Dolphins Tickets

For years Dolphins tickets have been among the easiest to come by in the National Football League. This is in spite of the team's long-standing tradition of success and litany of famous Hall of Famers who've worn the teal and orange.

The problem is that Miami simply isn't a great sports town. In fact it's one of the worst in the United States, up there with Atlanta and Los Angeles. My theory on this is that all three of those places have an inordinately high number of transplants - people from other parts of the country, or other countries entirely - that already have established rooting interests and therefore don't care as much aboutt the home team.

So Dolphins tickets can be had for a song. Compare that to Giants or Jets tickets, and it's a whole different ballgame. Those two teams have combined to build a new stadium at the Meadowlands and tickets are in such high demand that the teams aren't just charging for the cost of the ticket, they're charging for "Seat License" rights. That means if you want to buy season tickets, you have to put down $2000 additional dollars up front if you're a Jets fan to get ahold of them. For the Giants it's even more - $10,000. And people are snapping them up left and right. It's a remarkable lesson on supply and demand, even in this battered economy.

As I've said, Dolphins tickets aren't even in the same league. Miami's high percentage of transplants - either northerners who've moved to Florida for the weather and lack of state income tax, or foreigners (usually from the Caribbean) who have no rooting interest in American Football - limits the fanbase. Sure, some may go to a game or two a season, but rarely are there sellouts and there's never the same, sixty-thousand strong base of lifetime season ticket holders like there are for the Giants and Jets, or Redskins, Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots, and a half dozen other teams.

This also applies to baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer in Miami. All the franchises in these sports have struggled to attract and maintain fans in spite of producing championship level teams in the recent past. Again it's the transplant theory at work.

Interestingly, though, the new soccer franchise in the city, Miami FC, has tried to turn that dynamic around and capitalize on it by marketing heavily in Caribbean and Central American immigrant neighborhoods, as well as in those countries themselves. And it looks like it's begining to work, as the crowds have started to increase for their home games and they've created a hispanic/haitian/jamaican/american identity. It remains to be seen whether this is a viable long-term strategy, but for the time-being it appears to be a step in the right direction.