Marlins: Fans Must Prove Their Loyalty
Attendance at the new stadium will determine how much the team will spend on payroll
By CARLOS MILLER
Updated 5:30 PM EST, Sun, Jul 12, 2009
Florida Marlins president David Samson obviously doesn’t get it.
He expects us to fill the new stadium before he splurges on quality players.
He expects us to support lackluster teams before he brings in proven talent.
He expects us to dish out our hard-earned dollars before he dishes out his soft loaned dollars.
Isn’t it enough that we’re funding the bulk of the new stadium?
Apparently not because last week Samson told The Miami Herald that a “a lot will hinge on how well we draw” regarding how much the Marlins will spend on quality players.
Hasn’t he learned how fair-weathered we are down here?
Sure, we might check out the new stadium during its inaugural 2012 season because it will be the place to be for at least a few months. We’re into trends. And we like parties. Especially when the national media is in town as they are sure to be during those first few weeks.
But we also have extremely shallow attention spans – as does the media - so if the team is not winning, we will quickly get bored and find somewhere else to hang out. Maybe even the Adrienne Arsht Center but probably not.
It is true that payroll doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. In the 2003 World Series, the Marlins with its $54 million payroll defeated the Yankees with its $164 million payroll.
And even today, the Marlins are remaining competitive even though they have the lowest payroll in the major leagues. Halfway into the season, they are only four games out of first place in the National League East.
However, they also continue to draw the smallest crowds in the major leagues.
But they must be doing something right because earlier this year, Forbes named the Marlins the most profitable team in the major leagues – despite the fact that Jeffrey Loria has told us for years that the reason he can’t fund a quality team is because he has to pay rent at that football stadium with the ever-changing name.
According to Forbes:
"It is official. Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria got the team for free. Before the 2002 season Loria, who then owned the Montreal Expos, bought the Marlins for $158 million while MLB paid $120 million to take ownership of the Expos. The Marlins price was later reduced to $143 million, as stipulated in the purchase agreement, when the Marlins did not get a new stadium within five years. But during his seven years of owning the Marlins, Loria has received more money from baseball's revenue redistribution system than the amount he paid for the team. Now that is real money ball."
So you would think now that Loria is being handed a stadium for free in addition to the team for free, he would be able to spend on big-name players, which in turn might lead to fans attending the games.
Or maybe he is just waiting for taxpayers to fund the players' salaries as well.
History has proven that adding big name players to the roster leads to increases in attendance. And championships.
That is what happened in 1997 after a steady decline in attendance since its 1993 inauguration season.
That year, then-owner Wayne Huizinga increased the team’s payroll dramatically by signing All-Star players Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou and Alex Fernandez, which lead to the Marlins first World Series championship as well as the highest season attendance in its 16 year history.
But the celebration was short-lived.
After the 1997 season, Huizinga started crying that he lost $30 million while funding the championship team, so he started claiming that taxpayers owe him a new retractable-roof stadium.
When he didn’t get that stadium, he dismantled the team, taking it from a $53 million payroll in 1997 to a $13 million payroll in 1998.
Naturally, the fans struck back by not attending games.
Adding insult to injury, it turned out that Huizinga was lying about losing $30 million. He actually made a $14 million profit, according to baseball economist Andrew Zimbalist.
It’s not that we don’t mind winning championships with scrappy teams on low payrolls. It’s just that we would like to have some type of assurance that we will make the playoffs during the regular season.
Otherwise, we will just stay home until we make the playoffs as we did during the 2003 season. And then we’ll show up in record numbers.
And only if the weather is fair.
First Published: Jul 12, 2009 1:52 PM EST
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