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Dolphins tickets follow NFL trend: a tougher sell these days

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Arnie Parlamento was a loyal Dolphins season-ticket holder from 1979 through 2006. But when the Dolphins told him prior to last season that the price of his end-zone seats would rise by more than 40 percent, he'd had enough.

"There was no direction to the team; I knew they were going to be pretty bad," he said. "So I went out and bought a high-definition TV with that money and bought the NFL package. Now, if the Dolphins game is bad, there are a lot of other ones I can watch.

"I don't think I'll ever go back to being a season-ticket holder."

He's not alone. After losing more than 10,000 season tickets the past two years, the Dolphins face a weekly struggle to sell out their 75,540-seat stadium. While the team has announced sellouts for all three home games so far this season, Dolphin Stadium has been only about two-thirds full on game days.

While most players insist they're too involved in the game to pay attention to the size of the crowd, a few admit they've noticed.

"I know it's not full," linebacker Matt Roth said. "There were a few more fans the first couple games. It stinks. We've got to win 'em back."

"You don't notice it during the game, but you do when you come out of the tunnel at the start," linebacker Akin Ayodele added. "You want to have that 12th man. At times it really does help."

Cheryl and Rick Hallett understand. They've remained loyal despite rising costs and the downturn in the team's fortunes. They estimate that it costs them $300 to attend each game.

"It's frightening," Cheryl said of the expense, which includes a day-long babysitter, two $65 tickets, gas, parking and food. "I have a hard time with it all myself.

"We bought the tickets over the summer before the economy turned bad, so we're going. But when you add up the gas, parking, eating, it's an expensive day."

Too expensive, it would seem, for a growing number of fans. The team's 10-year, regular-season sellout streak remains intact only because the front office has taken special steps to preserve it.

NFL rules stipulate that a game must be sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff if it is to be televised locally. The NFL granted a 24-hour extension before the Oct. 5 game against San Diego, and a sellout for Sunday's game against Baltimore finally was announced at 5 p.m. Thursday, four hours after the deadline.

The Dolphins declined a request to interview a team official regarding the issue. But a Dolphins spokesman said sponsors and the team's CBS television partner, WFOR in Miami, have agreed to purchase an unspecified quantity of tickets in order to avoid a blackout. WPEC in West Palm Beach, which also televises the games, makes no financial outlay.

Many of those tickets, the spokesman said, are never passed on to fans. As a result, the announced paid attendance for Sunday's game against Baltimore was 64,972, more than 10,000 below capacity. The announced attendance does not include no-shows.

The Dolphins' season-ticket base fell below 50,000 this season. Last year it was 54,646, according to the team, down from a high of 61,121 in 2006.

Because contracts with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and DirecTV reportedly account for $3.7 billion of the NFL's $8 billion annual revenues, the league appears willing to make every effort to have as few blackouts as possible. There have been none this season; last year there were just 10.

The number of no-shows no longer is announced at NFL games, but it's clear that many Dolphins tickets are sold but unused. That can result in strange scenes outside the stadium.

Last Sunday, one couple with four club seats was trying to give away two of the tickets, worth $130 each. They didn't want to sell them to strangers who might turn out to be rude. The couple found a deserving (and apparently well-behaved) father and son.

One man was asking $100 for four seats worth more than twice that figure. Upper-bowl seats worth $80 and $91 were going for $40. And when fans approached a ticket window to ask about seats that had been turned back by the Ravens, a nearby scalper called out, "I got tickets here. No waiting."

Reselling tickets at any price is banned on stadium grounds, although the prohibition is not always enforced.

Ticket broker Todd Rubin, of Todd's Tickets in Boca Raton, Fla., said he has seen a decade-long downturn in the market. Until about seven years ago, he said, he would annually purchase 500 tickets to Dolphins games and have no problem selling them. Then, as the team's fortunes declined, he started getting stuck with 100 one week, 200 the next.

"Now I take them only on consignment," he said. "I don't take a risk. I pick them up for half price and sell them for face (value)."

Asked how many he sells, he replied, "Maybe a hundred. It used to be 500 to 1,000. I thought I'd have a lot the first game against the (New York) Jets: Brett Favre, Chad Pennington down here, it should have been a perfect storm. And no one cared. I sold maybe 200."

NFL tickets are the most expensive of any sport, selling for an average of $72.20. Ticket sales are down across the league, Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said last week at an owners meeting in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"Not in every market, but in more markets than not," he said. "There is a real risk that the NFL is going to have more blackouts than it's had in recent years."

The Dolphins' home game Sunday against Buffalo, an AFC East rival with a good following in South Florida, probably will sell out — one way or the other. Non-division games later in the season against Seattle, Oakland and San Francisco might be more of a challenge at the gate.

Parlamento, who still regards himself as a "diehard Dolphins fan," said he might choose a game or two and buy club seats with some of the money he's saved.

"A lot depends on if they keep improving," he said. "They're definitely on the right track.

"But thinking back to all those years, sweltering through the games in August and September, I won't do that again. It's just not worth it."

Brian Biggane writes for The Palm Beach Post.