Ross' plans and when he may sell | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Ross' plans and when he may sell

Austin Tatious

Austin Tatious

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The biggest problem with the organization is obviously Stephen Ross. The rest of the guys are bit players. Philbin, Ireland, Tannenbaum, Sparano, Coyle, Aponte, Higgins et al don't really matter. They are just symptoms of a bad owner. They are all mediocrities, but if it weren't them, it would be other mediocrities. You have an owner that can rival Donald Sterling's incompetence, and I'm not even talking about his racist rant, but what he did for 30 years running an inept sports operation.

Don't rule out that Ross is simply all about money. Sure, he does that comically fake thing every year where he pretends to be upset when Miami loses. He grabs Hyde or Armando and stages his unhappy look so they report it and fans get tricked into thinking he cares. It's hilarious how predictable and phony it is. Then he hops on his private helicopter to go to his mansion and then takes his own jet to Manhattan where he is really a New York guy, who came out of Detroit and loves Michigan. He supposedly opens his check book, but really, that's minimal. All teams work within a similar pay structure and cap parameters. It's not like baseball where he outspends the competition like the Dodgers, Bosox, or Yankees do.

But is there hope? Ross is all about money. He went into the Florida legislature and tried to get funding for a stadium. He went after the Weatherford kid who was the representative that worked against the stadium. What's Ross all about? Value of the franchise. Much like one of his real estate deals, the Dolphins are another property to him. He gets the stadium improved and gets to host super bowls. Then what? The value of his franchise goes up, similar to a NYC office building. When the time is right, and hopefully within a few years, after Miami gets a super bowl and the stadium is done, he sells for a profit. A new rich prospective owner sees a rare NFL property, with a privately financed stadium and we can get a deal. Ross bought for $1.1 MM. The Bills went for, what $1.4MM? He may fetch $2MM eventually. He's savvy about building equity and I'm sure he will pounce on a sale when the value is optimized.

Ross has no reason to hold on to the team. It's just a property to him, and a way to improve franchise value and sell for a profit. The fans don't matter. Winning doesn't matter. All he has to do is that fake, pretend he's annoyed with losses thing he does, but then let the dysfunction thrive. His children are daughters that are never heard from. I doubt this is an inheritance situation. After a couple of more years, there is no reason why he wouldn't sell. All signals point to this being what Ross is about. It will be a good riddance situation.

It's going to take a new owner to ever get this franchise on a good course.
 
If you think that Ross is all about money, or only cares about owning this franchise for its value, I don't think you've been paying attention. He wouldn't be buying up tickets and using the 85% rule to avoid blackouts. He wouldn't have pledged to give half of his estate or whatever amount it is to charity if that was all he cared about. In fact, he's said a bunch of times that he plans to own the team until he dies.

Far more likely, Ross just doesn't understand football and what it takes to win.
 
J. David Wannyheimer said:
If you think that Ross is all about money, or only cares about owning this franchise for its value, I don't think you've been paying attention. He wouldn't be buying up tickets and using the 85% rule to avoid blackouts. He wouldn't have pledged to give half of his estate or whatever amount it is to charity if that was all he cared about. In fact, he's said a bunch of times that he plans to own the team until he dies.

Far more likely, Ross just doesn't understand football and what it takes to win.
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Agreed, Ross makes more on his real estate deals than anything the Dolphins can do for him. He is green and still learning the ropes. At least he isn't a cheapskate
 
I don't agree with you guys at all. That's all his public relations campaign. He's going to try to make a billion dollars on one deal. That's going to be a huge profit for him. He can't just do that anywhere, or on any single deal.

He's about having more and more money to get his estate value up. He's in his mid-seventies. Why not just retire, then? He wants more value, even if it is to give charitably through foundations. Even if he wants to set up endowments or or what have you, charity is not something where he allows money to simply evaporate. The more that he has, the more power and control he will have over charitable giving he wants to be involved with.

It's like when he asked for public financing and then almost simultaneously gave Michigan a ton of money. People got confused by that as some sort of incongruity. It's not, really. The Dolphins are not a charity. They are an instrument to increase net worth. He's about extracting money out of the Dolphins so he can use it elsewhere. Giving money to Michigan gives him power. They named the business school after him. The more money he has, the more of this type of giving he can do. The increase in value of the Dolphins will do that.

He's a terrible owner for a football fan.
 
I think Ross cares. It is just his football instincts have him always going in the wrong direction.
 
The basis of Rosses decision to retain Philbin, which I think was the wrong decision, was to retain continuity for Tannehill. I think they will still fire Coyle if there is a better option at DC to replace him. Ross is always visibly peeved after losses. He probably wants to win more than Philbin or at least he talks and looks like he does.

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Austin Tatious said:
I don't agree with you guys at all. That's all his public relations campaign. He's going to try to make a billion dollars on one deal. That's going to be a huge profit for him. He can't just do that anywhere, or on any single deal.
Click to expand...

I do not buy this argument. He wants to raise the value of the team so that he can donate more money to charity through his estate?

I'm sorry, but I think it is far more likely that Ross really does want to win, and is trying to win and improve the franchise, and that he just isn't doing a good job of it.
 
I wish he would force Joe to fire Coyle.
 
Hayden Fox said:
I wish he would force Joe to fire Coyle.
Click to expand...

Amusingly, I actually wish Ross would meddle more. I never thought I would feel that way about an owner, but I do now. I know that the 2 cases where Ross directly meddled were when he informed Jeff Ireland that he was NOT to trade for Kyle Orton and give him a big money extension, and when he forced Joe to fire Mike Sherman. Sadly, that gives Steve Ross the best batting average of any GM we've had since Jeff. Ross's follies with respect to football operations have mostly been through inaction.
 
Austin Tatious said:
The biggest problem with the organization is obviously Stephen Ross. The rest of the guys are bit players. Philbin, Ireland, Tannenbaum, Sparano, Coyle, Aponte, Higgins et al don't really matter. They are just symptoms of a bad owner. They are all mediocrities, but if it weren't them, it would be other mediocrities. You have an owner that can rival Donald Sterling's incompetence, and I'm not even talking about his racist rant, but what he did for 30 years running an inept sports operation.

Don't rule out that Ross is simply all about money. Sure, he does that comically fake thing every year where he pretends to be upset when Miami loses. He grabs Hyde or Armando and stages his unhappy look so they report it and fans get tricked into thinking he cares. It's hilarious how predictable and phony it is. Then he hops on his private helicopter to go to his mansion and then takes his own jet to Manhattan where he is really a New York guy, who came out of Detroit and loves Michigan. He supposedly opens his check book, but really, that's minimal. All teams work within a similar pay structure and cap parameters. It's not like baseball where he outspends the competition like the Dodgers, Bosox, or Yankees do.

But is there hope? Ross is all about money. He went into the Florida legislature and tried to get funding for a stadium. He went after the Weatherford kid who was the representative that worked against the stadium. What's Ross all about? Value of the franchise. Much like one of his real estate deals, the Dolphins are another property to him. He gets the stadium improved and gets to host super bowls. Then what? The value of his franchise goes up, similar to a NYC office building. When the time is right, and hopefully within a few years, after Miami gets a super bowl and the stadium is done, he sells for a profit. A new rich prospective owner sees a rare NFL property, with a privately financed stadium and we can get a deal. Ross bought for $1.1 MM. The Bills went for, what $1.4MM? He may fetch $2MM eventually. He's savvy about building equity and I'm sure he will pounce on a sale when the value is optimized.

Ross has no reason to hold on to the team. It's just a property to him, and a way to improve franchise value and sell for a profit. The fans don't matter. Winning doesn't matter. All he has to do is that fake, pretend he's annoyed with losses thing he does, but then let the dysfunction thrive. His children are daughters that are never heard from. I doubt this is an inheritance situation. After a couple of more years, there is no reason why he wouldn't sell. All signals point to this being what Ross is about. It will be a good riddance situation.

It's going to take a new owner to ever get this franchise on a good course.
Click to expand...

This is more speculation and/or 'wishful thinking" fueled by the fact that the Dolphins have turned in yet another disappointing season. It is understandable, but make no mistake about it, Stephen Ross isn't going anywhere. I disagree with you on the point of him not caring about the team's success. It is obvious that he cares, he just doesn't have enough knowledge as an owner to hire the right football people. The fact that he refuses to allow his GM to pick his coach isn't helping us out either. The problem with Ross is that he always seems so clueless about the mistakes that he has made when it is painfully obvious to anyone else watching. My fear is that by the time he realizes that keeping Philbin is a mistake, the few good players that we have on this roster will have either started their decline or will decide to leave for better options.
 
Ross would be fine if he does what Wayne tried to do before he sold when hiring Parcells. Hire a VP of football operations to run the day to day, this way Ross can be flying around making real estate deals and show up for the games on the weekends. Ross is a business man and not a football guy which is why you need someone that knows how to run day to day operations in control. Currently the closest thing we have is Dawn Aponte who is the Executive Vice President, Football Administration. We know she is the cap guru but what she knows about day to day football operations is beyond me. We saw how things turned out with our GM search when candidate after candidate bowed out because they were unsure of the structure and whom they would be reporting to. Its fine if Ross wants to be an absentee owner not every owner in the NFL has their hands into the day to day business but if that is the way you want to go then you need to have a structure and someone who knows how to run a football team in control.
 
Stephen Ross is a good owner. Hope he stays for a long time.
 
Nothing will drive the price of a franchise up higher than championships. There are only 32 NFL owners and only a few them can consider themselves winners. That's a prestigious circle to crack that might be more powerful to a billionaire than whether he sells his team for 1.8mm or 2.0mm
 
I don't like Ross, I didn't like the Philbin hire either

Philbin may not be a great motivator, or a brilliant strategist but he is a good coach.

If Hickey manages to bring in just a few more players like Landry they will do much better.

The problem is, a brilliant strategist or a great motivator type head coach I think may always be enough to beat Philbin no matter who is on his squad
 
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