Dolphins had 61,000 season ticket holders in 2009) must tell Ross something. To continue with the same people in charge isn't doing it. I wouldn't be surprised to see many gone after this year, including Mike Dee & much of his staff he brought in from the Boston Red Sox a few years ago. They came from a team that didn't have to sell tickets - they have a waiting list. The promotions dept. has been lacking an instinct and reflected their not understanding the South Fla market. The lack of advertising & promotion of the team to the Latino market is just plain stupid. A few commercials on Spanish TV is not going to cut it. You need to be involved and immerse yourself in the community, and that was something that Huizenga resisted and it set the foundation for what you are seeing now.

If I were the Dolphins owner I would have at least three or four top staffers involved in Latino marketing, creating business partnerships in the heavily Latino community, etc and try to grow the interest in the team that way.

 

Because not only are the Dolphins losing a lot of games, under Sparano (& Ireland) they were B O R I N G.

They brought in Philbin to spice up the offense. They brought in Tannehill to spice it up. But then you fail to upgrade in what makes offense go and that is beastly receivers. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken ****. Result is a 5-6 record and if you lose this week, you are looking at probably no better than an an 8-8 record for the year. Maybe you can sell that you improved your record but it still will be a tough sell when the public hates the GM this much and you stick with him.

Ross has some very tough decisions to make this off-season and I don't envy him at all.

 

It should also be telling the owner the fans are not happy. The fans are there but you haven't given them a winning product in years. Losing seasons in 6 of the last 7 seasons - people just have had enough. They mostly stuck with the Dolphins through the last decade but there are other options now (The Heat) and the organization just can't seem to get it's act together. People eventually throw up their hands and say whatever....and they have this year in the THOUSANDS.

Not only should Ireland fear for his job, but so should Mike Dee.

 

They tried that with orange carpets and celebrity owners. You want to go back to that ?

 

This is the umpteenth rebuild and 2nd under this GM. No reason for fans to have faith.

 

Don't forget about Mike Dee. Since he has been here in 2009 the team has been a disaster PR wise and that is a lot of his end of the job.

I'll never forget one of his 1st acts was to come out with the "Renovation Project" and he thought he would play Broward vs Dade and all he got was rebuffed by both. It was humiliating. IMO he's never recovered from that fiasco.

 

Miami is still not in that position. The market is there but you have to have an owner with vision & a plan. I still don't know if Ross has that capability. It disappointed me last year when he was a PR disaster. The desperate Fisher & Manning pursuits, failing to land Flynn or Smith to QB the team (we are not discussing if they were good or bad football decisions, we are talking from a PR POV & selling tickets) and then settling for Tannehill (again talking about PR not football decision), it drew one to conclude they are just scrambling & and not a very confident organization.

If you look at history Miami has traditionally been a decent draw in one of the larger stadiums (the OB was a large capacity compared to a lot of stadiums), but in the last 10 years the losing has just taken its toll.

It's not rocket science here - you win the stadium will fill.

 

I am 100 % with you DJ on the stadium issues. But Ross needs to fund it and do it now, not wait. The public is not paying a cent for it. Not after the Marlins Park fiasco. Don't waste time & effort, just resign yourself that you have to do it.

It's decisions like this that will help me build confidence in him as an owner.

 

It's more than just demographics, it has a lot to do with the organization, which just looks inept, disorganized, out of touch with it's fans.

 

Looking at the way the two organizations are run, and you can't see the difference then you are just burying your head in the sand. The Dolphins used to be run like the Heat but those days are long gone.

 

Well I will say this too DJ, that Mariners fans have abandoned their team too. The last two years I have seen their attendance plummet, maybe the most in baseball. I have my best friend that lives in Washington state and I have MLB Extra Innings so I watch a lot of late night games with him over the phone. No matter what the official numbers are I have seen their attendance at some games fall from 25,000-30,000 per game to almost Marlins level crowds (when they were in Sun Life) for certain games. So they are robots there in Seattle. Winning has everything to do with it, and lets face it the Seahawks win at home.....the place is packed. Its a simple formula. Until the Dolphins learn to win and especially at home, this discussion will rage.