Dolphins season ticket sales still in the crapper

Average attendance in 2012 was only about 57k. Average attendance in 2007, the year Miami went 1-15, was 72k. And that's not counting the London game.

The Dolphins have done a poor job trying to retain their season ticket holders. That's one reason it's good Mike Dee is gone.

 

At least I'll still have plenty of leg room

 

Interesting to see where the dropoff happened:

2007 - 72k
2008 - 65k
2009 - 67k
2010 - 67k
2011 - 60k
2012 - 57k

In my little research, attendance normally lags a year from major events due to people re-upping their season tickets fairly early.

The 2007 season averaged 72k, but after a 1-15 season it dropped 7k to 65k per game.

The Big 3 joined on the Heat in 2010 when the team averaged 67k. The next year (when fans would have to re-up their tickets), the average dropped to 60k.

 

The Big 3 also failed to win a championship that year.

The Heat won a championship with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal in 2005-06. According to your theory that should have affected 2006's attendance. It did the opposite. Miami's 2005 attendance was 72k and the 2006 average attendance was 73k. And the 2007 attendance even with Nick Saban leaving and the team coming off a 6-10 season (and the Heat only one year off from a championship run), was still 72k.

Tim Tebow was drafted to the Denver Broncos in 2010. That's when Miami's attendance took a sharp drop. Can't be a coincidence.

 

We have to start winning for all those fair weather fans to come back.

 

And I doubt the one-off Marlins championships had an impact, either.

I think of the Big 3 as a bit of a different animal. Sec talks about how MIA is shifting way more towards basketball and the buzz that created.

Just looking at those numbers, isn't a 7k drop in one offseason a pretty big outlier? We were pretty consistently mediocre through those seasons. Odd that after only one of them was there a significant decrease. If we're looking at an attendance decrease over a span and most of that decrease happened in one offseason, worth exploring.

 

Aren't we over complicating this? Years of losing and mediocrity are the reason attendance has steadily trended down more than any external factor. You want butts back in seats? Put out a quality product.

 

I don't disagree winning is the solution. Just seems there were 2 seasons where there was a significant drop and the rest were fairly consistent. Interesting to look at why.

 

The point is, Heat success has not correlated negatively with Miami's attendance in the past. Not even a little bit. That would seem to make the "Big 3" theory a little suspect when you consider:

1) Football season and Basketball season differ,

2) The "Big 3" actually got together on July 8th, 2010 (the date of "The Decision") and so that technically should have affected the Dolphins' 2010 attendance, yet attendance in 2010 actually went UP (slightly) versus 2009, and

3) The only difference in the status of the "Big 3" where it concerns Miami in 2011 versus 2010 is that Lebron James had choked in the Finals and they lost.

Given these things...the theory seems pretty dubious. Back in 2011 if you recall, Heat fans still liked Dwyane Wade more than Lebron James. The narrative was that Wade would always be Miami's heart and soul. The Heat seemed unable to figure out how to mesh the two players. Lebron had not yet become the face of that team. That didn't really start to happen until the 2011-2012 basketball season, especially after winning the Championship against the Thunder. And so I can't figure out why "The Decision" would have zero effect on the Dolphins' attendance in 2010, a dramatic effect on the Dolphins' attendance in 2011, and a more muted effect on the Dolphins' attendance in 2012.

That's why I brought up the Tim Tebow thing. I mean, you can find ALL KINDS of things that happened within 14 months of the drop in attendance (for indeed, "The Decision" happened 14 months in advance of the Dolphins' 2011 home opener). That doesn't mean that those things that happened within 14 months of the drop in attendance were related.

 

Service, Service, Service, Service.

When your customers ask for things..the answer should NEVER be: "We don't do that."

it should be "Let me see what I can do."

At Dolphin Stadium.....Ask for two beers and ask them to put both beers in one cup......answer: "We don't do that, we count the Cups, and you have to buy a soda to get one of those.

At the AAA...do the same...answer: "Sure sir, we can do that for you, want me to pour it for you?"

 

According to my studies, LONG TERM winning is correlated about HALF with attendance trends. Short term winning is correlated about a THIRD with attendance trends.

 

Not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain thats an NFL rule.

 

Bingo, bingo, bingo, bingo.

I've heard plenty of complaints from people in the past several years about their customer service as season ticket holders.

 

No, I don't think its over complicated really. Team success obviously has an impact, but so does the stadium experience, economy, marketing, etc.

 

But hey..don't take my word on this...

go to each stadium/arena...see for yourself.

I for one..will go to the Patriots game...maybe the Jets game..and our first round playoff game. That will be a new low for me in attendance. I love the red zone channel, Football pool parties and BBQ's

 

Like I said, I think attendance trends correlate about 50% with your longer term recent record of winnin/losing. There's no doubt it has an effect. A strong effect.

But that leaves a LOT of wiggle room...to where things like customer service, customer satisfaction, marketing, fan experience, economy and yes even the "Big 3" can affect attendance.

So I look at the Dolphins' drop in attendance from 72-73k down to about 65-66k as being due to the lack of winning. I view the drop from 65-66k down to 57k to be due to other factors, the largest of them being poor management.

 

So what you are saying is the firing of Mike Dee was well deserved?

 

I think he did more bad than good. I think he should have stayed in baseball.

 

Can we get the OP to change the title, it's misleading, and pisses me off.

 

I still think there is a bit of a lag (for example - Cavs still sold out most every game the year after LeBron left, before falling off a cliff the second year). James signed on July 9th - when have most people purchased their season tickets for football? The preseason starts in August, so I would assume most people have already committed by July.

But if the Heat theory is bunk, I still think it's most interesting to look at the 7k drop in fans in one year that the team went 7-9 than to look at a 5 yr stretch that is fairly consistent outside of that and the year following a 1-15 record.

They added 2k in '09, held steady in '10 and then suddenly drop 7k in '11? There has to be something there.

 

Was he actually fired?

 

To be fair, there is often a lag in this stuff, like turning an aircraft carrier.

The reason we still had 72k under Cameron were the decades under Shula and some blips of modest hope under JJ and Saban. Mostly, the Phins had been living off their bodyfat.

The accrual of badwill (my term for the opposite of goodwill) among the fans finally began to push things downward precipitously after CamCam.. the 2008 season was only one uptick in several years of disappointment, thus the ship is still turning that way. We'll need to string a couple good seasons AND a playoff win together to really see significant needle movement upwards imo. People need to be wooed back.

IN Jeff Ireland terms, this is a "Down Arrow" attendance franchise.

 

Agreed.

See Buffalo, Carolina, KC, etc.

 

I think they "mutually decided to part ways."

I read that as Ross saying we can either let you say you are quitting or we will have to fire you.

 

I'm with you on the latter. I'm fascinated by it.

Let me put it this way. The actual dates of the recession spanned from December 2007 through June 2009. So the difference between 2007 attendance and 2008 attendance not only had to absorb the shock of the 1-15 season, it had to absorb the full shock of an economy in fullblown recession. Yet the attendance went from 70,951 in 2007 (and remember, that's not counting the game in London which draws 80+ thousand) to 65,490 in 2008.

So absorbing the shock of a 1-15 season on TOP of a recession only dropped attendance by about 5500 seats per game.

Yet in 2011 the attendance dropped about 6500 seats on average. And in 2012 the attendance further dropped about 3100 seats.

Cam Cameron plus a damn recession couldn't get the attendance to drop more than 5500 seats. Somehow the Dolphins managed to top that in 2011 and come surprisingly close to equaling it again in 2012.

 

I think you're overthinking it. He left for a better position (in his mind) and probably more money.

 

Now I'm trying to remember what happened between January 2011 and September 2011.

Was that the Harbaugh coaching fiasco/embarassment?

 

Not so sure about that.

Padres are worth a third to a half what the Dolphins are worth.

 

I agree. The Padres are a demotion not a promotion.

 

Yeah. Followed by an awkward extension of Tony Sparano's contract, and the Dolphins not taking a quarterback in the 2011 Draft.

 

Okay....

2010 ended with a humiliating home loss to the Patriots that had to make a LOT of fans say they were ready to give up on us in disgust, especially after losses to the Lions and Bills for an 0-3 ending. It was so bad it prompted Ross to try to replace Sparano, but that was bungled and we ended up not only looking incompetent (again, this time OFF the football field) but we then EXTENDED Sparano after it was clear Ireland and Ross had no faith in the man that had presided over the debacle home-closer game.

I think that's roughly when a lot of fans said, "Forget this franchise."

 

Maybe if he hadn't spent nearly a decade there previously. That franchise and city likely means more to him than you are letting on.

 

I'm positive they do. I was specifically refuting your assertion that he's probably getting a pay raise. I doubt that.

 

Ben Volin's account of that offseason:

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thed...dolphins-2011-offseason/#sthash.ZnfV22g9.dpuf

 

Someone gather housing index numbers for all 32 nfl cities, so we can create a model. Thanks in advance.

 

I would think he is but I can't prove it.

 

Given the fact the Padres franchise is worth a third to a half of what the Dolphins franchise is worth, I don't see any reason to assume so.