Showing posts with label Orange Bowl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orange Bowl. Show all posts

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!
















Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!; A reminder of what has come before...

Miami Today News
Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority losing power
Written by John Charles Robbins on February 16, 2016
Miami city commissioners have begun altering the powers of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, building in more oversight.
What some see as a shakeup of the 11-member authority comes on the heels of a delayed and prolonged review of a lease of prime city-owned waterfront property to a private company.
The authority leased property on the southwest corner of Watson Island as part of a plan to revive a seaplane base and heliport.

Read the rest of the article at;
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2016/02/16/miami-sports-exhibition-authority-losing-power/

Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority
http://egov.ci.miami.fl.us/Legistarweb/Attachments/64346.pdf

After years of my writing/blogging/tweeting countless fact-filled emails/blog posts/tweets and attending innumerable public meetings throughout South Florida about the latest efforts by the owners and lobbyists of the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers and Florida/Miami Marlins to improve THEIR bottom line directly via taxpayer funds or hotel tax revenue, it's great to see someone like new City of Miami District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell pushing back against the entrenched and well-heeled sports establishment that for DECADES has seen South Florida taxpayers as an obstacle to be manipulated and overcome, not a legitimate stakeholder whose interests demand respect -and first priority.





















My first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in Dec. 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them into their first ever playoff appearance.
I attended 99% of every home game -preseason, regular season and playoff after that until leaving for Indiana University in August of 1979.
My first season as a Dolphins season ticket holder, at the Orange Bowl, was... the Perfect Season of 1972.







Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) 

My first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. 
I did, driven to the game by a U-M alum who happened to be the librarian where I then went to school, Fulford Elementary, in North Miami Beach. 
Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps even become a fan and want to return for future games. 

The ballgame made an interesting impression on the New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"
In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' 

I hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. 
A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. 

Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) 

For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) 

I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual-national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? 
To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. 
Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. 

A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. 

I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out -september 10, 1973- with Texas on the cover.
I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

Any reader who is new to my blog and wants to see of what I speak the past nine years here, simply do a search in the search box of this blog in the upper left corner for past posts about the ham-handed and duplicitous efforts of the Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Panthers, esp. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.
 
And you can also check https://twitter.com/search?q=%40hbbtruth%2C%20marlins&src=typd

Dave 

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Insight into my varied soccer resume and "expertise," gleaned first-hand from the sidelines & seats watching Pelé, the NMB Chargers, Miami Toros, Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, Indiana Hoosiers and Premier League; Insightful observations and good questions from @TimothyJPratton on soccer development in the United States


@TimothyJPratt  My first story w/the Guardian asks: Are European giants exploiting US soccer or improving it?









Me, I'm the sort of soccer fan who got up very early last October to watch SkyTV's EARLY morning reporting, via my desktop, on the new English National Team football HQ at St George's Park, in Staffordshire.

The cameras literally showed the sun rising on beautiful-but-dewy empty pitches that Prince William later came by to offically christen.
So, yes, with that said, I think this article is very timely.

When I was a kid growing up in South Florida in the 1970's, my Mother worked as a secretary for Pavarini Construction as part of the Pavarini Gerrits team involved in constructing One Biscayne Tower on the corner of Flagler Street and Biscayne Blvd, the heart of what was Miami for most people I knew at the time.

One Biscayne Tower in Miami, 39 floors, 1973 Pavarini Construction, 
http://skyscrapercenter.com/miami/one-biscayne-tower/4008

That mammoth construction project was just across the street from where the office was located until the bldg. was finished in 1973, which at 39 stories, made it the largest building south of Atlanta until some time in the '90's, when I was already working up in D.C. area and not quite so aware of what new taller buildings were going up.

Their whole office could bring their families in late in the afternoon on New Years's Eve since one of the perks of that location was we could all watch the Orange Bowl Parade from their second floor balcony as it made the turn onto Flagler. That was back when NBC aired that LIVE every year across the country but the local NBC affiliate in Miami aired it the next morning, because they wanted bodies on the streets, not ratings, at the behest of the Miami business community and powers-that-be tried to put on a good face for the rest of the country.

Mr Stass had all sorts of pull and despite the great competition to get them, managed to get some tickets for the January 1975 Orange Bowl Game between Bear Bryant's Alabama squad and Notre Dame in Ara Parseghian's last game as Irish head coach. 
And he gave some of them to my Mom!
We sat in the East (open) End Zone of The Orange Bowl and we were surrounded by the extra Alabama cheerleaders, pep team, and marching band. 

For a big sports fan like me who'd grown-up watching Lindsey Nelson's ND highlight show on Sunday mornings in the fall, it was like heaven, since by then I'd already been going to U-M home games for years when Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens played for some truly terrible U-M teams. Teams which drew so poorly that I'd often have that end zone all to myself.

Years later I often wondered whether one of the cheerleaders near me whose good looks and sweet Southern accent made me melt in my seat might've included Sela Ward.

In those days, Sela dated future Dolphin 'Killer B' defensive star Bob Baumhower. 
The romantic in me likes to imagine that Sela was sitting there, somewhere, in that row behind me, so I'd like to think that game was where I first heard and saw the wonderful Sela, whom I've admired and adored since first seeing her on the big screen in Chicago at the theatre at Water Tower in 1986's "Nothing in Common," starring Tom Hanks and Jackie GleasonIronically, a film set in Chicago. 

My mother's boss, Frank J, Stass was also a public policy, civic-minded type -back when Miami
had more of them them- who was always willing to do his part to help local Miami businesses.
When the NASL came to Miami as the Gatos, he bought some season tickets for the games at the Orange Bowl, for employees and they were excellent seats!
Right in the middle of the stadium and about 15 rows up, back when the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the Cosmos were their biggest and most bitter of rivals.

I first started going when they were the Gatos in 1971, as a ten-year old, and kept going after they were re-christened the Toros. Before the Robbies moved the Toros up to Fort Lauderdale and they become the Strikers, they played the Cosmos in Pele's first game in Miami his first year in the NASL.

For some reason that I don't quite recall, they played the game out on the VERY NICE soccer field out at FIU which later became the FIU football team's many, many years later once they got D-1 football and expanded the facility. 

(That was the best soccer field in South Florida outside of Lockhart Stadium, where my junior year at IU, 1982, we beat Duke there for the NCAA championship on the 2nd or 3rd day of my Christmas Break, which created an awesome scene back at the Yankee Trader Hotel hotel afterwards with all my close friends on the team -and their parents and the whole IU and Hoosier sports administrators, plus Indy media.)

Team photo of 1982 NCAA Champion Indiana Hoosiers coached by Jerry Yeagley

But for the Pele first match, the capacity was just over 10,000 and since we were season ticket holders of a sort, we got first dibs and I was even able to persuade my non-soccer loving father to come long. He'd come to some of my youth games once in a while but he was not someone who was a natural fan 

Yes, I think it's fair to say that from 1971 to 1976, there were few people in South Florida who 
attended more Miami Gatos/Toros NASL soccer games at the Orange Bowl than yours truly.

I witnessed all their great FEISTY and bitter games against their arch-rival Tampa Bay Rowdies back when that was the only pro team Tampa had, and their fans WOULD travel in droves and tailgate HERE. I even witnessed their heart-breaking loss on penalty kicks in the 1974 NASL title game at the Orange Bowl -televised by CBS- to the Los Angeles Aztecs. AFTER two over-times on a hot and humid afternoon! 

Somewhere, I still have the Toros game programs, esp. the ones that on the cover proclaimed Kyle Rote, Jr. of the Dallas Tornadoes as "the American Pelé." 
As many of you may recall, Rote was a tremendously talented player who understood his unique role as an ambassador for the sport, but even though I was a kid at the time, I thought that putting things like that on the cover of game programs was FAR TOO MUCH pressure for a kid just barely out of college!

Because of our location and demographics, I was fortunate to play for some very talented Optimist teams in North Miami Beach -after football and baseball season were over- that had a mix of styles and lots of telnted kids from lots of different countries, esp. Latin America.
After that,  was fortunate to go to North Miami Beach Senior High, a high school in South Florida with a great soccer reputation, despite it being only a few years old, thanks entirely to the devotion, dedication and hard work of our head coach Victor "Vic" Cappillo, who also drove the team bus to all points on the compass. 
(Coach Cappillo later wrote a letter of recommendation for me to IU.)

While I was still in eight-grade at JFK Junior High, with my personality, nose for news and media inclinations being roughly the same as they are now, just less developed, in part because I was already known to most of the players, and a friend to many, I persuaded Coach Cappillo to let me be the Team Manager, attending all home and away matches and handled calling the two Miami newspapers afterwards to drum up support in getting us some publicity.
And I was very successful.
But our great talent on the field certainly helped!

The following year, 1975-76, when I was a freshman, this good relationship continued and thanks to a historic Ciro Martinez-led last-second Charger win at arch-rival North Miami, a game whose last two minutes seemed to go in slo-motion, we eventually won the 1976 Florida high Scool soccer championship.
Days afterwards at a team dinner to honor the team and its supporters, I unexpectedly received a blue Varsity Letterman's jacket that quickly became my most valuable possession for years afterwards, despite how impractical a jacket is in NMB for most of the year because of the weather.
I'd wear that jacket every chance I had whenever it got under 50 degrees.

In 1977, with most of the team returning, one of our two arch-rivals, nearby Miami Norland Senior High School, inflicted a painful loss on the Chargers, knocking us out of the Florida state playoffs at Lockhart Stadium and ending our hope of winning back-to-back Florida state soccer championships. The Norland Vikings eventually finished as the state runner-up that year.

When Joe and Elizabeth Robbie relocated the team to Ft. Lauderdale and Lockhart Stadium for the 1977 season, much closer to my friends and I in North Miami Beach, we were ecstatic. The drive to Lockhart up I-95 was so much quicker, as we joined other "Striker Likers," eager to literally yell ourselves hoarse watching their exciting brand of soccer, esp, against the dreaded Rowdies and Cosmos! 
Oh, did we ever hate them!

(This happened to coincide with a time period when the Dolphins were less successful due to the reign of the Steelers and Raiders and the rise of the Bert Jones-led Baltimore Colts, so it was great to be able to cheer in-person at a home game and not have it be sarcastic.) 

When the NASL folded and then went indoor via the awful MISL, I never looked back at pro soccer teams in the U.S. because at the time it meant that my IU friends -and neighbors like Mike Hylla and Dave Boncek, who were always doing impressive skill and control drills in front of the swimming pool at out apt. complex- could never play for teams outdoors in their own country, as soccer was clearly intended to be played.

Even now, after all these years and all the effort they've put into trying to make it palatable, I've NEVER watched even one minute of the MLS on ESPN. 

To me, it's largely unwatchable, so I just stick to English Premier League games. 
I did go see some of the WUSA games, though, while I was in DC when Mia Hamm played for the Freedom.

I will be updating this post over the next few days, looking to include some photos.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

On 40th anniversary, NFL Network revisits "NFL's Longest Game" in a special tonight at 6 p.m. on Dolphins-Chiefs classic for the ages


SUDDEN DEATH AT KANSAS CITY

Above, capturing THE moment of one of the most amazing NFL games ever played, the moment the Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 in double-overtime at Municipal Stadium, December 25, 1971, as "Miami's Garo Yepremian Ends the Longest Game"; the placekick holder is Karl Noonan
Sports Illustrated of January 3, 1972.
And only one of the most joyous days of my life!


Must-see TV! 
Today on the 40th Anniversary of NFL's "Longest Game" between the Dolphins and Chiefs, a divisional playoff game I remember like it was yesterday, the NFL Network will air a special commemorative program at 6 pm tonight, with old NBC-TV footage from the ballgame, and, apparently, sideline conversations, which I can only imagine will be augmented by NFL Films footage.


Teaser alert: watch out for Marv Fleming, #80, in the end zone on this next play. 
Just saying...


As of today, Sunday morning at 1 a.m., according to DirecTV's on-screen schedule, there is no scheduled encore of this program scheduled, so make sure you have your DVR/VCR's at the ready.
But if you know how many times they will run a special program over-and-over, they'll do it -eventually.


Two short sneak peeks of the one-hour program are here; sorry, no embedding possible because that's how the NFL rolls. 
You have to go to their sites so that way you have to see the advertising of their partners.
Sort of makes you wonder if they've never heard of blogs, since they can load the ads into the video if they want.  

(Code Red head's-up to Google and Blogger: Blogger is NOT one of the NFL Network's listed "SHARE" partners. Why?) 


http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/09000d5d82558093/Remembering-The-Longest-Game-Ever 


http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d825454f4/The-Longest-Game-Ever-sneak-peek 


In that afternoon game on Christmas Day 40-years ago today -the Christmas where my family finally got into the 20th Century and bought more than just a half-way decent stereo system- the pressure from the game got to be so much for my father.
He had to walk out of our apt. in North Miami Beach and pace out in the hallway, refusing to watch with me and my mother and two sisters as Garo attempted his winning 37-yard field-goal.


Less than an hour after the game, my family and I and tens of thousands of other Dolfans from all over South Florida had driven out to Miami International Airport to greet the team on their Eastern Airlines charter.
We had lived in South Florida for three years by then and I heard South Florida yell that day like I'd never heard it before.

One of the most joyous times of my life!!!



Chiefs running back and return man Ed Podolak's performance that day was one of the greatest individual football performances that I ever saw in my life, ranking at the top with there with watching a very sick Bob Griese go from Mercy Hospital to throwing some long bombs to Paul Warfield, in-person at the Orange Bowl, in a 1971 MNF comeback win against Pittsburgh; watching O.J. Simpson make one amazing move after another against the Dolphins, in-person at the Orange Bowl in the mid-'70's; Bert Jones, Roger Carr and the Baltimore Colts throttle a good Dolphins team at the Orange Bowl, showing amazing athletic ability and speed at the ballgame in 1975 where the stadium was used as footage for the film, Black Sunday that had a story-line involving Middle East terrorism and the Goodyear blimp possibly crashing into a stadium during the Super Bowl; and finally, in 1981 up in Bloomington at Memorial Stadium, seeing Marcus Allen personally destroy IU with 274 yards rushing, the year he won -and earned!- the Heisman Trophy.


As one of the many Dolphin fans who purchased the record albums that WIOD put out after the 1971 season and the 1972 Perfect Season, I have listened to that call by Rick Weaver about a thousand times.
"Noonan to hold..."


They were stolen from my apt. while I was attending IU, along with my high school ring,  my beautiful blue satin NMB Soccer Florida State Champs jacket, my NMB letterman patch for gymnastics for being the manager of the Women's team that won the 1979 State championships at a meet I ran and coordinated at NMB, easily one of the lowest days in my life, to say nothing of the money that got stolen.
It was like I was having my identity stolen before it was the thing to do on the Internet...  


And who would steal THOSE two Dolphin albums?
That's what made me think it was personal -the items stolen versus what was left behind.


By the way, I still have all my Dolphin PRO game programs, starting from the first game I went to in December of 1970 against Buffalo, a 45-3 win that clinched a playoff spot, their first ever, to the last Dolphin game I saw before leaving for college at IU in August of 1979.
Plus, I also have the various pro football annuals like Street & Smith and Athlon, great for reading on car trips to North Carolina seven months after this ballgame, still smarting from the Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys and seeing Roger Staubach on the face of every guide cover.
I probably have about 100 of the programs and guides in total.


And to think, about 25-years ago, I almost sold them -my precious memories!
Thank goodness I didn't!

Monday, February 1, 2010

The nexus of South Florida taxpayer dollars, sports teams and stadiums: Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' checkbook

36 years and counting for a 3rd Super Bowl Trophy...
Above, 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez

36
years and counting for a third Super Bowl Trophy...

That's what Stephen Ross really ought to be pre-occupied
with.

Things to watch for in the near future...

When
rather than whether billionaire Dolphin owner
and perpetual celebrity-collector Steven Ross uses
his wealth to pay for top-tier lobbyists to help him
put pressure on local pols to do his bidding, and try
to put taxpayers on the hook for HIS stadium
improvements.

It's rather perplexing, but not at all surprising,
that almost all of the articles I've read thus far
on his initial efforts in this regard have gone
out of their way NOT to mention specific
names and firms.

But citizen taxpayers WANT to know the
names and firms involved, and what's more,
want to see someone in the media -anyone?-
illuminate the connections (tentacles) of those
particular lobbyists to specific pols which are
considered solid enough for Ross & Company
to think they'll actually be a good investment.

For instance, is Steve Geller one of those
lobbyists? Have the Dolphins formed a PAC?
Personally, I'd like to know.

Simply saying Ron Book in a story is not really
taking this story to its logical conclusion since he's
a lobbyists for everyone, even Hallandale Beach.

I'd rather see a story about those aspects of this
story than hear yet another lame Super
Bowl 44
puff piece that puts a smile on host
committee head
Rodney Barretto's face.
http://www.miami.com/bowlbuzz

Lesson learned this far:
Ross
will spend his
money for lobbyists, just not for stadium

improvements for his own stadium.


While transferring what I'd originally written
here as an email this afternoon to my blog,
I recalled something I'd written before on my
other blog which incorporated some insightful
Herald stories from 1979 about Joe Robbie
and the problems he had back then with local
pols in Miami who dared him to move the team.

For those of you who weren't living here back then,
trust me, it helps to explain why things are the way
they are now: dysfunctional.

It explains why there is a football stadium on the
Broward-Dade county line and not in Miami,
and how the whole idea of using common sense
in placing stadiums and arenas near areas needing
development, and creating mass transit improvements,
thus allowing the tax dollars involved to produce their
largest possible multiplier effect, and give the largest
number of South Florida residents much-easier access
to attend, was instead replaced by ad hoc parochial
decisions that have shortchanged taxpayers millions
of dollars and wasted years of opportunities
.

Just imagine if the arena for both the Heat and the
Panthers
was near Joe Robbie Stadium and the
crucial Purple Metro Line
had been built.
Instead, we have the waste of resources we have.

Just in case you run into any problems reading those
old Herald articles I've included at the bottom,

move your mouse over them and right-click.

Hit "Open link in new window."

It makes the articles huge and easy to read.



And before I drop some recent articles that touch
on these matters, let's stop and look at a bigger
news story that nobody in South Florida's media
is talking about: how are tickets to Super Bowl 44
being distributed to elected officials?

Meant to post this email from ProPublica
a week ago, but...
Mieux tard que jamais!
http://www.propublica.org/


<span class=ProPublica Header" width="605" border="0" height="128">

Hi,

We need your help.

We need to know which members of Congress are attending this year's Super Bowl, and how they got their tickets. Would you help us call members of Congress this week and ask their staffers two questions: Did the lawmaker go to the Super Bowl last year, and is she or he planning to go this year?

Sign up here for our Super Bowl Blitz, and we'll get you calling instructions and phone numbers. As answers come in, we'll plug them into our online chart and our reporters will begin following the money trail.

The Super Bowl is America’s most expensive sports spectacle, and it has long been used to rub shoulders, gain influence and form ties that help congressional candidates raise the approximately $1 billion they spend on their campaigns every two years. While most of us can’t afford a ticket to the Super Bowl, we know the NFL sets aside a large number of them for public officials and corporations to buy at face value (the cheapest tickets are going for as much as $1,799 on StubHub). Politicians use the tickets to reward big donors, and corporations use them to reward politicians.

The stakes are extraordinarily high this year. The resurgent Republican Party’s victory in Massachusetts last week raises the likelihood of yet another record-smashing year of campaign fundraising in advance of congressional elections this fall. Last week’s Supreme Court ruling, which allows corporations and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on ads for or against sitting members of Congress, also will trigger a spending spree.

OK, but why do we need your help?

We're running short on time.

In the next two weeks we need to find out which members of Congress will be watching in the stands -- or perhaps peering down from skyboxes -- and then figure out how those members got their tickets. Being a lawmaker's constituent, or a local or state reporter, will get you answers a lot faster than if we were doing the asking.

The NFL – which is a special interest, like any other -- won't tell us how many tickets it has set aside for politicians, let alone who got them. All we could squeeze out of the NFL was one sentence from NFL lobbyist Jeff Miller: “We respond to requests to purchase Super Bowl tickets from a wide array of groups, including sponsors and other business partners, members of the news media, elected officials and fans.”

We also tried to get information from the political party committees that often organize fundraisers around popular events. For instance, the National Republican Congressional Committee got face-value tickets from the NFL and used them to reward their big donors for 10 years running.

Unfortunately, the major party committees are refusing our requests for information about this year's Super Bowl. In the past month, ProPublica reporter Marcus Stern asked the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, NRCC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about the Super Bowl events they're planning. Only one - the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - got back to Marcus, and said it had no events scheduled.

If you're game, sign up here and we'll get you what you need.

Best,
Amanda Michel and Marcus Stern


Got this email from a friend? Subscribe. Unsubscribe.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We are located at 1 Exchange Plaza, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10006


Well, to see the results thus far, see
http://www.propublica.org/ion/reporting-network
and
http://projects.propublica.org/tables/superbowlblitz


Sarah Talalay of the Sun-Sentinel puts
the taxpayer question on stadium improvements
to Joe Robbie Stadium directly to NFL
Commissioner Roger Godell here:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Exclusive Q&A with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

By Sarah Talalay
January 31, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/superbowl/sfl-roger-goodell-qa-013110,0,4204783.story


Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE - DOLPHINS' STADIUM: Miami Dolphins propose raising tourist tax to pay for stadium fixes - One proposal being pitched to bankroll improvements to the Dolphins' stadium: raise tourist taxes. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez says he's opposed.

By Matthew Haggman and Douglas Hanks
January 27, 2010

Aiming to raise public dollars to improve their privately-owned stadium, the Miami Dolphins and team backers have hatched a plan: get state legislators to lift the ceiling on Miami-Dade's hotel tax and then ask county commissioners to increase the rate of the so-called bed tax.

Backers of the plan, which has been presented to state legislators in recent weeks, say the move would generate millions of dollars for renovations on the Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium -- along with upgrades of the Miami Beach Convention Center.

State law now caps hotel taxes at 6 percent, the amount already assessed in Miami-Dade County. Revenues from the tax levied at Miami-Dade hotels are largely spoken for after county leaders agreed to use public funds to construct a new baseball stadium.

''This is certainly one of the options,'' Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book said of the plan to seek an increase of the county's tourist tax. But Book -- who also represents Miami-Dade County as a lobbyist -- said other financing proposals are being weighed.

''There is more than one way to skin this cat,'' he said.

But winning public funding to enhance a stadium whose primary owner is billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross remains a tall order -- particularly at a time governments are strapped for cash and taxpayers struggle through an economic downturn.

On Tuesday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said he hasn't been presented with any specific proposals. But the mayor declared his opposition to tax dollars being used for renovations at the Miami Gardens facility.

''I would not be supportive of any public funding for the renovation of the Dolphins' stadium,'' said Alvarez, who said he's against raising the tourist tax. ''Now is not the time.''

Alvarez strongly backed the use of public dollars for the under-construction Florida Marlins stadium in Little Havana, but said Tuesday that this situation is different.

For one, a funding source was available then, unlike now, he said. For another, he said ''the Marlins will play 81 homes games a year here for the next 30 years, rather than paying for improvements to compete for one game every four or five years.''

NFL executives, Miami Dolphins officials and stadium supporters contend that Sun Life Stadium needs more than $200 million in renovations if future Super Bowls are to return to South Florida.

The improvements include partially enclosing the stadium with a roof that would shield fans from rain showers and the glaring sun. The proposal calls for new lighting to accommodate high-definition television -- which the team must currently install every time it hosts a night game.

And the blueprint includes tearing out the lower bowl of the stadium to add 3,000 prime seats and moving the spectator area closer to the field.

Next week South Florida is set to host its 10th Super Bowl, the most for any region in the country.

But some warn it could be the last if the improvements aren't made, as NFL owners move the championship game to newer, better-appointed stadiums.

''Doing nothing would be a huge mistake as we would surely watch cities like Dallas, Indianapolis and New Orleans land more Super Bowls,'' Rodney Barreto, chairman of the South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee, wrote recently.

Alvarez responded Tuesday by saying: ''South Florida in February is a place a lot of people would love to be.''

In recent weeks Dolphins CEO Mike Dee and lobbyist Book have been meeting with state legislators in Tallahassee to discuss the funding proposal.

An effort to rewrite state hotel-tax law could set off a scramble for the millions in extra dollars during a historic budget squeeze.

''Do you know how many people are going to jump on that bandwagon? Museums, performing arts centers, arenas,'' said Stuart Blumberg, the recently retired head of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association who also co-chairs a city panel on the Miami Beach Convention Center.

On Tuesday, Dee declined to discuss specific proposals, including raising the bed tax, saying he wanted to give time for a new sub-committee formed by the South Florida Super Bowl Host committee to consider improvements to the Dolphins home and ways to pay for it.

The committee, headed by former Dolphin Dick Anderson, is set to hold its first meeting Thursday.

''I think the discussion about funding comes at a later point,'' Dee said. ''What will take place on Thursday is the opening kickoff. All of us will have to let this subcommittee do its work.''

Yet, time is short.

The reason: presentations to NFL owners to win the chance to host the 2014 Super Bowl come in May. Proponents of a stadium overhaul say plans to update the facility must be in place by then.

''The clock is ticking to show we have some movement,'' said Dolphins lobbyist Book. ''Certainly we have to have something to show the owners, to show what we are doing to keep the stadium in a position that they find acceptable.''

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/1447876.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1



Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/columnists/garvin/story/1445911.html
Why don't the Miami Dolphins' owners pay for stadium upgrades?
By Glenn Garvin
January 26, 2010

E
milio Estefan has just published an autobiography, The Rhythm of Success: How an Immigrant Produced his own American Dream.

"The next generation of immigrants needs to learn how we did it,'' he recently told a Miami Herald reporter. "How much hard work there was for us at the time we came to this country.'' My advice is to skip directly to the chapter that explains how to go on welfare, which is what Emilio is doing.

That's right: Emilio and his wife Gloria, who have amassed a net worth estimated at $500 million -- including not just their music companies but an empire of hotels, restaurants and other businesses -- are becoming welfare queens. And the Estefans, who've always thought big, aren't going for penny-ante food-stamp fraud, either: They want a $250 million government handout for the Miami Dolphins, the football team they own a chunk of.

You've probably always thought it would be unpleasant and even faintly humiliating to trudge single-file up to the window in a welfare office. Not now! The conga line for a stadium handout starts with the Estefans, but includes their equally glamorous Dolphins co-owners.

Like Venus and Serena Williams, whose $45 million-plus winnings on the pro tennis tour are dwarfed by their endorsement contracts. (Nearly $100 million just for shoes.) Or Marc Anthony, the best-selling tropical salsa recording artist of all time. And though she's not technically a Dolphins owner, maybe Anthony's wife Jennifer Lopez (estimated net worth: $110 million) will tag along, that is, if she's not too busy with a $15 million movie role.

And don't forget the team's majority owner, developer Stephen Ross. I'm tempted to identify him as "carpetbagging plutocrat Stephen Ross,'' but I hate to kick a guy when he's down, and poor Steve has lost $1.6 billion in the crumbling real-estate market -- which, according to Forbes magazine, means he's now merely the 110th richest person in America.

If it seems to you that Ross and his let's-tan-in-St.-Tropez-this-weekend ownership group could pay for their own stadium repairs by selling off a few Swiss chalets and corporate jets, you're not alone. "This is corporate welfare,'' says a befuddled Philip Porter, a University of South Florida economist who's written extensively on the business of sports. "When we subsidize stadiums, we're giving money to the wealthiest class of people among us.''

To be fair, Ross and his merry band of looters insist the stadium improvements aren't for the Dolphins. That 17-percent decline in season-ticket sales over the past four seasons of Miami football mediocrity has nothing to do with this. We should kick in a quarter of a billion to fix up their stadium for our own good.

Without a roof and more luxuriant seats for the pale, tender butts of corporate aristocrats, Ross says, the NFL will stop bringing the Super Bowl to South Florida. And pffft! -- just like that! -- we lose the $460 million that comes with the game.

The problem with that argument is that it's -- how do I put this politely? -- a monstrously bald-faced lie. The economic impact of big one-shot events like Super Bowls is easy to track through sales-tax receipts, and literally dozens of studies have shown that they bring in far, far less than the Dolphins and their local-government toadies are claiming.

(Of course, the Dolphins have a study from a lobbyist company to back up their estimate. Funny how they won't let anybody see it.)

In a winter tourism center like South Florida, the impact of a February Super Bowl is diluted even further. We're already overrun this time of the year; Super Bowl visitors just crowd out other tourists, and the only real economic spike will be in hotel prices. That feeds the coffers back at the hotels' corporate headquarters but doesn't do much for the locals. Paris Hilton should be sending us a thank-you note, or at least a shout-out in her next sex tape.

But you don't need to pore over a stack of economics journals to understand how patently false the claim of that $460 million windfall is. Just ask yourself this:

A brand-new state-of-the-art stadium can be built for $490 million (that's the price tag on the Marlins facility that started construction last year). Why doesn't the NFL simply take over some little town like Yeehaw Junction, build its own stadium and tourism infrastructure the way Disney did in Orlando, and pocket all that Super Bowl money itself? After the first year or two, it's pure profit forever and ever.

The answer is that the $460 million is as mythical as Monopoly money. The only people who will benefit from this stadium boondoggle are the Dolphins' indolent gazillionaire owners. As Gloria Estefan likes to sing, "I'd do anything for you.'' Except dig into her own pockets.

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/columnists/garvin/story/1445911.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1
-----
To understand in part why and how we got to
this point in time, where there's widespread
voter opposition to local pols getting involved
in trying to micromanage what happens with
sports stadiums in South Florida, I'm going
to excerpt some of my own older posts at
South Beach Hoosier, my second blog
which I plan on retrofitting soon:
-----

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

SouthBeachHoosier Time Machine: Reviewing the Battle of the Orange Bowl

Continuing with the decision by U-M President
Donna Shalala
and the U-M Board of Trustees
to do what's right for the school, the team and
the vast majority of South Florida's Hurricane
fans by leaving theOrange Bowl Orange Bowl
in the rear-view mirror, what follows is the
March 16, 1979 Miami Herald story by
Bill Rose, which ran about two months before
the Bill Braucher column that was the basis
for my last post.

It traces the history of how Dolphins owner
Joe Robbie got the better of Dade County
Mayor Steve Clark and Commissioner
J.L Plummer by publicly embarrassing them,
simply by telling the truth to the gathered NFL
owners in Hawaii, which, unhappily for Clark
and Plummer, was a history replete with
broken promises to Robbie and the Dolphins,
and real threats for them to move out of Miami
if they didn't like it.

Joe Robbie
, who'll be the future subject of a
South Beach Hoosier post dealing with his
role as the Dade County Democratic Party
chair, lived long enough to call their bluff
and have the last laugh!

Yes, the fights over beer sales, and the fights
in court when the Dolphins prevailed and the
City of Miami didn't like it and appealed
-and lost again- the threat to prevent the Dolphins
from actually playing a preseason game in the
Orange Bowl, et al.


This as the NFL owners convened to decide
among other things, the site of the 1981
Super Bowl, which turned out to be Detroit,
even as Miami officials took it for granted that
they were in the driver's seat.


(That was Super Bowl XVI, where the
49ers beat the Bengals 26-21, the first
of their Super Bowl meetings, with the
second coming in SB XXIII in Miami,
with the 49ers winning 20-16.)


Just as was the case with the
Braucher
column post, I'll try to write out the story in
the future here in case you can't read it
completely.



Miami Herald
Reviewing the Battle of the Orange Bowl
Bill Rose
March 16, 1979

SouthBeachHoosier Time Machine: The Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade

This Bill Braucher story is an insightful piece
of South Florida history which, to me at least,
speaks volumes for all manner of current and
past public policy problems/govt. projects that
have beset South Florida for the past forty
years: inertia, apathy, incompetency and finances.

I've been keeping it at the ready since first having
it printed out at the Miami-Dade County Main
Library downtown, and seeing the downtown's
myriad problems "up close and personal" for the
first time in months...

This March 18, 1979 Bill Braucher column
below, which ran on the front page of the Sunday
Broward news section, serves as a painful
reminder that even when or IF you were to
eliminate all the current incompetent people
in the City of Miami responsible for the
disgraceful current condition of the Orange Bowl
-and have you seen the city's website for the
OB, which seems like something a junior high
school kid did over a weekend, with none
of the sorts of historical photos that you'd
expect to give it context,
http://www.orangebowlstadium.com/pages/-
it's important to keep in mind that, just like
cholesterol, it's not just environment, it's genetics
which determines a patient's health.

The City of Miami has very recessive genes.
Logical result: The Orange Bowl has been
sick for decades!

To read this column from those pre-cable,
pre-internet days is to be reminded all over again
of the sorts of half-assed things that were
commonplace back in 1979, when Dolphins
owner Joe Robbie was getting screwed-over
once again by the kangaroo court that was
Miami's powers-that-be, principally Dade County
mayor Steve Clark.

To date myself, yours truly was then a senior
at North Miami Beach Senior High School,
a true-blue fan who never missed a Dolphins
or Hurricanes home game.

Titled Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade,
Braucher, the Herald's former Dolphin beat writer
-who later became their Broward editor- when I
was growing up as a kid in the '70's, mentions some
very telling anecdotes that perfectly illustrates that
the City of Miami's bad attitude isn't just a recent
phenomena, rather it's a living, breathing entity
that's been around for decades, regardless of its
core competency to solve the problem either
intelligently or in a financially prudent fashion.

At a future date, I'll try to write it out for those
who can't read it completely when you capture
it with your computer mouse.





Miami Herald, Broward edition
Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade
Bill Braucher
March 18, 1979

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Michael Lewis of Miami Today appears today on WQAM @ 4:30 pm re proposed Marlins Stadium -DON'T MISS IT!

On the chance that you haven't already heard, one of THE most well-informed individuals on the subject of the proposed Marlins StadiumMiami Today publisher Michael Lewis, will be a guest of Jim Mandich on his daily WQAM radio show this afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

Lewis is that rare individual in South Florida who can actually speak to the issue from a knowledgable point-of-view, since he has actually read the entire contract, all the hundreds and hundreds of pages.
He can make both the logical and common sense argument against the stadium plan based on both the finances as well as the public policy ramifications. 
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/090212/story-viewpoint.shtml


Yesterday on his afternoon program, after reminding his listeners about Lewis' appearance today, Jim posed a few logical questions that are entirely deserving of a thorough public response from the powers-that-be, people that have seemingly been in hiding, before a vote is cast on Friday.

Let me summarize those good points he made:

Who are the principals involved in the shell companies that are specifically mentioned  in the contract? 

What is their relationship to Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria?

Why does Loria's name never appear in the contract?
The Marlins are actually going to be receiving money loaned to them by the govt.: where is their collateral or supporting evidence of surety bonds, or even a recent, accurate appraisal or valuation of Loria's personal holdings, whether art or real estate?

Why is it that it took a year for the contract to be drafted, yet the County Commissioners were supposed to read it and make sense of it in two weeks? 

The irony of this awful deal is that with the possibility of actually having a convenient commuter train on the
 
FEC tracks in a few years that quickly connects millions of people from Palm Beach County to downtown Miami, and with MLB always in
the default position that stadiums should be engines for real-not-fanciful economic redevelopment in their new neighborhoods, as was the case in San Francisco, which I saw ample evidence of for myself even months BEFORE the Giants stadium opened, in hindsight, the general area near the site of the old Miami Stadiumright next to the FEC tracks, would've made infinitely more sense than this awful mish-mash of a plan that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 

You could hardly claim you need to build a $100 million dollar garage if you made it possible for people to literally walk across the street to the stadium from a train.

That's something I know about first-hand, from taking the "El' train from Evanston or Wilmette down to Cubs games at Wrigley Fieldor from taking the MARC train up to Baltimore from D.C.'s Union Station.

Dozens and dozens of times.

Here are a few more things I've been wondering about that I've yet to see either mentioned or answered in local media coverage of the stadium deal, which I'm against, despite being a longtime and enthusiastic sports fan who was going to Baltimore Orioles spring training games at Miami Stadium 35 years ago, and was both a Dolphin, Hurricanes and Toros season-ticket holder for their games at the Orange Bowl before leaving for IU in August of '79 .

The number of Marlin game tickets and parking passes per game/per year to be given to the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County and any other South Florida governmental entity?
Where are those seats? Bleacher, reserved, box, suites?

Have the Marlins intentionally under-estimated value of those tickets and passes?
I ask because I was living in the Washington, D.C. area when investigations were conducted to see whether or not Abe Pollin, the Washington Wizards owner, intentionally mis-represented the costs of certain arena tickets so that they would be just under the lobbying "gift" limits, despite the fact that those tickets were clearly superior to similarly-priced tickets.

Pollin's goal was clear: he wanted D.C. lobbyists to buy LOTS of Wizards tickets.
By intentionally pricing tickets at the value the Wizards did, they made it easier for lobbyists to dole them out to whichever pols or influential city, county, and state employees the lobbyists wanted to influence, knowing that the gift recipients wouldn't have to publicly declare them.

Honestly, given South Florida government's sordid longstanding history of ethical problems, to me, that sounds EXACTLY like the sort of thing that would happen here!

Will existing city and county ethics procedures be changed to reflect this?
At each governmental unit that's given tickets, what official will decide who gets to use the tickets, or are they for the exclusive use of elected officials and their family and friends?
If for all employees, how will they be distributed?
Are individuals, including elected officials, limited to using a certain of tickets per season?

I'll be writing some things about the proposed stadium deal and the Marlins consistently awful marketing strategy over the next few days on my blog, much of which I've kept in draft form for months, and will also be attending the County's meeting Friday afternoon.

By the way, not that you'd know it if you'd actually gone to the Marlins broadcast partner's website, Fox Sports Net Florida, i.e. FSN Florida, but unlike last year, when the Marlins did NOT televise a single one of their spring training games back into their home market, this spring their games against the Twins on March 14th and March 23rd against the Astros will be televised at 1:00 p.m.

I've already spoken this morning to someone at FSN Florida and they will be updating their website to reflect this important fact.

Given their marketings miscues, last year, the only way I could see Marlin spring training games via TV was by watching the other teams' telecasts to their home market via DirecTV