Florida Black Sox

Always been a White Sox fan before moving down to Miami, the Big Hurt was a machine.

I'm pulling for "Orange You Glad We Got a New Ball" Park

As long as they keep Billy the Marlin. your dreams will be crushed... Are you serious Billy is getting filleted, but he has a family to support...

As long as they keep Billy the Marlin.

For whoever said the population around SunLife is equal to other parks... Two things wrong with that. First off, no, it's not. South Florida's population is just as great, yes. But the density around the stadium? It's out far west in between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. It's not densely populated around the stadium at all. It's suburban, at most. And the next thing. Florida has almost no sense of public transportation. If you don't own a car or have a ride, you're not going to the game. Other parks in metropolitan areas aren't the same. Most have some form of public transportation. I think that might be an advantage to the new park, being that Miami has probably the only legitimate public transportation in all of Florida, even if it is weak at best. I definitely agree about public transportation. I think it is huge when it comes to stadium attendance, and the lack of adequate public transportation in Miami-Dade means that the location of the stadium really does not matter since everyone will be driving to it anyway. Also that means few stadium goers will be hanging out around a stadium afterwards. We were talking about D.C. and Baltimore, which both have adequate public transportation to and from their respective stadiums, this increases the number of people able to go see a game and also allow for a revitalization of the surrounding area since people are more inclined to hang about before and after. I think it was the same billionaire who was trying to shutdown the new stadium, who also thwarted an attempt to boost Miami-Dade's public transportation system.

Poor attendance is most likey a combination of factors instead of just weather or location. Current location, heat, perception of rainouts/delays, ballpark experience, firesale history, and miamis event mentality all play a role. I do think the biggest reason is the event mentality. Miami draws very well for anything limited and exclusive which is part of the reasoning for the size of the new ballpark. The marlins have adressed every issue as best they could. They eliminated any weather excuse. They are in the process of letting fans know they are keeping great players. Location is the best they could get. The experience of going to a game should be 1000000x better. After the new park feel wears off I do think the normal attendance will be higher than it is now. I think the marlins will rank close to 20 in attendance after the new stadium draw wears off. Not amazing but much better than now. The only valuable excuse for attendance is that this is a transient city. That's it. Every home game the crowd has a large/decent amount of the other team's fans, even with the crappiest visiting teams. If all those people were Miami natives, there would be no attendance problem rain, shine, blizzard, etc. There is always an aggregate of factors that go to attendance, being a transient city can't be the only reason. I have never been to Cleveland or Pittsburgh, but our attendance is actually better than theirs (by a small margin) and i would not consider them transient. Our attendance should be larger than theirs by a large margin. In a city with 4 million people that's pretty much the only viable excuse. Where else do you see so many Reds, Pirates, or Padres fans other than in their home stadiums these days? If most of those people were from around here, chances are they'd be rooting for the home team. And I know people also don't go sometimes because of the weather, but that wouldn't be much of a problem with a larger fanbase. I agree with you about the transient nature of Miami, and the fact that most people who live here were not born here. But look at the Dolphins, they rank in about the middle for attendance, and if transient nature was the only factor, they would be at the bottom too. Take a look at the Minnesota Twins for example, they are close to the top for attendence, but the Vikings are close to the bottom. There has to be other factors at play. I am just looking at ESPN resources for all this stuff. Also forgot the Vikes roof collapsed on them last year, so maybe point is a little faulty.

Poor attendance is most likey a combination of factors instead of just weather or location. Current location, heat, perception of rainouts/delays, ballpark experience, firesale history, and miamis event mentality all play a role. I do think the biggest reason is the event mentality. Miami draws very well for anything limited and exclusive which is part of the reasoning for the size of the new ballpark. The marlins have adressed every issue as best they could. They eliminated any weather excuse. They are in the process of letting fans know they are keeping great players. Location is the best they could get. The experience of going to a game should be 1000000x better. After the new park feel wears off I do think the normal attendance will be higher than it is now. I think the marlins will rank close to 20 in attendance after the new stadium draw wears off. Not amazing but much better than now. The only valuable excuse for attendance is that this is a transient city. That's it. Every home game the crowd has a large/decent amount of the other team's fans, even with the crappiest visiting teams. If all those people were Miami natives, there would be no attendance problem rain, shine, blizzard, etc. There is always an aggregate of factors that go to attendance, being a transient city can't be the only reason. I have never been to Cleveland or Pittsburgh, but our attendance is actually better than theirs (by a small margin) and i would not consider them transient. Our attendance should be larger than theirs by a large margin. In a city with 4 million people that's pretty much the only viable excuse. Where else do you see so many Reds, Pirates, or Padres fans other than in their home stadiums these days? If most of those people were from around here, chances are they'd be rooting for the home team. And I know people also don't go sometimes because of the weather, but that wouldn't be much of a problem with a larger fanbase. I agree with you about the transient nature of Miami, and the fact that most people who live here were not born here. But look at the Dolphins, they rank in about the middle for attendance, and if transient nature was the only factor, they would be at the bottom too. Take a look at the Minnesota Twins for example, they are close to the top for attendence, but the Vikings are close to the bottom. There has to be other factors at play. I am just looking at ESPN resources for all this stuff.

Awesome shots!

Poor attendance is most likey a combination of factors instead of just weather or location. Current location, heat, perception of rainouts/delays, ballpark experience, firesale history, and miamis event mentality all play a role. I do think the biggest reason is the event mentality. Miami draws very well for anything limited and exclusive which is part of the reasoning for the size of the new ballpark. The marlins have adressed every issue as best they could. They eliminated any weather excuse. They are in the process of letting fans know they are keeping great players. Location is the best they could get. The experience of going to a game should be 1000000x better. After the new park feel wears off I do think the normal attendance will be higher than it is now. I think the marlins will rank close to 20 in attendance after the new stadium draw wears off. Not amazing but much better than now. The only valuable excuse for attendance is that this is a transient city. That's it. Every home game the crowd has a large/decent amount of the other team's fans, even with the crappiest visiting teams. If all those people were Miami natives, there would be no attendance problem rain, shine, blizzard, etc. There is always an aggregate of factors that go to attendance, being a transient city can't be the only reason. I have never been to Cleveland or Pittsburgh, but our attendance is actually better than theirs (by a small margin) and i would not consider them transient.

It may been misleading because many live outside of the city of St. Louis, but all I was saying is a 45,000 crowd is 15% of the population of the city itself, that's all. You can't say that about many places. So you are saying there is nothing else to do in St Louis except go to a ball game? They do have that arch

I'm not sure if Miami had sufficient public transportation to support a downtown stadium. Unless you were to put the stadium right on top of Mary Brickell Village, where people actually walk around at night, no other downtown location would work. The counter argument to my statement would probably be the location of the Heat games at American Airlines, but even then everybody drives to it anyway. So with the idea that people are driving to it, its Orange Bowl location is pretty good for people in South Miami, Gables and Kendall which puts the stadium about ten miles closer to them. I definitely agree with statements that there will be absolutely no revitalization of the surrounding area, a great example is the Nationals' stadium, which is built in Anacostia, with the supposed idea of boosting the surrounding area, which it did not and will not. The only plus with the Nationals downtown stadium is that DC has much better public transportation for the suburbs so people don't actually have to drive to go see a game. It would have worked at Bicentennial Park. Now they are building an art museum and science museum. Don't get me wrong I love science museums, but yeah...the ballpark at that location would have been iconic. I think the argument for building the ballpark downtown wasn't because the area is perfect right now. (even though it is still better than the orange bowl location) All you need to do is look at the growth downtown miami has had. Then look at the projected growth (even in this economy). Then look at the goals of Miami DDA. Lets say the new ballpark was being built right now somewhere downtown. When it opened you aren't looking at a this is as good as its going to get situation like we have at the orange bowl site. It would have been its pretty good now but it will only improve from this point on. Downtown Miami is going to be completely different 5-10-15-20 years from now. I really wish they had been able to build downtown, but keeping baseball in Miami was more important. I think you are the one who made an excellent point about location not being a controlling factor in attendance. I definitely agree with that, but because of the lack of adequate public transportation in Miami. Meaning the majority of fans will be driving to the park no matter where they are coming from. I think looks wise, a downtown stadium would be great, but outside of that there is no real difference in the location of the stadium at this point. But I concede the point of the long term outlook, being that the area will build up and become more hospitable to families and such, but I think Mid-town then would have been a better bet with the idea of building up that area.

They have been doing some work around Nationals Park. It's gradually getting better in the north-east area outside of the park. The waterfront is really terrible because it's just a bunch of filthy industrial lots. I do think the Nats location has more potential than the Marlins park does, because there really aren't many residential buildings in the way at that part of the Anacostia. There absolutely will be some revitalization around the Marlins park too, but other than the essential couple of bars and restaurants it probably won't be as welcoming as the neighborhoods for other ML parks are. It has been at least a year since I've been to a Nats game so you are probably right, but I think they had a separate investment in infrastructure there. And, if I remember correctly they bascially tore down a bunch of residences, most probably unused, to build the stadium. But, I believe the Nats stadium is going to end up just like RFK, get in and get out. And you do bring up a good point about the amount of residences around the Orange Bowl area, that pretty much limits the amount of businesses that can pop-up, unless they are purchased and destroyed or city/county starts to modify zoning. The interesting thing is, its not that difficult to get to where you need to go by driving in Miami, as compared to cities like DC or NY where it is almost impossible to get where you need to go, thus public transit is extremely inviting. I still do not see to much revitalization around a park that mostly lures in drivers as opposed to ones that have easy access to public transportation, thus people are willing to chill out more after and before the game. Since public transportation is the way it is down here, I think the stadium location is great. The view driving past it is awesome.

I'm not sure if Miami had sufficient public transportation to support a downtown stadium. Unless you were to put the stadium right on top of Mary Brickell Village, where people actually walk around at night, no other downtown location would work. The counter argument to my statement would probably be the location of the Heat games at American Airlines, but even then everybody drives to it anyway. So with the idea that people are driving to it, its Orange Bowl location is pretty good for people in South Miami, Gables and Kendall which puts the stadium about ten miles closer to them. I definitely agree with statements that there will be absolutely no revitalization of the surrounding area, a great example is the Nationals' stadium, which is built in Anacostia, with the supposed idea of boosting the surrounding area, which it did not and will not. The only plus with the Nationals downtown stadium is that DC has much better public transportation for the suburbs so people don't actually have to drive to go see a game.

Definitely need to keep the Marlin on the cap, strangely enough the posted Marlin looks to real for me, not saying I want Billy on the cap, but something a little more the way it currently is.

Definitely need to keep the Marlin on the cap, strangely enough the posted Marlin looks to real for me, not saying I want Billy on the cap, but something a little more the way it currently is.