I love what they're doing. The question is really why they weren't executing such common sense ideas sooner. Particularly regional marketing, I mean that's just a no-brainer.

The whole focus on glitz/glamor/Southbeach...it's not that it could NEVER work, but it's the sort of thing you do better with during the 30 years where the Dolphins were always either pretty good or really good. At the time the Dolphins executed that strategy, we were kind of mired in a little bit of a "lost decade" and still didn't necessarily have any clear vision on how to escape it. Everything works better when you know you've got the QB situation figured out, and with Chad Henne we never got out of the cautious optimism stage.

I think Joe Philbin has definitely had an effect on Mike Dee, Steve Ross and most definitley Jeff Ireland (willingly or not). But Joe Philbin is also here partly because of the phenomenon we're seeing. If Jeff Ireland had his druthers, Mike McCoy would be here as our Head Coach and I get the sense that if that were the case he would've been another voice in the Parcells camp, and maybe things wouldn't be changing so drastically right now. I think Ross and Peterson made a good choice to go with one over the other.

 

You know, I love how people talk about how "pathetic" these things are at the time, but I have zero, absolutely zero doubt in my mind that a lot of these changes come about as a reaction to the "Fire Ireland" banner flown above the stadium in Week 17, and the meager protest of about 26 fans sitting out front of the Dolphins headquarters. I don't think Jeff Ireland realized just how bad his image had gotten. In fact I remember an Armando Salguero blog post where he described a conversation he had with Ireland about finding the Dolphins' next quarterback (happened before the 2011 season was even finished, I believe) and Ireland talked about it being his job to answer that question and find our next quarterback, and Armando shared with him that a lot of fans don't trust him to find the next quarterback. Salguero described Ireland's response as genuinely surprised.

 

Marketing individual players?!?!?

Miami prefers star athletes to faceless drones?

Who'd a thunk it?

 

Winning will bring the fans back.

 

That's not what the Heat do at all.

 

That's two solid offerings from one Ben Volin to start the week off.

Really like what they're doing now.

If I had to split hairs, I'd say the protest was much more effective based on previous comments from the men in charge. While the protest didn't change the plan of action, it became the moment that the front office realized they had to crawl out of the bunker and let the fans know they actually had a plan at all. The banner got Jeff Ireland an extension. The protest drew two private phone calls from Stephen Ross.

My hope is that, as Tony Sparano realized (supposedly) that the Parcells way no longer worked on the field, Jeff Ireland & Co have realized it doesn't work off of it, either. Mike Dee talked about Jeff growing weary of taking punches.

 

Perhaps cynical, but if attendance is poor this season, it is a good time to reinstate the 1 pm games in the brutal heat and humidity.

We start fast, great, if we don't then in 2013 the team will be better and the 1 pm starts are just when the games are played.

 

Start right here and fans will come....

 

I think the turning point happened before that protest but I do think it was part of it. I say it happened before that protest because the reaction to the protest was swift and decisive, as if they already knew that they needed to be more proactive about all this stuff. As far as media pub goes, I found that the banner grabbed a whole lot more national attention than the protest.

But it's probably sort of a chicken-or-egg thing. The protest probably wouldn't have happened if that banner didn't fly. Either way, both actions were labeled "pathetic" with a lot of implication that they were ineffective, wouldn't even be noticed, nobody would care, etc...and yet these two events are part of the national narrative when it comes to the Miami Dolphins, and I think they both played integral roles in effecting the change in policy we're seeing at the top levels of the team. I have no doubt that the survey they sent out amongst season ticket holders was also a key moment for them, or that some of the national narrative in the wake of "losing" Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn also went into it...but I think those other events the protest and the banner are right up there with those things.

 

I certainly got the impression from the two articles that the changes started way before the protest, even before Philbin was hired.

 

The idea was to make the game an event to be seen at, similar to what NBA games had become in many cities. But the growth of NBA games into an event was more organic by nature and not any giltzy marketing by the Heat. I can't blame Ross too much for that, since if you can't sell the steak you have to sell the sizzle, and the Dolphins had little steak to market. If this team had Marino or Manning in their prime I doubt Ross would have had to have gone to the level he did, and Dolphin games may have organically grown into an event people needed to be at. But try selling your LT, it just doesn't cut it. Now you have Tannehill and his attractive wife, and if he and Philbin start to turn this franchise around the marketing dept's job will get quite a bit easier.

 

Agreed. There's no way I'd credit a few clowns ovaryacting to a good offseason as the reason our public image is now changing.

People look for any reason to give Ross and Ireland zero credit for anything they do right.

 

I'm also not sure I got the impression that Philbin is leading and Dee is following. My impression is that a new direction was selected before Philbin was hired. Philbin is part of that and as the coach he will be a leader and a face of the organization, but I don't equate that Dee stepping back. IMO they knew they needed a certain type of coach and Philbin fits that criteria. This is not meant to disparage Philbin. I love the Philbin choice. In fact, I posted that Philbin was my first choice back when most here were talking about Cowher, Gruden and then Fisher. I just think there's a tendency in people to believe that the new guy is responsible for everything perceived as good and the old guy is responsible for only the bad.

 

This is all window dressing IMO.

 

I agree that it's window dressing, but that's all that most fans/people understand. The team hasn't been winning so fans look at the window dressing and assume that every football decision has been bad. I don't agree with that. IMO many of the football decisions have been good. The problem is that they have failed to successfully address a few key positions. People like to say that there are many ways to win, but that really isn't true. There are certain things that almost all good teams do and certain positions that have a greater impact in those areas. If you don't succeed in those areas than you will fail the vast majority of the time. The Dolphins have made some bad decisions, but also sometimes simply had no better options. So through both decisions and circumstances they haven't succeeded on the field. The fans though just look at the largely negative window dressing and assume that all the decisions have been bad. Changing the window dressing will change the perception and that has value to somebody trying to sell tickets and hope. So it may just be window dressing, but that doesn't make it meaningless.

 

Agree.
As a non-Fla resident... when I think of the Heat, I see dollar signs and bling.

 

Fed by some of the worst media coverage in the league.

 

Image is created on the field though. Has nothing to do with anything else! I just listened to Shula on the radio and the host asks him what made the Dolphins gain so much support of the fans back in 70 and he only said one word! Wins!! We started winning and it made a lot of the transplants in Miami fall in love with them.

Can fans be swayed by enthusiasm? Absolutely but this fanbase is already established! There are a ton of fans who are skeptical and will not be swayed by anything but wins...

 

I don't understand what seems to be an implied notion that you either build a fanbase through wins OR gimmicks. They aren't mutually exclusive of each other.

EVERYONE knows you build a fanbase by winning, so no offense to the people saying it, but you didn't unlock long lost secrets that will change the world.

Now, if your team isn't winning or even if it is, its still a business and needs to be advertised to get more fans/customers regardless of how established or how many fans you already have. There isn't a cap to a fanbase. To that end, I hope Ross keeps trying new and innovative things to build the fanbase outside of the on the field product. We should be thankful we have an owner willing to try anything to get more fans or improve the fan experience, especially when he's proven he's willing to listen to his fans. I'd rather he do that then interfere with the team on the field.

I find that the same people that complain that Ross has tried crazy things like celebrities are also the same people that think he interferes with the football part of the team. Its like he isn't allowed to do anything.

 

This franchise is trying hard to win back fans the two ways that they know: 1. put a winning team on the field and get to the playoffs consistently, and 2. jazz up the atmosphere at the stadium with the glitz/glamour owners and such. Next (from what I hear only) they need to lower the cost and raise the quality of the concession stand food.

The thing Ross has done that is second only to putting a winning staff in place is buying out seats when necessary to keep the games on local TV. Keep that up, win games, and improve the food concessions, and the fans will buy tickets. Wouldn't hurt to lower the cost of a ticket either, draw in a greater diversity of fans.

 

I'm not so sure this monumental shift in direction, has been orchestrated entirely through the awakened sensibilities of our team's top brass, who after learning the errors of their ways, are now deftly maneuvering their marketing bus, through hairpin turns, and blind corners for this rancorous audience, with more intuition and understanding, as much as the NFL likely deployed some resources from its behemoth marketing division, to quietly initiate a self-imposed makeover on the oily, neglected face of a South Florida flagship.

 

This is all due to Parcells being all the way gone. Ireland was shackled by the Parcells Blueprint and Mike Dee was shackled by Parcells media lockdown. Now that the Parcells stench is gone, we see these guys plan starting to come together.