Swampy Soccer: MLS Should Still Ditch Miami While It Still Can

That Guy David
Jul 27, 2017 · 8 min read
The latest rendering for Miami’s MLS stadium released earlier this year. A bit of a downgrade from the grandiose waterfront bubble concept the league was sold originally.

As David Beckham prepares to acquire the last bit of land needed to a build a stadium for his MLS franchise in Miami, the league is likely to confirm his contractually promised franchise as team № 24 any day.

Some will celebrate Beckham’s team becoming a reality following delay after delay after altered stadium plan. But I, and many other sensible citizens who care about the league and know a thing or two about south Florida, will not.

I grew up down in the swamps of south Florida and I’m going to say this right now: this is going to be a mistake. I know what you’re thinking. This guy is a Tampa Bay Rowdies fan, he just knows this means the end for his team’s MLS bid. But you’d be wrong. There was a time not so long ago I thought that those two things had some correlation, but the more I look at it, the more I believe Miami coming to fruition has absolutely no bearing on Tampa.

The truth is, I’ve thought this move would be a mistake since the day it was announced in 2014, before the Rowdies had a prayer of getting into the league.

Not just because Miami sports fans are notoriously fickle and hard to covet either. But since I’m there for a moment… having the best basketball player in the world playing as the figurehead in a triumvirate that guaranteed titles the day they were signed and actually delivered two titles wasn’t enough to get Heat fans to the game on time, or keep them in their seats til the end unless it was a deciding game in a playoff series. Even then, they spent half their time on cell phones, treating the games as a social media profile building exercise rather than a professional sports spectacle.

But I digress. Surprisingly, the fans are perhaps the smallest problem in all this. Truthfully, there are real Miami sports fans out there. They are mostly paying attention to the Dolphins, but nonetheless, Beckham’s project might find some really dedicated local support that will show up for games on a regular basis. But there are also factors that the success of this effort is banking on which I believe are a bit too pie in the sky to actually translate to Miami being the feather in the league’s cap they want it to be.

The Market

Miami’s market is touted as being a good fit for soccer becoming the fifth professional sports franchise in town and in some ways it might be. Its job market is in good shape with a higher than average growth compared to the rest of the country, but it’s also considered so strong because of its Latino population.

This is where I beg to differ. For one thing, 67% of Miami’s Latino population is made of people who come from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Of the four, only Mexico holds a strong soccer tradition. Mexican fans don’t necessarily take to American teams, as they often hold allegiances to clubs in Mexico they can regularly watch on Spanish language television. The other three demographics come from baseball centric cultures and well, you can see how they’ve embraced the Marlins. Not encouraging signs for believers that these fans of the game will become loyal to Miami’s new MLS team.

The empty seats of Marlins Park.

The rest of the Latino demographic comes from soccer focused cultures in South and Central America, so I understand the allure, just not the expectations that they’ll come to games. Because there is another problem aside from inflated demographic expectations; disposable income.

Who Has Money for This?

It’s estimated that to “live comfortably” in Miami, a town with ridiculously high rents, one has to make $77,057 a year. That’s $46,000 more than the median income of people who live there, which doesn’t bode well for tapping into the blue collar, dedicated fan. Miami’s poverty issues are well documented, as it’s essentially a geographic embodiment of the rich getting richer and the poorer staying poor. If the league is really hoping that affluent soccer moms and corporate executives are going to be enough to make this thing profitable, then it’s already admitting that it doesn’t give a shit whether anyone actually makes it back to their seat after halftime.

Wait… What about the TV sets?

Miami is the 16th largest television market in the country (TV sets per household), falling behind three other current bids in Tampa, Phoenix and Detroit as an opportunity to significantly expand the league’s broadcast footprint.

Miami has a global image, but in terms of increasing the league’s potential for revenue through broadcast rights, Miami isn’t as alluring as some of the other market’s earmarked for possible expansion, where audience sizes are steadily increasing. Miami has been stagnant at 16th since 2006.

Did I mention the Weather?

With so many other sports on offer around town throughout the year, it will be tougher than the league likes to think to get local sports fans to come out in the summer heat for these matches.

And it is hot. Believe me. If you’ve never been to south Florida, you don’t realize just how hot it gets. If it isn’t pouring buckets of rain in summer, it’s a brand of sweltering steam bath that can turn getting the mail into a Bikram yoga class, but with bugs. This is probably a factor that contributes to the Marlins failures.

That’s why a waterfront stadium that could capitalize on a sea breeze was so important to this bid. The fact is, without the waterfront vista that Beckham promised when he was awarded a franchise, the breeze will be minimal, the temperature will be high, and the plastic fans in the seats will be irritated and driven away by even the slightest of on field failures.

What Beckham sold the league on.

The Stadium

Talking about Miami’s MLS aspirations and not mentioning the fact that we’ve gone from an architecturally unique waterfront facility in the heart of an internationally known downtown to a boring, open air rectangle plopped down in the middle of the city’s biggest narcotics market would be foolish.

But aside from the obvious problems with the stadium’s design and locale, the biggest issue that has drawn attention is getting people to and from the stadium. The team has no plans for parking. That’s kind of a big issue when you consider it’s located in one of the nation’s 10 worst traffic cities, one that resides in a state that notoriously does not embrace public transportation.

The team’s plan is to shuttle people in from parking lots in surrounding areas, or get them in via water taxi up the river, or even more unrealistic, ride the metro rail and walk more than 80 feet (see the problems one encounters getting the mail) to the stadium. This is not helping fuel belief they’ll be able to fill 25,000 seats on a regular basis. Maybe they’re trying to give Miami’s failing public transit system a boost, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to work.

As a lifelong resident of this state, there is one thing I can tell you with certainty. Floridians love their cars. If they’re going to ditch those cars, you’ll have to do better than a boat ride down a historically polluted river followed by a stroll through a sketchy neighborhood, or a mass transit ride that drops you off even a few blocks from your destination.

A Step in the Wrong Direction

Some of the league’s most compelling success stories are in places where support has been built organically or over long periods of history. Portland and Seattle have long histories. Toronto, Atlanta and Orlando have happened at least somewhat organically, albeit only once those places entered the top flight.

Atlanta has been an incredible success story.

In Miami though, the fanbase may already be divided. Ricardo Silva’s Miami FC is presumably not going out of business once Beckham FC is launched, but it will be interesting to see if that team can maintain the 6,200 fans it’s averaged per match this season. If it does, it’s a small chunk of Beckham’s potential audience, but it could be an important segment of dedicated soccer fans that aren’t coming to see his product.

Why is the League Going Through With This?

Presumably, there are a couple reasons the league wants Miami to happen. The first is corporate sponsorships. Miami looks good to investors and represents a globally known location that the league would have a footprint in. That’s cute, but it doesn’t mean any of the locals are going to embrace the team unless the ticket price is right and the gameday experience is top notch. Thus far, we’re not off to a great start on that front from the sound of it.

And in order for it to succeed, you’re going to need local support. This thing will never thrive as a tourist destination in a town with one of the most famous beaches ever, a nightlife scene made for the movies and four other professional sports franchises to compete with.

The second reason is the interest it attracts from foreign players. Big name players know Miami. They vacation there, they enjoy the place. Its allure to a guy who has spent most of his life playing in England or Germany is undeniable. But the names it will likely attract are either A) no bigger than the names that other markets could attract or B) no different that the laundry list of retirees currently performing their swan song in the league and justifying its retirement league reputation.

I realize I sound like a hater and undoubtedly, some will label me so. But let’s bring all this together. We have an architecturally average stadium located in the middle of a shady neighborhood and is difficult to get to by the locals’ preferred method of transportation. Demographically, this thing is banking on a large contingent of foreign fans adopting a brand with no history in the area and a good portion of those foreign fans have shown little interest in adopting local teams historically.

These games will be played in the hottest, wettest time of year while attempting to appeal to a fan base that has less disposable income than most other locations around the country, with what will likely be a cast of footballing expendables and Europe’s best players of 2012. All this in a market where another European legend has already started a club and is having moderate success.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the club’s image appears destined for either a cheesy rehash of European style branding, which many MLS fans are sick of, or being named after a shitty television show.

The team has no natural rival and are making a go of it in a market whose sports fans are best known as fickle or worse, indifferent. Am I a hater? Or just a fan of the league with legitimate concerns over whether or not Miami is a good place for the league to go? I really don’t care. Sometimes, haters have a point.

That Guy David

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Digital Content Specialist, Writer, Journalist, extremely amateur everything else.

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