The state of Florida, Broward County, and Miami-Dade County will not give Ross a single cent to renovate the current stadium, let alone supply him with truckloads of cash to build a new stadium. It’s not going to happen.
They had better not happen because I will lead the charge against it. The man has $ 5 + billion of his own money. He owns the damn place, let him fix it up.
To Mike Dee.. Thank you first of all, for the position you have taken with this franchise over the past couple years, I feel like a lot of us know what your trying to accomplish when it comes to a connection from the players to their fan's, and the atmosphere that surrounds it, which is something I happen to respect about you when it comes to what you accomplished in boston..However sir, thats not gonna happen in our current stadium situation, and its not because of our fans, its because of the stadium itself...When you think Red sox, I think Fenway...when you used to think Dolphins, we use to think Orange bowl, and ever since the day we left our beloved stadium, its been a downhill, slowly deteriorating dissconnect from the players to their fans, with deteriorating performances and play. The fans have not changed in our community, only the structure.. where once we used to have the most intimidating stadium in all of sport, college and Pro, now we are subject to ridicule and Jokes.Where once we won championships, and had streaks that set records for college and pro, in this place now, we have nothing..There are so many things that the current stadium is directly responsible for imo..Flat performances at home, late arriving crowds, unemotional play from players, dumbfounded pundits and analysts with no answers for 1 and 7 records at home.. The stadium itself has been referred to by industry professionals as a ''corporate feel'', very anticeptic, ''no life stadium'', ''its like a neutral site'' and, a ''cancer'' to our team...Ive heard thousands of negative adjectives that describe the place our team has to play in..They don't deserve it, nor do we..The reason why?, unintelligent design for football atmosphere..The literal distance between our fans, and the gladiators that wear are our colors, are so far away from our energy, there is none, none that can tangibly raise the level of adrenaline to our players, and when a fan cant feel that, they show up late, they sit on their butts and hands during the game, and they become passive, waiting for their team to inspire them, instead of the other way around.. Our cheers are futile attempts to motivate and provide an energy source to our players, and when players can't feel that energy source from their fans?, You get unemotional football players that come out flat, uninspired, and go 1 and 7 in the process...Obviously iam not saying that its soley responsible, but I will bet any amount of money if you went off the record with our players from now and the past, you would find out all you need to know.. The stadium presents a serious disadvantage for them, and all its doing is costing our owner money and wins. Its very sad that we have no connection anymore to our players, its sad that our reputation is a laughing stock ,because not long ago, we were feared, we were loud, and very proud, we won big games, and we won championships...since the move, nothing.. To bring us back that culture we so long for again, I speak for many many fans when I say this, first of all we wanted to contact you because we feel you are worried as well {your statements about the stadium situation is the reason why iam writing this letter}..We would like for you to just think about this...''The OB2'' and all that it could inspire... the oppurtunities from a revenue perspective, a cultural perspective, branding and a player performance perspective..2 letters, 1 number.....''The OB2''.. The first stadium with energy, crowd noise, intimidation, intimacy,a once again, a real home field advantage, built right smack dab into the blueprint of the structure, and from there, the sky is the limit, in terms of marketing such a beast of an idea..You would instantly cement your legacy for this town, we promise you that...Not only would you be making everyone involved, happy as hell, you would be sitting on a gold mine... True sell outs...Buzz...reputation...connection to fanbase...re'establish culture and pride to a once proud, and loud fanbase...Raise the level of emotion of a football player...raise their performance level...Connect your players to their fans {which there is absoulute 0 of at this point in that stadium} sad sad sad....Marketing, an identity for a fanbase...more buzz...more people come...waiting lists...Merchandise sales...innovators...grounbreakers...energy source...free agency lure...more buzz, and most importantly, The Brand....it becomes an entity all to itself....You would make more money off these variables then you possibly could imagine.. The OB2...''Let the revolution begin'' That might be a lot to digest, but it is our reality, and I dont need any more evidence to know that our structure affects our whole franchise in a negative fashion and light, I speak on behalf of thousands that would just like to say, if you ever get the chance to build a new stadium, Please sir, do not allow the same mistake to be made twice..Give us a real edge built right into the damn spec, and capitolize all over it..You can have both by the way..Luxury suites, cutting edge everything, and a fan friendly, intimidating, intimate structure.... ''Fan vision'' is what you call it?..A real home field advantage is the only vision we want.....OB2.. Thanks for reading..
Is that any good guys?, anyone wanna proof read that sh$3 before I send it...approval rating?....just wanna plant the seed...
Ah, yes, the days where rich owners did not buy up tickets just to look good on paper. The days where local radio stations did not buy up tickets so the stadium could be supposedly " sold out " but when I went to every single game this year there were a plethora of invisible people in the seats. Yep, back in the day where if any fan wore an opposing jersey to a raider game they were lucky to make it to their car, same for the Rams games. Yeah, different time and place. Does bring back memories and Sun Life stadium , last season was emptier then most Rams or raiders games I went to when they were in LA. Yeah, I am that old. Oh I forgot, Sun Life stadium was packed a few times. With Jet fans and Pittsburgh fans this season, forgot about that. It looked lovely at the game. There is an old saying Amigo, what goes around comes around and its as true as the sun will come up tomorrow. Ask the St. Louis die hard Cardinal fans that had their team far longer then Miami has the Dolphins. Ask them what its like to not have football in town once the team pulls stakes and they went for almost a decade without any football. Telll ya what, its not nice. There are plenty of teams that do not have winning seasons and pack the stadium, Seattle and Buffalo are two examples and please, I do not want to hear there is nothing to do there and there is a lot to do in south Florida Most of the people do nothing but sit home in South Florida anyway on game day and have no intention anyway of buying a ticket. A move would do this franchise wonders. I have no problem with Sun Life, I laugh when people make fun of it and put it down but I have come to realize the ones that do go to about one game a year, maybe. Then again its mostly those same people that piss and moan when the team asks for money to make the place better. Like I said, what goes around comes around and football teams are just like teeth, ignore them and they will surely dissapear.
Make sure you put down your seat number where you buy season tickets or the email will go into the garbage.
Loved the letter DJ. But this is all i need to read to know that they have no intentions of building anything new. I'm with you on a new stadium i really am.. but i think they have made up their minds.
So tell us then. Why has LA lost so many teams? I'll tell you why. Because they're fans are worse than any fan that has ever been in the NFL. Why did the Raiders move back to Oakland? Fans! Why did the Rams move? Fans.......or lack thereof. Yep the City is supposed to get another team but you can bet it won't be the Dolphins. Who cares if radio and tv stations purchase the remaining 2500 seats? I don't thats for sure. The stadium is about 7,000 seats to big anyway and the owners of the Dolphins don't buy the tickets just to say they sold out. That's just untrue. When Miami fields very good teams, just like almost every city in America, the games sell out and there are a lot less fans of other teams. Thats the way it is but no matter how you slice it, the games have still sold out. To keep seeing them live you'll have to keep on flying down but you might get to watch the LA Bills without flying
you think?...pissass...Ive heard them talk about that they need to get the fans closer to the action, maybe all that we can hope for at this point is that they add some rows all the way around the stadium..
Would have been nice for a new modern Orange Bowl to be built on the old grounds aka where the Marlins stadium is being built. Don't think we'll be seeing a new stadium for the Dolphins though. When you have stadiums as old as nearly 100 year old Fenway Park, and the Superdome in the NFL then the age argument doesn't work since it's only 24. The location sucks and the baseball configuration makes it far from the field[even when they move it closer, 18 feet or so doesn't seem like much], but that's not enough for them to spend a billion dollars or close to it on a new stadium. And I know it's different, but the Giants/Jets stadium is in swampy East Rutherford, NJ. Not even the same state. Yet another argument for them keeping the current one.
thats what i mean when i say stop the insanity..the lack of progressive thinking on this subject boggles the mind..for any team for that matter.
It was fine with me. Did you send it ? I hope so. No response from mine yesterday, but of course we don't know his schedule and if he has had time to read it. I am wishing to hear at least an acknowledgement of receipt soon though.....
Most of this drivel I won't even dignify, but the part about St. Louis and the Rams - I simply cannot let go of....... 1st......the Cardinals were not in St. Louis from the beginning of time....they moved from Chicago in 1959 to St. Louis for the 1960 season. They were there for 27 years until moving to Phoenix in 1988. The Dolphins have been in Miami for 45 seasons, many years longer than the Cardinals were ever in St. Louis. 2nd.....the real reason the Cardinals moved to Phoenix, was not because of poor attendance, it was because of St. Louis not wanting to spend money to build Bill Bidwell a new football only stadium. The Cardinals, except for several years in the 1970's have been one of the worst franchises in the NFL. Yet they still had plenty of season ticket holders, and their attendance was fine, they just played in a small stadium without luxury boxes. Busch Stadium only held about 51,000 for football. Bidwell saw an opportunity to make more cash in Phoenix with a stadium that held 76,000 on the ASU campus. It was as simple as that. It had nothing to do with low attendance, that was near capacity. It was the capacity that was the problem. 3rd....the Rams moved to St. Louis had more about Georgia Frontierre (Rams owner) wanting to move back to her hometown more than what was going on with the Rams. While St Louis was building their stadium, they started wooing her, and she bit, and went back to her hometown.
Ross is a real estate guy. When the time is right he will build a new stadium. It just doesn't happen overnight. Picking a suitable and feasable location can take years, ask the Oakland A's how quick that happens. But in the mean time he will make improvements to the existing facility to "get by" until a real opportunity comes up. Timing is everything with developers and this uncertain, volatile market, with oil surging, labour rates about to go sky high again won't speed up a new stadium moving forward. It's unfortunate, a new stadium would be stellar but we might have to be patient. And when he does have a good opportunity i'm sure he will know how to make it awesome. That is his forte after all.
As I recall one of the renovations they wanted to make was to move the stands closer to the field. Not completely sure how they planned to accomplish it, though. One thing that would also help a little would be the canopy, as you would have at least a little more noise bouncing around.
