Seeing that none of the folks who have bashed him relentlessly went into the stadium thread, I thought I'd give them a platform to apologize to our owner, the man has stepped up and firmly unequivocally cemented the dolphins future here (amidst BS speculation) and put his freakin money where his mouth is..( where most were telling him he should) Well, he did, so Give the man some credit..
I'm more interested in what this means for the teams debt levels: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/23/3195536/nfl-could-help-ross-pay-for-stadium.html Different deal but that debt load question still applies.
He's a land developer. He's good at that. So I'll credit him for being good at that. Glad it benefitted the Dolphins.
Why do you have any concern or care about the debt level? How does that have any relevance to the fans? The only reason I could see caring is if you were concerned about how it impacted what we were willing to spend on player salaries. But with a hard salary cap and, more importantly, a high salary floor... the amount of money we'll be spending is predetermined anyway?
This is a plot by Ross to move the team to Los Angeles. I just have a feeling in my gut. He is a Jets fan and hates Miami.. Watch, in 30 years this team will be gone. Ross is a haterz lolz and the worst owner in professional sports. Look at how little that SOB spent in free agency and look how poorly Harbaugh has done since Ross tried to recruit him. F*** Ross. Also, who cares if he is spending 350 million on the stadium, he is a billionaire and part of the 1%. The city is getting a raw deal by subsidizing this clown.
I'm not a "Ross hater" by any stretch, but thanking him seems a bit much don't you think? He purchased the team and the stadium knowing they were both fixer uppers, then mucked a few things up and saw attendance fall partly because of how outdated the stadium is. Shouldn't he WANT to fix up the stadium in order to get his customers back? Surely he knew before buying it that it needed a lot of work. I'm not sure thanking him for renovating the property that he owns is necessary. In fact, I doubt very highly he would be doing said renovations if the Dolphins were winning and fans were scooping up every ticket in the house.
Yes, that is a major reason. The amount of money the team spends isn't predetermined. They have a cap and a floor, but there is a good amount of money in between. Further, there are a lot of things the team can spend on aside from player salaries that affect the team. Front office, coaching staff, facilities, equipment, etc. Beyond that, there are things that affect the fan's experience at the stadium. Not to mention it likely will be a factor when Ross sells the team. Its a less than ideal situation, and could impact who potentially buys the Dolphins.
He wants to fix up the stadium using the typical measures employed by other owners in every other franchise and professional sports team. However, the local Florida community no longer wants to be in that type of relationship so Ross as owner is left holding the bag. He always knew he was going to fix it up. He didn't anticipate the "change of heart" by the local legislature.
If the team was selling out games, he'd absolutely want to renovate. It would allow him to raise ticket prices. But I think your characterization is a bit off. He purchased a team with a ****ty stadium, but there are many avenues he could have explored that he didn't. The most obvious being threats of moving the team. Blackouts as well. He could have been a lot more aggressive in jamming up Miami-Dade. The county ended up with the best deal I've ever seen for an NFL city. Stephen Ross ponied up a bunch of his own money as well.
LOL I never understood people saying "he is a jets fan"... The guy owns his own NFL team. He's not a fan of anyone.
He is 1 of 32 people in this entire planet. People have got to realize that he has a VERY big reason to want Miami to be successful. Billions of reasons really. That's like saying someone buys pepsi and is really rooting for coke to put them out of business......ridiculous.
I'm confused. We should thank him for not being a complete scumbag about his multi-billion dollar entertainment investment? I genuinely don't understand the concept of thanking someone for not doing something bad.
I don't agree with the premise of him not being a complete scumbag. Cities offer NFL teams boatloads of money just to have a team. Owners taking the money offered to them does not make them scumbags.
I still think the Clippers sale had a lot to do with him caving on this. Ross even said publicly he felt stupid for buying the Dolphins until word got round of how much the Clippers were selling for. Every owner in the NFL had to look at that sale and see dollar signs. The Clippers sale completely blows up the Forbes model for assigning franchise values. Other franchise sales had gone for significantly above Forbes value before, but the Clippers sale turned that Forbes model into nothing more than numbers on a dart board. From Steve Ross' perspective I think it signaled to him that he should stop screwing around with pissing matches over this stadium upgrade deal. He needs to get back to owning a premium brand sports franchise (the NFL is a premium brand) that regularly hosts Super Bowls and other major sporting events in a premier American city. Even if he has to fund this with some of his own money, in his mind the price tag of the Dolphins just went from $1 billion (according to the Forbes model) to $2 billion, if he can just put up some window dressing.
Well, we're spending $350mil on improving the fans experience at the stadium, lol... As far as equipment, you think we're not going to buy enough footballs for practice? Come on man. You're talking about billions of dollars. And if you're concerned about our ability to afford a coaching staff/front office... you need to just stop worrying, lol. We dont have Ralph Wilson as our owner who is ultra concerned with pinching pennies in order to maximize profit b/c this is his main source of revenue. Like most owners... this team is a toy for Ross... b/c he has THAT much money. His number 1 motivation for buying the team didnt revolve around making money and maximizing revenue. He bought it to join and be part of an elite club of prestigious people and for the fun of owning a professional sports team.
Dolphin fans have a sense of entitlement without having to earn the stripe.. There were tons of people who didn't think the stadium needed to be modernized.lol. There are many folks who didn't understand the concept of Miami needing a venue to compete with other metropolitan cities for the big events, being left out on Super Bowl bids wasn't enough proof, they don't understand how ones city would of been left out in the dark for more than superbowls, they didn't understand how that could affect the cities big picture as it pertains to status. Its not Ross's fault you don't get that, or appreciate what he's done..Dolphin fans, the city officials, residents of the area made this guy do something that has never been done, and he did it..
Is it fair to say that if the fanbase was more supportive of their team they wouldn't be where it is?
Not sure a 2 week old Clippers sale was able to influence a 350 million dollar project that quickly. Plus, over a year ago (probably closer to a year and half ago) I posted in club that I spoke to contractor (business meeting) that was directly connected to the team at a high level and that he flat out told me that with or without government subsidy the upgrade was happening. I even said, "Even if Ross fronts all the cash" and his response was 100% yes. Ross was hoping to have help but this has been planned all along.. It was a question of leverage and he lost.
The fan base is NOT at fault at all. The fact is that Ross became the majority owner of the Dolphins after the 2008 season. He took over ownership of a team which went 11-5 in 2008 and won the AFC East division . The team has been 35-45, with no playoff appearances in the five years he has been the teams majority owner. South Florida fans do not support losing teams. They NEVER have and it is Ross's responsibility to understand this and hire the right GM and head coach to put a winning product on the field. I lived in South Florida for over 50 years and I realize that if you want fans to show up for games, you have to win games. If Ross doesn't understand this, he needs to sell the franchise to an owner who knows how to run an NFL franchise properly. Fans will show up, no matter how old the stadium is or what condition it is in, if the team is winning. Unless the product on the field improves dramatically, it won't matter how much money Ross puts into the stadium renovations. Fans will stay away if this team continues to finish at 500 or below, season after season.
That and it will affect plans on ever building a new stadium. Once Ross is not the owner, even when you find a guy willing to buy the team it's going to make it that much harder to work out a new stadium if your carrying too much team debt. Of course with the current commitment it looks like this should be the last major investment in the stadium and 22 years from now whoever owns the team will start working towards getting a new stadium up. It's a 'far off' future problem. I'd also have to imagine Ross would either pay off a good amount of that debt over the next 10 years or so.........or take a price cut on that $2 billion sale he's probably dreaming for now so the new owner can use the rest to pay off that debt. Just curious how much of this $400 million gets applied to the team debt load that already is at whopping high levels.
I still say move the dolphins to San Antonio and redskins to California! Sent from my LG-LS995 using Tapatalk
It's not as if he did this out of the goodness of his heart. He did it because he felt like it was the appropriate business decision.
No one who owns an NFL franchise isn't a fan of the team he owns. He did this because it's the correct business decision for his team to put fannies in the seats AND he did it because it's HIS team. Somebody ought to give the man a jersey with two dollar signs where the numbers go. That's his role.
Lol unless your in the extra rows that their gonna add to the bottom or the 10,000 their gonna remove from the uppers you will be fine.
Well, if there on the sideline front row, the logistics of your seats will be exactly the same, except you won't be the front row anymore..
Maybe maybe not, if your in the front row now, that row literally will not be the front row moving forward, there is going to be added rows on the sidelines as part of the renovation, now maybe they shift you to the front regardless, but you'll have that conversation I'm sure with your season ticket sales guy.
I read that they will be getting all new seats, and moving closer to field. I imagined I would move to whatever equivalent to row 1, seats 5/6/7/8 are tho. I won't get the tickets again if they arbitrarily move me to what will be row 8 or 9, seats 5/6/7/8
when they say new seats, they mean replacing the ones that are there, ( which I think is a waste of resources, just paint them a different color), when they say " seats closer to the field", their talking about the aded rows at the bottom.
