A stadium upgrade deal?

[Dave Gray]

With news of a press conference coming today:

Do you support stadium upgrades?  On (partial) taxpayer dime?

I have trouble using tax dollars to support a stadium that is pricing out the average fan.  Concession prices are OUTRAGEOUS (more than the other local teams) and parking is now $25 to park far away.  That's preposterous, especially for a turd team.  The Dolphins experience has no value.  I'm all for using public funds to help bring in public facilities, but they should be upgrades that everyone can enjoy -- not just to entice rich people to come in from out of town to drop big bucks.

Give us a good product at a fair price and don't nickel and dime us for a 15 cent soda and $25 to park a car.  Then you can use public funds.

[MikeO]

Bottom line is how bad to the people of South Florida want a professional football team. YES its bullshit to take public funds but if you don't then these teams bail on the city. Just a fact of life in this day of age.

The team has sucked for a while and nobody goes to the games. But if you want to keep the team the people of the are going to have to give some public funds in the form of a tax.

Since I don't live there its easy for me to say to the south florida people, sure pay the extra tax. Which is why I won't say that. It's up to the locals at the end of the day.

[Brian Fein]

The thing that bothers me the most is that they are pricing out the average fan.  They are deliberately removing a chunk of the upper-level (aka cheaper) seats and replacing them with lower level (aka more expensive) seats.  Even MORE expensive than the current seats, because they will be field-level, very close to the sidelines.

With the stadium half-empty on game day as it is, how can you justify essentially raising ticket prices by putting in more high-priced seats and removing the ones people can afford?

I can tell you that the upgrade plan, while looks nice on the surface, is making me less-likely to go to games in the future...

[Brian Fein]

Some concept renderings - photos from Omar Kelly via Twitter.  More at http://www.miamifirst.com/





Notice how far away the second pic from the upper deck seems, especially with the expanded lowers.  Also notice club level is essentially gone.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I oppose spending tax dollars on all sports stadiums.

Two reason:

1.  I support raising tax dollars on billionares and millionares to give min wage employees healthcare.  I oppose raising taxes on min wage employees to benifit billionares and millionares.  And the people this helps is first and foremost Ross (a billionare) second, large hotel chains (multimillionares) and third luxuary box fans.  (upper class and uppermiddle class). 

2. I oppose tax dollars, tax breaks, economic developement dollars etc, being used to compete with other regions of our country because it is bad national policy.  In the US the vast majority of economic developement dollars and tax breaks are not used to keep jobs in the is country, but to attact the business from one area of the country to another.  Having a football stadium in Miami instead of LA or Los Vegas does nothing to help the national economy or unemployment rate.  Other countries use the majority of economic dollars to improve nationally.  (E.g. India/China/Japan uses its economic dev $$ to bring jobs from the USA to their countires not to fight over where in India the jobs will go.) Only the USA thinks so provincally.  We need to change that if we are going to compete internationally. 

[EKnight]

I oppose spending tax dollars on all sports stadiums.

Two reason:

1.  I support raising tax dollars on billionares and millionares to give min wage employees healthcare.  I oppose raising taxes on min wage employees to benifit billionares and millionares.  And the people this helps is first and foremost Ross (a billionare) second, large hotel chains (multimillionares) and third luxuary box fans.  (upper class and uppermiddle class). 

2. I oppose tax dollars, tax breaks, economic developement dollars etc, being used to compete with other regions of our country because it is bad national policy.  In the US the vast majority of economic developement dollars and tax breaks are not used to keep jobs in the is country, but to attact the business from one area of the country to another.  Having a football stadium in Miami instead of LA or Los Vegas does nothing to help the national economy or unemployment rate.  Other countries use the majority of economic dollars to improve nationally.  (E.g. India/China/Japan uses its economic dev $$ to bring jobs from the USA to their countires not to fight over where in India the jobs will go.) Only the USA thinks so provincally.  We need to change that if we are going to compete internationally. 

Hoodie for President. -EK

[Thundergod]

With news of a press conference coming today:

Do you support stadium upgrades?  On (partial) taxpayer dime?

I have trouble using tax dollars to support a stadium that is pricing out the average fan.  Concession prices are OUTRAGEOUS (more than the other local teams) and parking is now $25 to park far away.  That's preposterous, especially for a turd team.  The Dolphins experience has no value.  I'm all for using public funds to help bring in public facilities, but they should be upgrades that everyone can enjoy -- not just to entice rich people to come in from out of town to drop big bucks.

Give us a good product at a fair price and don't nickel and dime us for a 15 cent soda and $25 to park a car.  Then you can use public funds.

Dave for president. 

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Hoodie for President. -EK

Dave for president. 

I am not running.  I throw my support behind Dave. 

[CF DolFan]

I'm against a stadium upgrade and I'm not even paying for it. 400 million is a hell of a down payment on a new stadium.  I've seen the Citrus bowl renovated so many times that  I think they are going to wear the concrete off of the uncomfortable stands.

Miami is trying to be too many things to too many people. For starters, the seats are too far from the field in general and not just the bottom. The design was outdated almost as soon as it opened. They need to build a stadium to house the Dolphins and then fit it to anyone else who wants to use it. They can't even put Dolphins on the end zone for gosh sake.

[Brian Fein]

They can't even put Dolphins on the end zone for gosh sake.

This bothers me too.  Not sure why.  It is really insignificant but its not at the same time.  It seems like if they can add "the U" and the Dolphins' logo at midfield, they could just as easily change over the end zones.  Perhaps not.  In reality, they should say Dolphins and if the Hurricanes want to play there they have to suck it up.  Maybe they should go build their own stadium with all that private money they have.

[CF DolFan]

^^^^ I think coupled with how blah everything is to begin with that the generic 'Miami" is kind of the last straw. I know many other teams rent their stadiums out but Miami seems to be either over generous or cheap. Take your pick.

Jets share with the Giants


Bucs share with USF


Here is a link of USF playing on top of the Bucs logo during a conflict.
http://southfloridabullsgameday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/USF_Raymond-James-Stadium1.jpg

[Brian Fein]

^^ To be fair, Met Life is turf, they can just roll it in and out.  And they rarely play within 1 day of each other in that stadium.

The USF/Bucs example is better.

[MikeO]

http://www.miamidolphins.com/media/photo-gallery/Sun-Life-Stadium-Modernization-Renderings/e66f7e26-364e-4700-baa4-bdcfce65d184#1a8ceda3-65eb-4315-9ead-bca85abfcce1

some more photos

[masterfins]

I don't like the thought of an upgrade, wasted money, the stands are too far away from the field.  Wait a pair of years until the team is winning and build a new stadium, WITHOUT tax money.

[srt8]

I think that I would agree with this. Although, Ross might could do it sooner if he wanted