Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Murky fate for aging stadium
Funding debate won’t go away on renovations to Sun Life.
Threats of the Miami Dolphins leaving South Florida is a card to be played in a future hand. For now it is thinly veiled. In his first interview after the bill to help fund modernization of Sun Life Stadium died in the Florida Legislature, CEO Mike Dee mentioned that the Dolphins are one of the few franchises in the NFL not bound by a long-term lease.
He reiterated that owner Steve Ross has no plans to move the team out of this area, but pointed out that the stadium will need to be addressed by a future owner. Ross is 73.
The Super Bowl was the carrot this time in the quest for tax dollars. Whenthe discussion turns ugly, as it inevitably will, the arm twist for public support will be more urgent: Help pay or the Dolphins will have no choice but to look elsewhere.
For those who ask why Ross, whose net worth is estimated at $4.4 billion by Forbes magazine, doesn’t pay for his own stadium improvements, the answer is simple: The NFL prefers its owners not do that. The league wants communities to share the cost, and usually gets its way.
Teams are less inclined to build their own stadiums, as Joe Robbie did for the Dolphins. New Jersey’s Metlife Stadium is a recent exception, privately funded by theNew York Giants and Jets with help from the NFL. Jerry Jones paid the majority of the cost for Cowboys Stadium.
But for the 20 stadiums opened or renovated since 1997, 56 percent of the fundingwas public.
Akey stipulation in the NFL’s G4 financing program for contributing to stadium projects, established in the latest collective bargaining agreement, is that public money must be part of the deal. That was not required in the
league’s previous program that helped fund the Giants/Jets and Cowboys stadiums.
With the cost of new stadium construction running well over $1 billion and rising rapidly, the league will be pushing harder for tax dollars to help with the burden.
That’s why the aftermath of the Dolphins’ failed effort to renovate Sun Life already sounds ominous. Inthe past week Dee has referred to the future of the stadium as “bleak” and “uncertain.”
During a recent media tour to outline the renovation plan, he said, “We are right now at Year 27 in that window where we’re at the fork in the road. You’re either going to do what it takes to modernize this place at a third of the cost of a new facility, or in five to 10 years somebody is going to walk in here and say this place can’t be preserved.”
Disregarding the issue of paying for it, there is no question that Sun Life needs an overhaul. The Dolphins have altered their logo twice since the one on the side of the seats, circa 1987.
Most significant, the football home of the Dolphins and Miami Hurricanes is still configured for the dimensions of baseball when the Marlins played there. Nearly half of the $400 million modernization plan unveiled in January was to rectify that.
That would have included tearing out the lower bowl from endzone to endzone and recasting the stands to extend 18 feet closer to the field on each side. With 9,000 seats removed from the corners of the upper deck to accommodate video display boards, the effect would have been to bring the crowd closer to the field as in newer football stadiums.
The proposed canopy roof would have accounted for about $120 million of the overall cost. New lighting would have been installed up to standards for high-definition television, and other infrastructure upgrades were planned.
While all of that was billed as essential for keeping the facility competitive for Super Bowls, college football championships and major soccer events, the Dolphins’ primary interest is their own future viability.
Teams don’t profit directly from hosting Super Bowls. They turn the keys over to the NFL. The benefit is to the local community. But if tax money is used tomake an aging stadium as good as new, that is to the Dolphins’ advantage.
For that, Ross was willing to foot more than half the bill and commit the team to stay at Sun Life for 30 years. Now he says he won’t pay for a scaleddown renovation without public funding.
Add bleak to the likelihood of South Florida getting either of the two Super Bowls that will be awarded May 21, despite an impressive proposal for a weeklong festival on the waterfront in Miami. The whims of NFL owners are hard to predict, but choosing South Florida over San Francisco or Houston would contradict Commissioner Roger Goodell’s directive that upgrades to Sun Life Stadium are vital to remaining competitive against newer facilities and undermine future funding efforts.
It is undetermined when the next call will come for public money. With an adversarial relationship between the Dolphins and Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford after the representative from Pasco County blocked the stadium bill, indications are the Dolphins won’t knock on that door again until he vacates the leadership post after next year.
But even with baseball moved down the road, hardball will center around Sun Life. Dee said Thursday that the Dolphins will keep their options open. When asked by a reporter if they would consider relocating to Palm Beach County, he didn’t rule it out, though nothing has been proposed there.
Broward County seems unlikely, given the hostile response of county officials to recent requests to help fund stadium improvements. But that was for a stadium in another county.
For the short-term, the Dolphins will continue to play in Sun Life as is, even if the Super Bowl doesn’t. But push will eventually come to shove. Already Los Angeles has been mentioned, as it always is when a franchise is in need of a better stadium.
Goodell, in an interview Thursday with NFL.com, said, “We do want to see the Dolphins stay in Miami. We want to see them stay in a facility that will allowthemto compete, and to bring in other big events, including Super Bowls. That takeswork, it takes investment, and Steve Ross was doing the investing and was really the guy who was putting his heart and soul into this and his passion into this.”
“In five to 10 years somebody is going to walk in here and say this place can’t be preserved.”
Dolphins CEO Mike Dee