London Lament?
Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga put a happy face on his team’s trip to London to play the New York Giants on Oct. 28, for the first regular season game outside of North America.
Acknowledging some Dolphins fans will be upset, Huizenga said fans need to look at the “bigger picture.”
“It’s something that in order to keep the league as strong and vibrant as it is this is something we happen to have to do,” Huizenga said.
The team will not charge Dolphins fans for the lost home game and is discussing how else to accommodate them. The team will also put together travel packages to try to ensure a large gathering of Dolphins fans at Wembley Stadium.
And Huizenga says he’s willing to take a financial hit, by giving up a home game. He said the team is in discussions with the NFL about how to compensate the Dolphins for losing out on ticket, concession and parking revenue they would have earned from the game at Dolphin Stadium.
“We’re still discussing that with the league, I think the concept is that whatever the average of our games are for the year, they’ll make us whole on the average,” Huizenga said. “Obviously that means we go in the hole on this game. That’s OK, if it serves a bigger purpose, we’re willing to do that.”
In 2005, the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers played a regular season game in Mexico City.
CRAIG DAVIS In more than 33 years at the Sun Sentinel, Craig Davis has written about a wide variety of sports topics from baseball to yachting, fishing to triathlons, and also worked as a copy editor and page designer. Recently he reported on local sports, including running, swimming, cycling, equestrian and beach volleyball. He enjoys sports as a participant as well as a spectator, is active in the South Florida running scene plays in the curling club at Saveology Iceplex. This blog offers a glimpse at the business side of sports in the interest of enhancing enjoyment of the games and sporting options as a spectator as well as a participant.
