It's all throwing good money after bad now. Has been for a while, if not since before it was even built. That stadium is an unfocused concrete drab of a place that looks more out of date than college stadiums built decades before, and combines that with a gently sloping seating arrangement that magnifies the huge distance the seats already are from the field. It boasts a horribly low ratio of lower bowl seats to upper bowl ones. And it also sits outside the city limits of Miami in what can charitably be called a real ****hole of a neighborhood. Even the area surrounding Jacksonville's abomination of a stadium -- where you are often forced to park in grass/dirt lots -- is nicer than what surrounds Dolphin stadium.
If Ross really has the best interests of the team in mind, he'll stop trying to improve Dolphin stadium and move immediately on plans to construct a new state of the art, retractable roof, huddled close (meaning: loud) stadium somewhere inside city limits. Perhaps he's waiting for the team to show more success before moving on that kind of a plan, but his public statements have always been to effect that he likes the stadium and views improving it as the best investment. A typical example of billionaire penny pinching. Even Paul Allen knew that a new stadium is often vital in rejuvenating the fortunes of a team, and low and behold, a few years after building a new stadium the Seahawks experienced the greatest run in team history, including a Super Bowl berth. Same with the Buccaneers and their new stadium. A Super Bowl followed closely after. The Patriots won their first Super Bowl after breaking ground on Gillette Stadium and two more followed (with two more appearances beyond that) after moving in. The Giants won the Super Bowl in 2007, the year they broke ground on their new home (Metlife Stadium), and another win followed last year. The Colts won the Super Bowl their last year in the RCA Dome and went to another shortly after in LucasOil. The Cardinals went to their first Super Bowl three years after moving into their new stadium. The Titans/Oilers only Super Bowl appearance in their history coincided with their first year in their new stadium in Nashville. The pattern goes back to the 70s Steelers, a team that was totally inept for years before the combination of Chuck Noll and a new stadium propelled them to four Super Bowls.
People can point to this and point to that and say it's all correlation blah blah blah. Whatever. Give me some of that ****ing correlation. It's insane. And anyway, I reject the notion that it's mere correlation. A new stadium speaks of purpose, it speaks of energy, it speaks of seriousness. Refurbishing old Joe Robbie Stadium speaks to none of that, and will lead nowhere.
