You know I was thinking, I really hope that Loria can somehow get a Stadium financed and that the Florida Marlins organization grows into the BIGGEST money maker in FLA sports. I know it will be tough to compete with the Dolphins. But if the owners are smart they can build off this last year and things can only get better for this organization. I think back to what Huizinga did and wonder how smart a business man he really is? In 1997 the franchise was only 5 years old how could he have expected to make so much money with a team that was so new? He spent a TON of money to get all-stars on his team and then he expected to sell-out games and have great attendance, but it takes years to build up a fanbase like that for baseball. Instead he realizes, after the fact, what a stupid thing he did and how much money he lost and ended up ALMOST ruining the franchise. I look now at what Loruia and CO. are doing and I beleive they are smarter than Huizinga is. They see the potential for a GREAT baseball market in Miami. It's there but it needs to be built up slowly, last year was huge for the organization and I really hope we can FILL at least 50% more seats than last year OVERALL. But without a new Stadium the franchise is dead. Some people told me that was the same problem when Huizinga owned the team, he also wanted a stadium and did not get one, I figured he owns ProPlayer so it was a diffrent situation (he did not really need one) that may have been why he dismantled and sold the team. If that is the case then we can probably expect the same thing to happen now if a stadium deal falls through.

 

Anyhow, maybe it's my lack of business sense but does any of this make sense to you guys?

There's an expression in business - "cut your losses and let your profits run".

 

That's exactly what Wayne did. He sold the franchise, got a sweetheart deal for a lease and almost all the parking and concession profits. And he never looked back.

I often wonder this too. I mean Wayne is a business man and though he could say he was cutting his losses, the eventual profit gain could have been enourmous had he not done the firesale. This team could have been whaat the Dolphins are in S. Florida. Perhaps the answer is he wasnt actually losing money and wanted to get the profit and the lucrative deal without having to take any future risk.

Huizenga's problem was with the labor costs as much as the market. Once MLB lost the NLRB suit and the owners caved in during the 1994 strike, Huizenga realized there would never be a salary cap and he could never control his costs. He could maybe make money on the Marlins but he was never going to make a huge return on his investment; maybe he'd get X% ROI on the Marlins but he could get 3 times X% if he invested his capital in say, hotels.

 

So he got out and, to help protect his cash cow the Dolphins, he attempted to ruin the baseball market in South Florida. With 5000 season tickets sold after a World Championship, the jury is still out on whether or not he succeeded.

 

This team could never be what the Dolphins are because the Marlins would never be guaranteed a slice of a huge national TV revenue pool and, because there's no salary cap, they would never have player costs that were guaranteed to be less than the revenue.

Well the way Wayne is running the Dolphins into the ground, I think it'll only be a few more years before the Marlins are front in center in South Florida sports.

 

 

Way to go, Wayne. :thumbdown

Boy 83Gator nailed it.

It's all about time. Slowly, but surely folks will discover the Marlins, and World Championships help that along There has to be a market in Florida for it for MLB to have approved expansion to not only Miami, but Tampa Bay as well. I think the whole '97 fiasco really tainted the water, so to speak.