The Marlins have exciting young players, too, like Josh Beckett and Miguel Cabrera, but something is missing marketing-wise, and I think the fans are afraid to embrace the Marlins. In three years, who knows how many of their players will be back? Their entire pitching staff could all be gone in three years. Everybody is signed to one-year deals, and people don't trust the ownership.
At least Micky Arison isn't afraid to spend money. This year's Heat team really caught everybody's imagination with the playoff run and their eighteen-game unbeaten streak at home. The American Airlines Arena came alive. The Heat can build a great fan base around their young players.
Jonathan Postal
Jonathan Postal
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Do you think the local sports media, specifically theMiami Herald, do a good job of covering local sports?
I don't think the Miami Herald does a good job of editing the sports pages. There are so many mistakes in it, mistakes in headlines. I can find one every day. Their day-to-day reporting is pale in comparison to the Sun-Sentinel. But I look at the entire Miami Herald as a declining product. One thing the Herald can still do is cover the big stories. And they still have a few gems, like Martin Merzer.
The Herald is so easy to dump on because its editorial point of view is usually off base. How can the Herald support the baseball stadium deal? They supported the American Airlines Arena deal. They let that boondoggle go through. And why? Because they're right up the street. It enhances the value of their property. How self-interested a thing is that?
I don't think the Miami Herald has been the same since the day Tony Ridder took over Knight-Ridder. When I used to work for Beber Silverstein & Partners, I used to go to editorial meetings to take notes for radio spots I ran about breaking stories. I always loved the newspaper business since my father was a sports columnist. And I loved being in the Herald newsroom. They had great people on the news side. But after Ridder took over, the paper seems to have less emphasis on their news product and more emphasis on doing business.
Why is Miami considered a fickle sports town?
I don't know if it's any different from other sports towns. Everybody talks about St. Louis as being a great baseball town, but their baseball stadium doesn't sell out every game unless they field a good team.
To be honest, for a couple of years, the Heat wasn't a good product and it was expensive to go to their games. I don't think people wanted to spend $80 a rattle to see a very lousy team play a very boring style of basketball, which is what the Heat was doing.
The one consistent franchise has been the Miami Dolphins. But we'll see. If the Dolphins don't do well this year, it's going to start hitting them in the pocketbook. When you think about it, Ricky Williams is a big star and a great running back, but if he doesn't have room to run, who do you want to pay to go see play on the Dolphins if they become an 8-8 team?
I used to think this was a lousy sports town because it was fickle and didn't support its teams very well. I've kind of turned around on that a little bit because of the cost to the consumer. They want to see something. And they're entitled to be a little more demanding. I'm not talking about the guy who sits on his ass on a couch. I'm talking about the people who are out there taking their hard-earned money to buy tickets. I think it's more incumbent on professional sports teams to put out a competitive product.
Having said that, I can't explain why the Marlins don't draw. I remember when [Pro Player] opened for baseball in 1993. I was working for WTVJ's Sunday-night sports show, and Wayne Huizenga took us out for a little tour. We stood out by center field and Wayne looked around and said, "Look at this place, you'd never know it was a football stadium." And then Huizenga sells the Marlins [in 1999] to John Henry, who starts referring to Pro Player as a football stadium as an excuse to get the public to build a baseball stadium. Then the media picked up on it and started calling Pro Player a football stadium converted into a baseball stadium.
When Joe Robbie built that stadium he had a vision that a World Series would be played there; he envisioned World Cup in his stadium. He wanted that stadium to serve as a multipurpose facility. For all the knocks Robbie gets, at least he had a vision. To me, Robbie was the Maurice Ferré of local sports. You may have agreed or disagreed with Ferré, but at least he had a vision. Joe was the same way, and his vision for his stadium included football and baseball. Hey, it's been good enough that it's had two World Series and nobody bitched.
