I'm watching a DVD of the 1985 game with the Chicago Bears. Steve Fuller has to walk away from center over & over again because the offense can't hear his signals being called! We had huge crowd noise & home field advantage because of it! That stadium might have been poor by today's standards, but it was really loud! I miss it...
INB4 dj circle jerk. I do agree though. Sunlife is a joke as far as the acoustics, comfort, parking, shade, seating proximity... everything really.
Parking on Marlins Park isn't that great either but the location has increased attendance for the Marlins substantially since moving away from Sun Life.
The Orange Bowl was awesome and you are totally right about crowd noise. Sunlife takes the crowd totally out of the game. When they show an aerial or high angle shot you can see how far the crowd is from the bench. Terrible. The Orange Bowl they were right behind the bench, breathing on the opponents necks. Hate and have hated the new stadium. I am sure that it has cost us games.
Ob la di, ob la da, life goes on, bra. I miss Tahiti Beach, the Parrot Jungle, Wolfie's, and the waves by the Miami Beach Dog Track. Sun Life is what we've got. Have to be thankful for the memories and look forward. All those things wrong with Sun Life need to be made better with the renovations Steve Ross wants to do.
Surely I can not let you down meister.. I'm drunk btw. Y'all don't understand...noone understands, but your team continues to pay the price.. You think it's a fu&$in game??.. It's not, your team plays on a neutral field...your gonna take that, and accept it. Without Dan Marino whatta you think our home record at sunlife would be.?..great qbs don't give a sh$$ about home field they just ball. The suits are dumb, if we were to build a replica of the orange bowl, catered to a true 12 th man, they. Would make their money back 10 fold.. You see, today's game, the advantage that a franchise can get in this league is by the venue, do you think Seattle is famous for the football because of their players? BS...when the Seahawks went to the White House they gave the president a jersey of the 12th man...they get it.. Sun life will always be a detriment to our sucess, that's why it's gonna take special players to play in this town and in that stadium.. Dumbest billionaires I ever seen man...gold mine right in front of them, and they just...don't...get...it. You all have seen the impact of a true home field advantage by Seattle, stop denying and lying to yourselves..
ill take the renovations from the ignorant, because that's what they are...ignorant...true genius business man would build a new.
If you all know the fan Awsi, he's a very knowledgable sports better, he will tell you the same thing I've been preaching all the years.. Sunlife is a cancer... Last year, I saw a car parked on the sideline..lol
The old Orange Bowl is remembered fondly because of the advantage the Dolphins had playing there but other than that it was a real dump. It is unfortunate that it was replaced with a stadium not designed to give them a similar home field advantage.
Ross won't build a replacement with his own money because the league would be pissed. It's a scam. Taxpayers fund a stadium, team threatens to quit, taxpayers pay for new stadium. Scam. I don't live in the area, if I did, even as a fan I'd vote against it. These billionaire owners and their multi billion dollar league are too cheap to hand over their own money. Say no. It's not worth it. How do the taxpayers of Miami feel about the Marlins new place? I'd guess pretty annoyed. Taxpayers all over should stand up and say no. And the shiny baubles and sparkly trinkets of a SB aren't worth it. The few times I've been to Florida it's been hot. Too hot. Could I be assed standing and shouting for 3 hours? Hell no. You know what keeps the fans away? Crazy ticket prices, rip off food and drink, over priced merch, redzone, Sunday ticket. The league wants full stadiums? Shut down redzone and change the viewing regs.
I attended hundreds of games in the old Orange Bowl. Including the Bears game the OP noted. That was probably one of the loudest crowds I ever remember in all the years I went to games at the Orange Bowl. The stadium was old and dilapidated. The food and the restrooms were terrible. The seats were made of fiberglass which often would peel off and you would be inching for days after sitting in the seats. Yet as bad as the stadium was, it was still the best atmosphere for a football game I have ever seen. While I think Sun Life stadium is okay the way it is right now. There will never be a football stadium like the old Orange Bowl. One of the saddest days of my life was the day the old stadium was torn down to make way for the new Marlin's stadium.
Wrong, if the league wants fans to come to the game they will follow the blueprint of qwest field in Seattle and build new stadiums structurally to inspire a true 12 the man, fans wants to be part of a movement like that, they want to be able to make a difference in the game, not be able to check their emails. Btw, he's paying about 400 million of his own money to renovate the cancer that Is sun life.
There could very well easily be a stadium that was as cool atmospheric wise as the orange bowl.. It's so simple, all it takes is the money and an architect that understands that the logistics of the venue, the distance between the seats to the field is thee most important element to your venue..do that, the rest will take care of itself.
They really can't do much to the biggest problem sunlife poses to the team and culture, the top row of the stadium will always be farther away from the field that any other stadium I the league.. The awnings will help because it will keep people more cool and into the game instead of sweating profusely and being drained of energy, I believe they will cut the corners of the end zone and bring some concrete a bit closer but that's all you can do really. The foundation is what's wrong, if Ross conceptualized the 12 the man design and understood that it's not about wins it's about structure, then he would just build a brand new stadium because the money a true 12man design would bring in would pay it back 10 fold.
You know, thinking it through again, i'm seeing what you're saying. He has all that land. He can build a new stadium next to the old one if he wants. It isn't like we have to build a dome. The infrastructure from the old stadium can perhaps serve the new one. The roads are built. But then I think of the billion and a half it cost to build MetLife and I can see why he prefers the renovations.
to take away our culture, our special venue, and not progressively understand what he was doing, and replacing it with the ANTITHESIS of what the orange bowl stood for, is the worst executive decision anyone has made to both programs..canes and Phins..
How much monetarily do you think is being generated by what's going on in Seattle?... Really think about it Z, from the exposure, the ticket sales, the merchandise, the movement, the advertising space within, the wins created because of it. The lure, The advantage itself is priceless.
You mean to tell me the Miami hurricanes administration and alum wouldn't be interested in doing something together, like we used to have, they wouldn't be good for a few hundred million?
That crowd at the Bears game was only surpassed once that I can remember and that was in Dec 1981 when we played Philadelphia on a Monday night, and Ron Jaworski went to the line 9 times and finally on that 9th time - he threw an interception to Lyle Blackwood - I thought the stadium was going to collapse it was rocking so much.
This is the direction that they should go. The Orange Bowl was just as cool an atmosphere for tha Canes as it was the phins. It truly was a home field advantage. I was never there so I can't speak for it as well as many of you guys, but even on tv it seemed special and I remember sportscasters talking about it often. "The Orange Bowl" was a place that visiting teams did not want to play. We really need a total re-boot and get the mytique back.
56 home game winning streak...you bet your *** it made a difference. The cane culture has suffered so much,it's just mind numbing how they allow that poor team to play there...it's wrong, and is no coincidence why the program has suffered since the move. If they simply came together, put themselves in a room, crunched some numbers, take into account how our tradition came about, see where our cultures are at this point, and shock the world, build the worlds most intimidating football venue..and here's the key, advertise it as such.. THATS HOW YOU PUT TWO PROGRAMS BACK ON TOP!!!!
I was thinking about this thread this morning when I was working out, and the thought occured to me that JRS was really the only open air NFL stadium opened in a really large window. I looked it up( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_home_stadiums_for_current_National_Football_League_teams ), and yeah, for about a 20 year span between 1976 and 1996, Miami was the only place a non-dome NFL stadium was built, and there wasn't a lot of construction period. Really, there was a boom in the early 70s, and one in the late 90s, and we're smack dab in the middle. Kind of alone in the desert in NFL construction. Its a good explanation as to why the stadium is so different from most of the rest of the league, along with of course the idea then that it would be multi-purpose for baseball and soccer as well. We now know of course that it will probably be the last non-dome multi-purpose stadium ever built.
Geez.... so many good memories. There was a Monday night game as well against Dallas that was deafening. The Monday night crew could not stop the cameras from shaking and it was really affecting the telecast. I was at that Eagles game as well. It was loud. The Bears game though is the only time I've actually had ringing ears and got a headache from being at a sporting event. The decibels were unreal, everyone screaming. As many mentioned, the OB was a dump but it provided the best atmosphere and home field advantage of any stadium stadium in the history of the league.
There really is a way to have it both ways, bell and whistles and the intimidating venue, just takes a tiny bit of intellect and understanding, however I don't see it happening, they just don't seem to be able to identify the problem, nor do they understand the consequences both programs are going thru, nor what needs to be done to fix it.
Best fried what? (potato? chicken? okra?) Sorry, couldn't resist. But, yes, great post about the OB. They could still have suites (as in Seattle) and have a great stadium that is on top of the field with insane noise. I love the whole layout of the Seattle stadium and we could have something akin to that which would protect the fans from some of the heat. Not sure about that glass thingy in some of the drawings.
lol. Check this out for fans who think it's about them....which is laughable..they actuall like to. Think it's all their doing. That's from the architect of the stadium. Of course other teams are calling, they'd have to be stupid not to, but unless they are will to rebuild, they will live with their lack of understanding. It is a huge advantage. For this football team, on many levels.. Ross, who is willing to spend 400 mill on lipstick on a pig, and the canes, are making a huge mistake...again. Unbelievable that qwest field was built for about 400 mill. I really think if Ross and the canes prioritized logistics and building to intimidate instead of bells and whistles they could get it done for less than a billion..