Miami Dolphins Announce Plans For Renovation of Sun Life Stadium
By Josh Sanchez
The Miami Dolphins are ready for a full makeover that will include a new logo and uniforms for the 2013-14 NFL season. The Dolphins plan to unveil their new look before the 2013 NFL Draft, but the changes won’t stop with the uniforms.
The Dolphins announced on Monday that they are planning renovations for Sun Life Stadium, which are believed to be motivated by their desire to host another Super Bowl.
“Our intention is to make Sun Life Stadium a world-class facility that is competition-ready for Super Bowls, college football championships, and global soccer events, as well as providing a much better environment to watch the Dolphins, Hurricanes and Orange Bowl every year,” Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said. “I think our planned modernization will maintain the special outdoor flavor of Miami, while giving us the look of the best stadiums around the world.”
Private donations are expected to cover a majority of the cost, but the Dolphins are planning to ask the local and state government for some help to cover the projected $400 million project, per the Miami Herald. Unfortunately for the Dolphins, they could face an up-hill challenge to receive funds from the government after the Miami Marlins recently received a large chunk of change for their new stadium deal.
“It can’t be anything close to what the Marlins did,’’ said state Senator Oscar Braynon. “Unless you do something totally counter to what the Marlins did, nobody is going to vote for it.”
The renovation is set to include “adding a partial roof, a redesign of the seating configuration to improve views of the field, and shifting capacity from the low-priced seats in the upper deck to the more expensive seating closer to the sidelines” and some brand spanking new HD video boards.
It is nice for Miami to want to create a state of the art facility for their fans, but they should first focus on ideas of how to bring in more fans to the stadium on gameday. As the Marlins showed, it takes a lot more than a nice stadium to put butts in the stands.