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One day removed from the start of their 19th season, the Florida Marlins have a message for their notoriously fickle fans: Just wait till next year!
Next year, when their magnificent retractable-dome stadium opens in the footprint of the Orange Bowl.
Next year, when swampy summers spent waiting out rain delays at Sun Life/Land Shark/Dolphin/Pro Player/Joe Robbie Stadium will be a soggy memory.
Next year, when the team will have no excuse not to open up its wallet and sign a free agent or two.
“I think there’s a lot of anticipation for next year,” said David Samson, the team’s president. “There’s a buzz about next year, and a buzz about the team.’’
But first things first: This year’s team might be pretty good. The prognosticators at Sports Illustrated have the Marlins winning 85 games and losing 77, fourth-best in team history, if it comes to pass.
Will that get the turnstiles twirling? Probably not.
“Our season tickets numbers are not good at Sun Life,” Samson said.
At Friday’s opener against the rival New York Mets, 40,000 fans are expected to flock to the football stadium. For a night, Miami will feel like a real, honest-to-goodness baseball town. After that, not so much.
That’s why the Marlins are marketing with one eye on next year. Their slogan for 2011: “Catch Our Moves,” a nod to the team’s talented but young roster — and, of course, to its pending relocation, at which point the team will be renamed the Miami Marlins.
“There’s two ways to look at it,” said Patrick Walsh, a former University of Miami sports marketing professor now on staff at Indiana University. “They do have to get people excited about 2012, get new people excited about a new part of the area. But if you focus all your attention on 2012, you give the impression that you’re almost giving up on 2011. That’s a tricky game to play.”
The stadium the Marlins have pinned their future to is about as popular with taxpayers as a mid-July doubleheader.
Four years back, Samson sold the stadium deal to the city and county as a matter of necessity. The Marlins cried poor and threatened to leave town if they didn’t get their way, all the while refusing to open their books.
They were opened anyway last summer, when the sports website Deadspin.com released confidential financial records indicating the team pocketed some $50 million in operating profit over two years — at the same time they claimed they were broke.
When voters complained about not having a say on the stadium, Samson replied that their chance would come when the politicians came up for reelection. Voters didn’t have to wait that long. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a driving force behind the stadium deal, was driven out of office this month in a mid-term recall — booted by a 9-to-1 margin.
“I can’t speak to the recall,” said Samson, who helped finance Alvarez’s futile fight to stay in office, “but I will say this: We have not gotten one call from a fan saying I’m not buying tickets because of politics.’’
They may have other reasons for not buying tickets. Over the past decade, Florida has finished no higher than 26th in average attendance, including its most recent championship year in 2003, when the Marlins distributed just 16,290 tickets per game. 2011 looks no better.
s, Samson said that sales for next year have already outpaced those of 2011.
Nearly 400 Diamond Club seats, located behind home plate and costing between $210 and $395 apiece, have been sold.
It remains to be seen whether Broward fans, who have constituted a significant chunk of the base during Sun Life years, will fight rush hour traffic for a 7 p.m. start in downtown Miami.
“I’ve heard some [Broward] people say that they won’t drive to Miami, but I don’t think so,” said Marlins fan Patty Atkinson, a partial-season ticket holder who has a seat for Friday’s opener. “Enough fans come down and see the Heat and concerts. I think they’ll still give it a shot … there’s a big core of fans that are going to follow regardless.”
Either way, next year’s ticket-based revenue will dwarf that of recent seasons. And with that comes an expectation: Spend the money that comes in.
Player personnel decisions have long been a sticking point between the Marlins and their relatively small fan base. After each of their World Series titles, in 1997 and 2003, a dismantling of the club followed, with the front office citing financial restrictions.
Jeff Conine, an original Marlin who was a member of both championship teams, has been traded and allowed to walk by the franchise. (The club later welcomed him back as a member of its front office after his retirement.)
In the past seven years, the Marlins have elected to trade a procession of young stars, including Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett and most recently, Cody Ross and Dan Uggla, rather than re-sign them to expensive contracts.
The Marlins contend that their payroll, consistently near the league’s basement, is commensurate with their paltry figures at the gate. But the Marlins, who finished 80-82 in 2010 and 11 games out of the playoffs, have shown recent signs that the fire sales are over. Stars Josh Johnson, Hanley Ramirez and Ricky Nolasco have been signed to multiyear contracts, and along with talented youngsters Mike Stanton, Chris Coghlan and Logan Morrison, are expected to put the Marlins in position to compete.
“I think the baseball fan doesn’t care [about how the stadium was built], because the baseball fan wants to see baseball,” said Jorge Sedano, the morning drive-time talk-show host on 790 The Ticket. “But now that they’ve got public money, they’ve become a public trust.
“They need to put out a good product every year,” he added. “There will be no excuses at this point.”
Next year, when their magnificent retractable-dome stadium opens in the footprint of the Orange Bowl.
Next year, when swampy summers spent waiting out rain delays at Sun Life/Land Shark/Dolphin/Pro Player/Joe Robbie Stadium will be a soggy memory.
Next year, when the team will have no excuse not to open up its wallet and sign a free agent or two.
“I think there’s a lot of anticipation for next year,” said David Samson, the team’s president. “There’s a buzz about next year, and a buzz about the team.’’
But first things first: This year’s team might be pretty good. The prognosticators at Sports Illustrated have the Marlins winning 85 games and losing 77, fourth-best in team history, if it comes to pass.
Will that get the turnstiles twirling? Probably not.
“Our season tickets numbers are not good at Sun Life,” Samson said.
At Friday’s opener against the rival New York Mets, 40,000 fans are expected to flock to the football stadium. For a night, Miami will feel like a real, honest-to-goodness baseball town. After that, not so much.
That’s why the Marlins are marketing with one eye on next year. Their slogan for 2011: “Catch Our Moves,” a nod to the team’s talented but young roster — and, of course, to its pending relocation, at which point the team will be renamed the Miami Marlins.
“There’s two ways to look at it,” said Patrick Walsh, a former University of Miami sports marketing professor now on staff at Indiana University. “They do have to get people excited about 2012, get new people excited about a new part of the area. But if you focus all your attention on 2012, you give the impression that you’re almost giving up on 2011. That’s a tricky game to play.”
The stadium the Marlins have pinned their future to is about as popular with taxpayers as a mid-July doubleheader.
Four years back, Samson sold the stadium deal to the city and county as a matter of necessity. The Marlins cried poor and threatened to leave town if they didn’t get their way, all the while refusing to open their books.
They were opened anyway last summer, when the sports website Deadspin.com released confidential financial records indicating the team pocketed some $50 million in operating profit over two years — at the same time they claimed they were broke.
When voters complained about not having a say on the stadium, Samson replied that their chance would come when the politicians came up for reelection. Voters didn’t have to wait that long. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a driving force behind the stadium deal, was driven out of office this month in a mid-term recall — booted by a 9-to-1 margin.
“I can’t speak to the recall,” said Samson, who helped finance Alvarez’s futile fight to stay in office, “but I will say this: We have not gotten one call from a fan saying I’m not buying tickets because of politics.’’
They may have other reasons for not buying tickets. Over the past decade, Florida has finished no higher than 26th in average attendance, including its most recent championship year in 2003, when the Marlins distributed just 16,290 tickets per game. 2011 looks no better.
s, Samson said that sales for next year have already outpaced those of 2011.
Nearly 400 Diamond Club seats, located behind home plate and costing between $210 and $395 apiece, have been sold.
It remains to be seen whether Broward fans, who have constituted a significant chunk of the base during Sun Life years, will fight rush hour traffic for a 7 p.m. start in downtown Miami.
“I’ve heard some [Broward] people say that they won’t drive to Miami, but I don’t think so,” said Marlins fan Patty Atkinson, a partial-season ticket holder who has a seat for Friday’s opener. “Enough fans come down and see the Heat and concerts. I think they’ll still give it a shot … there’s a big core of fans that are going to follow regardless.”
Either way, next year’s ticket-based revenue will dwarf that of recent seasons. And with that comes an expectation: Spend the money that comes in.
Player personnel decisions have long been a sticking point between the Marlins and their relatively small fan base. After each of their World Series titles, in 1997 and 2003, a dismantling of the club followed, with the front office citing financial restrictions.
Jeff Conine, an original Marlin who was a member of both championship teams, has been traded and allowed to walk by the franchise. (The club later welcomed him back as a member of its front office after his retirement.)
In the past seven years, the Marlins have elected to trade a procession of young stars, including Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett and most recently, Cody Ross and Dan Uggla, rather than re-sign them to expensive contracts.
The Marlins contend that their payroll, consistently near the league’s basement, is commensurate with their paltry figures at the gate. But the Marlins, who finished 80-82 in 2010 and 11 games out of the playoffs, have shown recent signs that the fire sales are over. Stars Josh Johnson, Hanley Ramirez and Ricky Nolasco have been signed to multiyear contracts, and along with talented youngsters Mike Stanton, Chris Coghlan and Logan Morrison, are expected to put the Marlins in position to compete.
“I think the baseball fan doesn’t care [about how the stadium was built], because the baseball fan wants to see baseball,” said Jorge Sedano, the morning drive-time talk-show host on 790 The Ticket. “But now that they’ve got public money, they’ve become a public trust.
“They need to put out a good product every year,” he added. “There will be no excuses at this point.”
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