January 30, 2012
Dolphins: We built our stadium all wrong, fix it please?
Miami Dolphins officials dropped by the Miami Herald offices on Friday, and one of the discussion items was the team's unhappiness with Sun Life Stadium's current seating arrangement:
"We have the furthest distance from the sidelines with our lower bowl in the NFL," {Dolphins president Mike] Dee said. "We have the fewest number of seats in that lower seating level between the 20 yard lines, between the goal lines, in the NFL. Not just the facilities that compete for Super Bowls. We've got to fix that ...
"At the same time, we may look to amend capacity in areas where we may have too much. Right now, we have the largest upper deck in the NFL -- 35,000 seats. The next facility in line is 27,000. The Redskins took 10,000 seats out of their upper deck this past year. We're looking at all those things to retrofit the stadium to today's standards."
And by "we," Herald reporter Armando Salguero makes clear, Dee meant "someone other than us":
[T]hat costs money. And neither the legislature, nor local politicians are volunteering to pay for that. The public would likely vote down a ballot measure for such expenditure. And owner Stephen Ross is in no hurry to spend the multiple millions of dollars it would cost to do the project.
Not noted in the article: The Dolphins actually own Sun Life Stadium, having built it in 1987 with private funds. (The distant sidelines were so that the stadium could also host baseball as a way of boosting revenues — something that worked even better when then-owner Wayne Huizenga sold the Marlins but kept collecting high-priced rent.)
For the moment, Salguero speculates that the Dolphins could tarp off part of the upper deck to reduce capacity, but it sure sounds like this is the start of a renewed Dolphins campaign to ask for public money to renovate their private stadium, after last year's attempts crashed and burned so spectacularly.
January 25, 2012
Florida homeless-shelter bill wouldn't actually recoup stadium subsidies
Apparently there's a small problem with that bill to require Florida stadiums that received public funds to double as homeless shelters. As Stephen Nohlgren of the Tampa Bay Times reports, the original requirement was introduced in 1988 to win support for allowing sales-tax money to be kicked back to help pay for construction of the stadium that went on to become Tropicana Field, current home of the Rays — a subsidy scheme that's since been used by numerous other sports teams. The bill, proposed by state senator Michael Bennett, would require that stadiums immediately set up shelters on off days, or else refund all the cash they've received.
And the problem? Take it away, Nohlgren:
But in fact, only one stadium listed by legislative analysts — the Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium — is owned by a team that received the sales tax exemption. The other 17 are owned by cities, counties or public sports authorities. Refunds would be borne by taxpayers.
The bill doesn't seem to have much chance of passage in its current form, regardless, though it's always possible it will lead to some debate on legislation that would actually affect the sports teams that Bennett is upset about subsidizing. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.
December 22, 2011
Maybe it's just end-of-year contract cancellation time, but this week has seen a relative whirlwind of naming-rights reversals: A national pizza chain announced it was taking its name off of FC Dallas' soccer stadium, while the Indiana Pacers' arena got a new name thanks to a corporate renaming, the Miami Dolphins' stadium is getting one thanks to its namesake company closing up shop in the U.S., and the Sacramento Kings' arena could get one depending on how its sponsor's bankruptcy proceedings go.
All of which is pretty much old hat in the sports world by now — this will be the eighth name for the Miami stadium in 25 years — but it does make you wonder how much brand value a stadium name when nobody can remember what it's called. (Quick, anyone: Where do the Oakland Raiders play?) So far, companies still seem willing to throw their name onto any building that might get it on the lips of national sportscasters — just look at the San Diego Chargers' stadium, which got a new name that will last only from last Sunday through next Wednesday in order to promote its usual sponsor's new cellphone chip at three major football games. But how long will it last, especially if announcers stop making as many references to stadium names-of-the-week.
It's possible to imagine, even, a world where entire articles could be written about stadiums without ever bothering to mention who has paid to advertise on their sides. But no, that could never happen.
January 31, 2011
Competing bill would redirect Dolphins roof tax to convention center
The Miami Dolphins' roof-subsidy demands, already facing opposition in the press and from elected officials in Broward County (which would be asked to help pay for the thing, even though it's across the county line in Dade), got another kick in the chops yesterday:
Stuart Blumberg, co-chairman of a Miami Beach committee spearheading the center renovation design, said two state senators have agreed to sponsor a bill that would help fund the center renovation through a hotel tax increase while excluding the Dolphins from any of the money raised.
Blumberg said his proposal, sponsored by Sens. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, and Rene Garcia, R-Miami, would allow Miami-Dade commissioners to increase a hotel tax, the region's convention development tax, from 3 percent to 4 percent. All the funds raised by the increase would go to the center's renovation, Blumberg said.
Blumberg's bill might not pass either, of course (it still doesn't have a House sponsor), but if nothing else it could siphon off support from hotel operators for the Dolphins bill, which the team was hoping it could piggyback on the convention center renovation, something the hotels actually want. If you're scoring at home, it might be time to downgrade the Dolphins' renovation plans from "doubtful" to "questionable."
January 12, 2011
Broward County unanimously votes to oppose Dolphins reno tax
That hissing sound you heard yesterday was the air coming out of the Miami Dolphins' latest stadium-funding trial balloon:
Broward County commissioners denounced a plan to send hotel tourist taxes to the Miami Dolphins stadium, using terms like "vile" and "shameful" and saying they'd effectively kill it.
Now they've made it official, voting solidly in opposition Tuesday to a proposal to spend Broward's hotel bed taxes to fix up the 23-year-old Sun Life Stadium in Miami-Dade County.
"Solidly" here actually means "unanimously," as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel makes clear in its blog post on the same story. So while the Dolphins' plan to tax a neighboring county for its stadium renovations may not be dead yet, it now has a decided death sentence placed on it should it come out of hiding.
January 10, 2011
Miami columnists savage Dolphins' hotel tax plan
The Miami Dolphins' proposal to tax neighboring Broward County for stadium upgrades in Miami-Dade County is not going over so well so far: Carl Hiassen hates it, while South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo hates it so much he wrote about it twice in one week. Key quotes:
- Hiassen: "[Dolphins CEO Mike] Dee has won the support of some major hotels, and for the first time he said that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross will actually kick in some dough toward the renovation. That's a real heartwarming gesture — sort of like offering to repaint your own house if the neighbors first agree to build you a new five-bedroom wing."
- Mayo: "The NFL is awash in billions of dollars in TV money, has billionaire owners and millionaire athletes (on the brink of a labor war which could stop play next year) and the Dolphins want bed tax money from a neighboring county to build an unnecessary roof to land future Super Bowls?"
- Mayo again: "I'm glad that the Broward tax idea seems to be dying quickly, a wobbly pass knocked down at the line of scrimmage like a Chad Henne throw. But the chutzpah of these pro sports people never ceases to amaze."
January 06, 2011
Dolphins propose taxing neighboring county for stadium upgrades
The owners of the Miami Dolphins have figured out how they want to pay for their proposed $225 million renovation of their stadium (I honestly have no recollection what it's called this week), and it's a doozy: raise Miami-Dade County hotel taxes by 1%, plus get Broward County to chip in its own hotel tax money. That'd be the Broward County that the Dolphins' stadium isn't actually in, if you're keeping geographical score at home; Dolphins execs insist that this would be a good idea because all the Super Bowls they'd get from a roofed stadium would lift the whole region's economic boats.
Increasing the Miami-Dade hotel tax — which would require a change to state law — was, you'll recall, wildly unpopular when the Dolphins first proposed it last winter, and this latest plan looks to be stirring up even more opponents, according to the Miami Herald:
Late Wednesday the parent company of the Florida Panthers, the hockey team that plays in an arena built with Broward hotel taxes, issued a statement Wednesday night saying it was "vehemently opposed" to the Dolphins plan. The Panthers said the Dolphins want to use Broward taxes to subsidize a private facility to compete with a "publicly owned facility in Broward County."
From the looks of things, the Dolphins are gambling that by pooling all this money, they can promise a cut of the vig to help expand the Miami Beach Convention Center, which area hotel owners would like. It seems like an awfully complicated shell game, but stranger Rube Goldberg funding schemes have come to pass.
October 21, 2010
Dolphins roof tax demand: It's back!
This may be a terrible time to raise private money for a new football stadium, but apparently it's never a bad time to ask for public funds:
It may not be a blitz yet, but the Miami Dolphins have started a political ground game to fund a massive stadium redo with public dollars.
The team confirmed this week it hired a polling firm to gauge support in Miami-Dade for improving the stadium -- work the team says is needed to make the venue more appealing to large events such as the Super Bowl and World Cup soccer.
This is a revival of the $250 million renovation plan Dolphins execs floated in January, then unfloated in March once local hotel owners balked at funding the plan with a hike in the hotel tax. There's no indication yet where the public money would now come from or how much would be needed, but apparently the umbrella is still in play, albeit really grainy.
So far, the revived Dolphins campaign seems mostly limited to meeting with local elected officials and telephone push polls to convince Miami citizens of the need to put their tax money into a privately owned and operated facility. According to the Miami Herald:
Michelle Niemeyer, a Miami lawyer and member of the Cocoanut Grove Village Council, said she was polled in late September on the question of public dollars and the Dolphins' stadium. Niemeyer said the caller's script seemed designed to persuade her that spending taxes on the facility was a good idea.
"I was informed at one point that the owner of the Dolphins has paid 100 percent of the cost of the stadium and then [I was] asked something like, 'Do you believe that's fair when most stadiums around the country are supported at least in part by tax dollars?'" Niemeyer wrote in an e-mail. "I know they pointed out that the source of funding would be the tourist tax and that it wouldn't decrease funding for services."
March 03, 2010
Dolphins drop stadium reno tax ... for now
The Miami Dolphins are setting aside their push for a hotel tax hike to fund $250 million in stadium renovations, saying they'll now move ahead with a bid for the 2014 Super Bowl without renovation plans in place. Which contradicts somewhat Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book's earlier pronouncement that "we have to have something to show the owners, to show what we are doing to keep the stadium in a position that they find acceptable" for a Super Bowl bid to work, but that's just the sort of thing that lobbyists say, right?
Notwithstanding today's Miami Herald headline ("Miami Dolphins drop push to raise taxes for stadium upgrades"), the team is very much not dropping its push for a hotel tax hike or some other kind of public stadium subsidy, just putting it off for a few months:
The team backed off a plan to support state legislation that would have allowed Miami-Dade County to increase hotel bed taxes to raise dollars for stadium improvements. But the team and host committee officials are examing other funding options.
"We're not dropping either the idea of stadium improvements or the concept of pursuing public funding," [Dolphins CEO Mike] Dee said. "What we're doing is slowing down the process to match the ongoing discussion with the community."
Dee estimated renovation plans could be unveiled later this year.
Presumably Dee is banking on the economy having perked up by then, but he probably shouldn't count on it.
February 02, 2010
Dolphins roof demand hits resistance
Bloomberg has a long story today about resistance to the Miami Dolphins' demands for a taxpayer-funded roof on their stadium, which they say is needed so it can host future Super Bowls without risking somebody getting rained on. Along with lots of quotes from local elected officials noting that Miami is flat broke and already on the hook for a new Florida Marlins stadium, there's this keeper of a quote from one sports economist:
The Super Bowl is worth $30 million to $90 million, said Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
"You could host a Super Bowl every year for the next 20 and be lucky to recoup your costs," said Matheson, co-author of a 2004 paper on the event's economic impact.
"A great majority of our community was outraged at the Marlins Stadium deal," added David Karsh, a spokesperson for Miami city commissioner David Sarnoff. "You would have to anticipate similar sentiment if yet more public funds are steered toward benefiting wealthy team owners." Karsh cleverly forgot to mention that it was his boss who, after opposing the Marlins project, ultimately cast the deciding vote that allowed it to move ahead.
January 28, 2010
Dolphins float new hotel tax for stadium reno subsidies
The owners of the Miami Dolphins have come up with a plan to get that $250 million for stadium improvements that they don't want to pay for: Increased hotel taxes. This would require action by the state legislature, since state law caps tourist taxes at 6%, and Miami-Dade County is already up against the cap.
County approval would also be required, though, and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez has already come out against the hotel-tax plan, or any taxpayer spending at all: "I would not be supportive of any public funding for the renovation of the Dolphins' stadium," he told the Miami Herald. "Now is not the time." Add in that a raised hotel tax would be a target for dozens of sports and arts groups if the state approved it — "Do you know how many people are going to jump on that bandwagon?" one former hotel association executive told the Herald — and you can probably file this one under "trial balloon" for now.
Of course, even trial balloons have their uses, and this one did provide the Dolphins a chance to get the alleged urgency of stadium renovations into the newspaper — the 2014 Super Bowl isn't going to host itself, you know! "The clock is ticking to show we have some movement,'' Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book told the Herald. "Certainly we have to have something to show the owners, to show what we are doing to keep the stadium in a position that they find acceptable." Or else people just might have to find another reason to visit Miami in February.
January 19, 2010
Dolphins stadium gets yet another new name
The building formerly known as Dolphin Stadium has signed a new five-year naming rights deal under which it will be redubbed "Sun Life Stadium." That means when viewers tune in for the Super Bowl next month, they'll hear repeated references to ... a newspaper chain? A fruit drink? Whoever had "Canadian insurance company" in the pool, you're a winner!
The Miami Herald says that this will be the building's seventh name in 23 years, but a bunch of those were minor changes (Pro Player Park to Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium to Dolphin Stadium), making this the first major naming rights resale for the place since Pro Player went bankrupt. The interesting bit here, though, is that Sun Life coughed up a relatively high $7.5 million a year for naming rights, showing that a used stadium name may actually be worth something after all — at least, if it means guaranteed screen time during a Super Bowl.
January 07, 2010
Dolphins release plans for "umbrella" they say they don't need
The Miami Dolphins have revealed what they want to spend their $250 million in stadium renovation money on: Giant umbrella!
Okay, to be fair, team execs actually said they have no idea how much the umbrella (what normal humans usually call a "roof" or an "overhang") would cost:
"This is not a plan that has been priced out," Dolphins CEO Mike Dee told a South Florida Super Bowl Host subcommittee appointed to review the proposal. "We're not at a point where we've figured out financing or figured out how to make it work. But we want to leave no stone unturned to see how we can work it out."
Dee also said, according to the Miami Herald, that "the Dolphins do not need the stadium improvements for regular season games, and that it was up to local Super Bowl organizers to decide if the renovations are worth pursuing." Translation: We just drew the pictures of the superumbrella, don't expect us to actually help pay for it.
January 06, 2010
Dolphins to seek $250m for stadium upgrades
Other shoe: dropped.
Only months after Miami-Dade commissioners agreed to borrow $490 million for a new Florida Marlins baseball stadium, local leaders and the Miami Dolphins are contemplating a push to seek public money to help fund $250 million in renovations to the football venue.
If you've read economist Phil Porter's work before, you'll know that the only way Miami makes back $250 million landing additional Super Bowls (which is the goal of the renovations — apparently at the last one held there, some fans got wet when it rained) is if Peyton Manning leaves his wallet lying around. If there's a silver lining here, it's that the money might be taken from convention center hotel funding, which is a similarly terrible idea.
And hey, speaking of Porter, here he is in the Miami Herald story on the Dolphins' demands:
Philip Porter, an economics professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said a Super Bowl amounts to a fiscal blip for large economies. That's particularly true for popular winter tourism destinations like South Florida, which can count on packed hotels in February even without a Super Bowl.
"If you wanted economic impact, you'd do a lot better taking the money you would spend on a stadium and drop it out of a helicopter," he said.
That's a good point, and — hey, waitaminnit. Helicopter? Allen Sanderson, call your trademark attorney!
December 08, 2009
NFL stadium-grubbing notes from all over
I don't know if it's something in the water or the holiday spirit or what, but the last couple of days has seen a rash of attempts to drum up support for NFL stadium deals on pretty flimsy pretexts:
- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated his henchman's statement from a couple of months ago, insisting that Dolphin Stadium need upgrades if it's going to host more Super Bowls after this year. No word on who would pay for any renovations — which could reportedly include a partial roof to protect fans from rain and/or moving seats closer to the field — but the South Florida Sun-Sentinel did report ominously that South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee Chairman Rodney "said it will be up to the community, which is bidding for the 2014 Super Bowl, to determine the importance of hosting the NFL's championship game."
- The Los Angeles Times reports that the NFL's decision over the weekend to try to eliminate some revenue-sharing payments to low-revenue teams could be "the jab that knocks them to the canvas in the next two or three seasons" and prompts them to relocate to, say, Los Angeles. Given that this will at most amount to a few million dollars a year per team and will likely be overturned in the next collective bargaining agreement, if not sooner than that by a union challenge, this seems a bit of an overstatement.
- A survey of 550 Minnesota residents found that they were more likely to say it was important to keep the Vikings in town when the team was winning, as it is now. Though the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported this as "When Vikings win, drumbeat for new stadium beats faster," it doesn't look like the poll actually asked whether respondents wanted a new stadium; and, in fact, a higher percentage of residents said this year that the Metrodome is an acceptable home for the Vikings than in past seasons when the team was losing.
In other NFL stadium news, the Santa Clara city council is expected to vote tonight to set a 49ers stadium vote for next June. Starting tomorrow: Six months of new pretexts!
UPDATE: But first, the owners of Great America, whose parking lot the 49ers stadium would be built in, are suing the city to void the deal! The fun never stops!
October 09, 2009
Here comes the next stadium wave
Blame it on Cowboys Stadium, or blame it on Ed Roski, but there certainly seems to be a rush of teams looking to get back on the new-stadium line these days, despite having old stadiums that aren't even of legal drinking age.
The latest is Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who yesterday reiterated that he wants a new home to replace the 17-year-old Georgia Dome, ideally as soon as the dome's bonds are paid off, which could be as soon as 2015. "The Falcons are falling behind other teams in the NFL in terms of the experience for our fans," Blank told reporters, in what has to be an allusion to the Cowboys' new building. The Falcons owner was previously reported to be scouting sites around Atlanta for a new building; he says it would be paid for by a mix of public and private funds, which doesn't actually explain anything, but sounds good in the papers.
Also upping the ante: NFL VP Frank Supovitz, who the day before told the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce that the Miami Dolphins' 25-year-old Land Shark Stadium — don't worry, only a couple more months of this before we can go back to calling it Dolphins Stadium — may not be modern enough to host more Super Bowls after this season. "You have to look at what the other cities are offering in terms of comfort," said Supovitz, noting that in Miami fans and players are actually exposed to the weather. "I'm not going to have anyone rained on in North Texas. They're not going to get rained on in Indianapolis." Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said the team is "working with the NFL to see what should be done," which is certainly a nice way of casting the league as Bad Cop should the team demand a new or vastly renovated stadium.
Then there's Milwaukee, where the Bradley Center just turned 21 years old last week, and Ulice Payne, the chair of the arena's board of directors, declared Tuesday that the buildinghas only eight years left before it turns into a pumpkin. (Among Payne's complaints: Its scoreboard is 14 years old, and it has ceramic tiles, which are so 1990s.) Bucks owner Herb Kohl hasn't commented yet, but he's previously proclaimed his desire for a new, younger facility. As for Payne, he first got involved in sports as a member of Miller Park's board, which he then parlayed into a turn as CEO of the Brewers — so it's always possible he's just angling for a job in basketball this time.
May 08, 2009
The official announcement isn't until this afternoon, but the Miami Dolphins provided a sneak peek at their new stadium name yesterday. You may all now commence snickering.
May 02, 2009
Dolphins to play in "Land Shark Stadium"?
In what's already being called the worst corporate stadium name in history, the Miami Dolphins are expected to announce next Friday that Dolphin Stadium — formerly Joe Robbie Stadium, later Pro Player Stadium — will be renamed Land Shark Stadium, after a beer brand co-owned by Jimmy Buffett.
While the new name will no doubt provide lots of fodder for jokes — don't sharks and dolphins attack each other? shouldn't this stadium really be in Chevy Chase, Maryland? — the interesting bit here will be how far it means the market for used stadium names has fallen when a niche beer brand can afford to buy the name of an NFL stadium. Nobody's saying just yet how much Land Shark would be paying for the naming rights, which could be only a one-year deal; Buffett could end up setting up a Margaritaville theme park at the stadium or buying part of the Dolphins as well, which would further complicate the financing.