Really hard not to like this team. They play with intense passion. Have one of the best backs in the league to watch run the football. And, their entire D is in Beast Mode! What a pass rush (and they still have two players who are out who will add to that rush). Richard Sherman is the best CB in the league at this point, imo. Not as good as Revis has been but he's moving into that territory. What a monster. Great back-story on him also - coming out of Compton and going to Stanford. He just completely physically dominated Boldin (a very physical WR himself). Wish the Dolphins had their stadium also. I was comparing the overhead view of their stadium with the Dolphins. The stands are totally on top of their field.
"This isn't just about their team, this isn't about how fans in Seattle support their team, this is about genius design morphing into a phenomon that is impacting positively the teams performance, their owners pockets, and their win totals."
The fans in Seattle for the most part have grown up in the area and therefore they have been fans since the were young children. That is not the case in Miami. We have a large segment of the population in South Florida who have moved into the area from other parts of this country or other countries. Many of them are fans of other teams around the country or are not football fans at all. In fact a large percentage of the Hispanic population, which makes up over 50% of the Miami Dade County population, are more soccer fans than football fans. The problem in South Florida is that the majority of the fans will turn out for the BIG games, but they have little interest in going to games against lesser known opponents. Also, since I have been going to games since the 1960's, I have observed that many of the fans who once used to fill the old Orange Bowl, and Joe Robbie stadium when it was first built, no longer live in the South Florida area. Many older fans who used to purchase season tickets have either died or moved out of the South Florida area. Unfortunately the younger fans just haven't stepped up and purchased tickets like the fans in the 1970's through the early 2000's did. It used to be that if you wanted to see the Dolphins play at home, you had to go to the game, sellout or not. When they started lifting the blackout because games were sold out, many fans got too comfortable sitting at home watching the games on TV. As the team went into decline and the owner stepped in to buy tickets, so the game would remain on TV, more and more fans decided that going to games and paying hundreds of dollars, just wasn't worth it. Why pay all that money when the owner will just buy the tickets and you can sit at home and watch it for free? With less and less of a solid fan base in South Florida, along with the owner purchasing the tickets which haven't been sold, less and less people have been willing to attend games in recent years. Hopefully with an improved product on the field, the fans will once again want to go to the games and support the team. If the stadium continues to have a lot of empty seats at games and the Dolphins become a consistent winner again, Ross should stop buying tickets so the games can be shown on local TV. If fans want to see home games, they should attend the games in person. Not expect others to buy tickets so they can sit at home and watch the games. Once the fans realize that the stadium really has to be sold out before the game will be shown on local TV, more butts will be in the seats at games and that will add to the overall atmosphere throughout the stadium. It has been hard over the past few years creating excitement in a stadium when the team hasn't been exciting to watch and there have been thousands of empty seats during games. Hopefully this team will create the excitement that will fill the stadium throughout this entire season. There may not be as many Miami Dolphin fans in South Florida today that there were 20-30 years ago, but you would think that there are at least enough fans with the financial resources to fill the stadium a minimum of eight times a year.
