Owner of Marlins, Dolphins, Panthers dies

H. Wayne Huizenga, the entrepreneur who owned three South Florida sports teams and expanded Blockbuster video and AutoNation into vast enterprises, died Thursday night at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 80.

Bob Henninger, executive vice president of Huizenga Holdings, Huizenga’s investment vehicle, confirmed the death, saying Huizenga had long been treated for cancer.

Huizenga (pronounced HIGHzing-ah) achieved his first success with the sanitation company Waste Management, which traced its origins to a garbage route he personally drove in 1962. He went on to become a driving force in the consolidation of several fragmented industries, including video rental and auto sales.

“Wayne was a one-of-a-kind whose business success is unmatched and might never be repeated,” Mike Jackson, the AutoNation chief executive, said in a statement.

Huizenga, famous for his brass tacks financial sense, favored simple business models with steady cash flow. Despite rarely watching movies himself, he bought into the Blockbuster chain in 1987, when it claimed fewer than 20 stores, and helped expand it to more than 1,500 by 1991.

But this same unsentimentality led to a checkered career as a sports magnate. He owned a World Series champion, the 1997 Florida Marlins, but began dismantling the team shortly after that triumph amid significant financial losses. He also owned the Florida Panthers hockey team and the Miami Dolphins.

By his own admission he was not a particularly emotional sports fan.

Referring to Floridians’ attachment to their teams and their frustrations with some of his ownership decisions, he once told The Sun Sentinel of South Florida: “I think it’s great. I just don’t understand it. I don’t have a problem with that. I just don’t understand it, that’s all.”