Just sent an excerpt of this email to some veteran sports journalists up in New York whom I read devoutly -and respect immensely- whom I also occasionally drop an email to, because they're straight-shooters when it comes to the facts and behind-the-scenes' forces of current American sports TV and personalities.
This has some additional material -and tangents- to buttress my points, which should be fairly obvious.
It's instructive that when I emailed this to them at 2:35 p.m. this afternoon, that the Dolphins PR folks were still so behind-the-curve that they had yet to inform WIOD radio and the Dolphins' radio broadcast rights holder, WQAM, that the Bill Parcells presser would be (televised) at 6 p.m., which ESPN News was reporting.
What, South Florida news media being scooped again on a Miami-based story?
Just more of what we've gotten used to over the years he said glumly.
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Thursday December 27th, 2007
Dear X and Y:
Just wanted to shoot you both a line and share some thoughts you might find of interest, as a media friend just called me from out at Dolphins HQ in Davie, quite exasperated, where she's been waiting and waiting... for the grand unveiling of Bill Parcells as the Dolphins' VP.
(I'm against the Parcells move, think he won't make it four years, but...)
She called an hour ago on the very day that's been anticipated ever since last week's big announcement, and yet, typically, the Dolphins are SO dis-organized, that their PR folks are refusing to tell the assembled media -whom in this town, are uniformly puppets of the worst sort to begin with, with absolutely no bark or backbone- what time the press conference will
start. Yeah, that's very professional.
While it's the kind of thing that most people who care about the Dolphins will never ever find out about, it really speaks volumes for why I've wanted Huizenga to sell the team -for years.
Not least of all because if he sells the team, the stadium and the adjacent land he owns, the Marlins stadium could, theoretically, be near the current stadium and the FL Turnpike, I-95 and starting in about 2012, near a Miami-Dade Metrorail station that connects it to points south, instead of at the Orange Bowl site in Little Havana, far from all of that, as well as the
large Broward fan base for a team with a piddling fan base to begin with.
(And, stuck with perhaps the worst ownership in MLB in Jeffrey Loria.
His intelligence and marketing prowess are perhaps best reflected by the team having had their team store being located in Little Havana -see the "Marlins en Miami" cite below- instead of being near modern suburban shopping malls.
You know, where people actually live and work and have disposable income, like they did in the days before and since the Christmas holidays, at Dadeland Mall, Aventura Mall, Pembroke Lakes Mall or Sawgrass Mall...
Free SouthBeachHoosier marketing advice to Marlins: How about a small storefront Marlins store along Brickell Avenue to capture the professional crowd at lunch time, in-between bites or after work?
Yeah, that's the Marlins marketing genius for you, continuing to propagate the failed myth of a vast army of Hispanic baseball fans in Little Havana just itching for the chance to come up to Chez Huizenga for a Marlin ballgame. Or ten.
This gets lip service despite all relevant marketing research showing those Marlin fans rarely attend games, even if they really do know the team inside-and-out well-enough to argue over who should be the Marlins lead-off man.
Here's some breaking news on who really counts: fans who actually show up.
Some time soon in this space, I'll tell you about how it was done -right and wrong- up in the Washington, D.C. area with the Baltimore Orioles team store, in the perfect downtown location
of 17th Street, N.W. and K Street, just blocks from the The White House.
One of my friends was the store manager there before I left, and that's where I first saw the video of the Twin Towers coming down for the first time on 9/11, while walking home to Arlington after being told to evacuate from my office along Pennsylvania Avenue, across the street from the FBI and Department of Justice, after the Pentagon was hit by American Airlines Flight 11.)
How can the Dolphins screw-up something as simple to set-up as a press conference?
Well, sadly for Dolphin fans like me, who grew-up as a season ticket holder in the successful early '70's, and know from professionalism, the forensic evidence for the decline is both overwhelming and self-evident.
Naturally, in the era of an interactive web, the Dolphins have absolutely nothing on their team website about the press conference, either, even though everyone is talking about it in advance.
http://www.miamidolphins.com/newsite/flash_content.asp
Typical!
Adios!
Dave
P.S. One of my former housemates at IU, a cute brunette Alpha Chi from Indy, dated Cam Cameron for a while when he was the back-up QB at IU behind Babe Laufenberg.
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http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/fla/ballpark/guide.jsp#M
Marlins En Miami Store: The Marlins en Miami Store is a full service ticket office and merchandise store. It is located in the heart of the Hispanic community at 3701 S.W. 8th Street. The main focus of the office is to serve as a lasting presence for the Club within this area and service the community by offering general information in Spanish, selling tickets, merchandise and hosting special events.
In Season Hours:
Mon-Fri 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m.
Sat. 10am to 4pm.
http://www.southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/