Merged: Jeff Ireland Extended

Figuring out a team's debt level isn't very difficult. These are private companies, but the stadium process is pretty widely publicized; i.e. when the Miami Dolphins spend $300M on stadium renovations, we know if they paid for it themselves or the taxpayer paid for it. In the case of Miami, everyone here should know that the last time their stadium was renovated it was paid for by the team, not the taxpayer. A lot of the financing was done through issuing corporate bonds, which is information the public can access.

You can pretty much piece together the information, and Forbes does a good job on a yearly basis:

http://www.forbes.com/nfl-valuations/list/

I never even knew this was a controversial topic. I've been operating under the assumption that everyone was aware that Miami has serious debt issues. I suppose not, but there is a lot of information out there on the subject.

 

Stephen Ross has over four billion dollars, I'm sure he could afford to wipe out an entire front office and coaching staff if he wanted too.

 

If the Dolphins and Ross have debt on the stadium at this time, it is because Ross has chosen to not pay off this debt on his privately owned stadium. It isn't because he doesn't have the financial resources to pay this debt off completely if he actually wanted to. Having this debt is merely an excuse to spend less on the team.

My wife and I purchased our home 25 years ago. At the time we needed to take out a loan because we didn't have the financial resources to pay for the house in total. While we originally had a 30 year loan, we did well financially over the next five years and saved enough to pay off our loan. We did so and we haven't had a mortgage for the last twenty years. This has allowed us to continue to pay cash for our cars, travel, and other expenses without going into debt. If we could afford to do this on far less than 4 billion dollars in net worth, I see no reason Ross now has any debt related to his stadium.

So we can just agree to disagree on how much this so called debt on the stadium factors into how little financial resources Ross is willing to put into the team roster each year. I just think he is plain cheap and that is why he is unwilling to spend that extra 20 million dollars this year in an effort to upgrade his product.

I agree with you that a teams success is going to be directly related to the teams QB and to some degree the HC. If your team has a great QB, this can make even a mediocre HC appear to be a genius. Belichick wasn't considered a great HC until Brady came along. John Fox and Tony Dungy were not thought of as very good coaches until their QB was Peyton Manning.

Since great QB's are the hardest position to find. I think having a great GM is more important than having a great HC. It is the GM who selects the talent and great GM's can select enough high quality talent that even a good but not great HC can win with these player. Ireland is not and never has been a great GM. In fact I don't even consider him a good GM. He is merely mediocre and that is why this team has been mediocre for the past five years.

I agree with you that no great GM would want to come work for Ross if he is unwilling to spend the same type of financial resources other quality teams around the NFL are willing to spend to put the best product they can on the field each week. Ross doesn't appear to be willing to do this and that is why I want him to sell the team.

The problem with the Dolphins starts at the top and until that changes, the Dolphins will remain the same mediocre team they have been since Ross became the majority owner.

 

No, Ross owns the team and the stadium. Therefore he owns this debt and he has the financial resources to easily pay off this debt. He has chosen to instead use this so called debt to try and get funds from the taxpayers to take on the debt he no longer wants to be responsible for.

If Ross is so smart as a businessman, why would he have purchased this team if he didn't understand the debt he was taking on when he became the majority owner? Ross was a minority owner prior to buying out Huizenza. It wasn't like he didn't know about the complete financial situation he has taken on when he agreed to overpay for the team and the stadium. I don't feel sorry for him at all. He has had no problem taking nearly $20,000 from me over the past five years and providing me with an inferior product.

Obviously it has been me and other season tickets holders who have been the fools since Ross has been this teams owner. Fortunately for me, my move to Hawaii in the near future will put an end to my wasted dollars I have spent on the Dolphins over these past five years. I'm sure if Ross doesn't make some serious changes before next year, many other season ticket holders, not moving out of South Florida will be wise enough to stop wasting their money on this organization also.

 

I'm not trying to figure out what attributes to what. I'm simply stating the facts at hand. The team's financial situation is the worst in the league, if not close. The team also has consistently been well under the salary cap since Ross took over.

How those two tie in together isn't even a big deal. But this comes back to my original point - that a team that is making an effort to stay well below the cap threshold is a team that won't be very attractive to prospective GMs. When you factor in Dawn Aponte, those are two issues IMO that are big factors when a potential GM would evaluate the team. Further, the fact that Jeff Ireland has no problem with these two factors is a huge plus in his column when being evaluated by Ross. A GM that isn't going to complain about how much money he can spend is pretty much an owner's dream.

Disclaimer: this by no means constitutes a defense of Jeff Ireland, Stephen Ross, et al.

 

I couldn't agree more, and have often questioned the actual loyalty of these people that post on here and claim that Ireland is doing an okay job, or has acquired a lot of talent, blah blah, etc etc,

 

I think your proof is in the mediocre attendance. We already have stopped going, and I refuse to go to another game until at least Ireland is gone. To some this may seem irrational, and arbitrary but I have no other leverage over Ross and his decisions to keep (what I believe to be) an inferior GM. So I am withholding my money.

 

The NFL has a pretty robust revenue sharing model, so the best way to affect Stephen Ross' bottom-line would be to stop watching the NFL all together.

 

Your evidence would be stronger if you have examples of all teams under the cap to be under the same load of debt, or if everyone around and below Miami in salary cap figures to have similar or significant loads of financial debt.

Just like the national debt a better economy (in this case, product) will make those debt worries go away. Your argument rests on a huge assumption, one we haven't seen definitive proof of.

That said, I'm not arguing you are wrong. I think the team has been operating at a loss for a while.

 

I don't think there is any type of correlation really. Stephen Ross very well could just be cheap, and he would still want to be under the cap even if the team was in no debt. We do know he buys unsold tickets, so I'm not sure how cheap he is.

My main point is that a team not willing to spend all the way up to the cap isn't very attractive to people tasked with building the team in some capacity.

Right, but what exactly is the motivation for being so far under the cap for consecutive years now? I could understand being a little under and carrying that over. But we are talking ~$20M or so. Who exactly makes that decision? I can't see Jeff Ireland deciding he wants to carry over $20M when he could very well be fired. Seems like an executive level decision to me.

And its not really about operating at a loss or not. Personally it makes no difference to me if Ross is eating $20M/yr. in interest payments. But its naive to think that isn't going to affect other parts of the business. The issue is whether or not the executives making the final decisions will permit whomever is making the football decisions to spend whatever they want. At this point, I'm inclined to say no.

 

I think it's a huge difference. If it's him being cheap he can assure a new GM.

If it's because they're operating at a $15m loss (which isn't unlikely considering the financials they did release earlier this year) it's harder to assure a new GM that.

And no I'm not advocating for a new GM right now, just continuing your convo.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/10/3336415/debt-stadium-costs-to-hand-miami.html

 

That directive could also be in place so that a new GM isn't stuck with limited resources right off the bat, which to me hives with the delayed announcement of his "extension" and why they're just now trading for a bargain bin tackle and not, say, Branden Albert or someone of that sort.

 

$380M debt is just ridiculous. $20M/yr just on interest. And these are for renovations on a stadium thats essentially underwater at this point.

Here is the report that the independent consults provided to the County:

http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2013/04/09/21/49/UX6YY.So.56.pdf

Limited financial information on page 5. $42M cash injection in 2013. Jeez.

I do agree on assurances to the new GM though. I think to a certain degree there needs to be strong oversight of "football guys" by "business guys", but at the same time it seems like a smart GM would want complete control.

 

I'm curious where you're getting your numbers, given that NFL teams do not open their books.

 

SB,

I will agree with you that Ireland is probably the perfect GM for an owner who is more concerned with the bottom line than he is with the product on the field.

As a fan of the Dolphins since 1966, I watched Joe Robbie, one of the poorest owners ever in the NFL, build this team from an expansion team to the best team in the NFL in six years. He did this while having to rob Peter to pay Paul. Yet he hired one of the greatest GM's in the NFL during the 1960's and 70's, (Joe Thomas), and perhaps the greatest HC in NFL history in Don Shula.

Robbie also took out personnel loans to build the present stadium and he certainly had a huge debt, because he didn't have the financial resources to pay off the entire debt, as Ross does. Robbie also wasn't receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars in TV revenue that the owners receive today. Robbie knew what having a huge debt really meant, yet this didn't prevent him from always trying to have the best product possible on the field. Obviously the Dolphins didn't win the SB every year or even make the playoffs every year while Robbie was the teams owner. Fans of the Dolphins during those years understood though that Robbie was the type of owner who cared about the fans and who did everything in his power to put a quality product on the field year in and year out.

Hopefully Ross will realize that he continues to lose the fan base by sticking with Ireland and refusing to do what is necessary to bring in the best man for this job. If he is really more concerned about the debt of the organization than he is in putting a championship caliber team on the field, Dolphin fans are in for many more years of mediocre and possibly bad teams under his ownership.

If Joe Robbie could build a stadium and provide top tier teams during his years as the Dolphins owner, with far more debt and far less financial resources than Ross, there is simply no excuse for Ross's lack of providing these same top tier teams in the future. The first thing he needs to do is clean out the front office, starting with Ireland and anyone else who doesn't have as their number one priority, getting this team to the SB in the near future. If this isn't Ross's goal, and he is more concerned with debt than providing this type of team, he needs to sell the team, ASAP.

 

Amen.

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It's not irrational to me at all. In fact I didn't purchase season tickets in 2011 or attend any games that season because I was upset that Ireland and Sparano were retained after the 2010 season. Last year I missed going to games and even though I didn't purchase season tickets because Ireland was still the GM. I ended up going to six regular season games anyway.

I decided after last season that I would once again purchase season tickets (4 of them) for this season. I still was NOT happy with Ireland, but I wanted to be in the stands to see how Tannehill and the entire team developed this season under Philbin. Prior to 2011, I had been a season ticket holder since the 1972 season and I attended games beginning in 1966.

Fortunately, my wife and I will be moving to Hawaii in the early part of 2014. That means I will never again be tempted to waste my money buying season tickets for a Ross owned Dolphin team. I will remain a fan of the Dolphins once I move to Hawaii, but not spending all that money on a mediocre team, year after year, will probably make it easier to accept that Ross just isn't the right owner for this team. Hopefully Ross will sell the team to an owner who actually is concerned with putting a championship quality team on the field. When and if that happens, I will be happy to fly back to Miami and attend at least one home game a season in the stadium.

 

Different world, different game. NFL profits are derived a lot differently than they were. Cities were not subsidizing teams like they were.

Look, it would be great if Ross pumped even more cash into the team than he already has. Its just not realistic.

 

So basically you are satisfied with an owner who is more concerned with the debt than doing what it takes to put a great product on the field. I see that you are 30 years old and therefore you really haven't had the opportunity to experience how it feels to have your team in the SB, or especially win one. You have been alive only long enough to see the Dolphins go from a great organization to what it is today. A very badly run NFL team.

When it comes to football, being realistic about your team will only get you so far. Eventually you look around and wonder why other owners can do what is necessary to build great football teams. It may be a different world and a different game, but it is still all about winning the SB and nothing else really matters to most long time fans.

I disagree that it is not realistic to expect Ross to pump more cash into this team. My expectations are now and always will be that any NFL owner owes it to every fan, the responsibility of putting the best product on the field, year in and year out. If this means paying salaries which leaves very little cap space on a yearly basis, so be it.

As far as your statement that NFL profits today are derived differently than they were during the time Robbie was the Dolphins owner. You are entirely correct. Owners today derive so much money from TV revenue that they have to be complete fools if they aren't making millions of dollars every year off their ownership of the team. If Robbie were alive today and still owned the Dolphins, he wouldn't be crying about the debt of the Dolphins. He would be enjoying the windfall he receives from TV and he would be using much of those profits to constantly maintain the greatest of the Dolphins he built during his ownership years.

Robbie was a true NFL owner who thought fans came first. For Ross, it appears that his bottom line is all he cares about. I don't care how many tickets he buys to games so the game can be shown on locale TV. He isn't doing this for the fans, but for the TV networks and the other NFL owners. The reality is that if the games aren't shown in the larger TV markets, (Miami is one of these), the NFL and the networks would receive less money from those would advertise on TV. This reduction in advertising revenue would affect the NFL and all the other owners. Ross likely makes more money by buying a few thousand tickets for each game than he would if he didn't buy these tickets and the game was blacked out in the South Florida area.

It should not be overlooked that as owner of the team and the Stadium, Ross certainly isn't paying full price for these tickets. In fact I would be surprised if he actually spends any money on tickets for these games. He merely says the game is sold out and no money probably ever exchanges hands. It's his team and his stadium and his employees. Who is going to tell him he actually has to pay for those tickets. Obviously not anyone who expects to have a job in the organization after telling him to pay up.

 

I'd say Ireland needs us to make the playoffs to save his job.....something that seems unlikely at this point. We won't be taking the division and KC or Denver is getting one of the wildcard spots....its going to be a uphill fight for us to even reach 9 wins let alone the 10 or 11 its going to take to get a playoff birth. I've wanted all of the Parcells stink off of this organization for a long time now hopefully we either turn this around ....or Ireland can go.

 

I agree with you 100%. I hope Ross sells them team and takes his a** the hell out of south Florida. He has no clue how to run an NFL team.

 

Realistically we won't turn this around AND Ireland won't go anywhere.

 

No chance Ross let's Ireland draft another QB.

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Pessimist....we can be bad enough to fire the front office....I have faith....

 

According to Omar Kelly, Ross was very upset after the game and had a private meeting with Ireland and Philbin after the game in which they both emerged looking uncomfortable.

 

Good, I hope that's the case.

 

Good.

 

How do you know they were threatened?

 

Hope there's something to that. I'll wait for any insight Barry Jackson might have about it.

 

Explains the Mckinnie move that they didn't do a week or so ago when it would have made more sense. Hopefully, Philbin steps in Sherman and Coyle's asses as well. Being stubbornly predictable on O and allowing a team as bad as the Bills to convert almost 50% of 3rd downs is inexcusable.

 

You don't become uncomfortable after a pep talk.

 

Or yelled at. But ya no clue why people would accuse you of seeing cloud formations.

 

You already should be after that loss.

 

We've been 7-9 and 6-10 how many times now? These cowboys have been to this rodeo before.

 

Sometimes it's good to get away from Dolphins forums to get a different maybe unbiased perspective. Going through a Lamar Miller thread over at rotoworld, one poster said, for no longer waiting on Miller's breakout, "plus I watched hard knocks and know how stubborn this coach can be now."

I don't know if he's completely wrong in his perception either. Ouch!

 

Uh huh.

 

That forum is awful.

 

When he said threatened, I took it as threatened to be fired. I don't think that's something Ross would do in that manner. I'm sure he was angry and yelled which made them look uncomfortable.