Swing Low, Sweet Attendance Rates.

[The Ancient Enemy]

Me and Count are in the Nashville Predators thread talking about how bad of an idea it was to remove NHL teams from core sites and shoehorn them into non-hockey locales. Now, post-lockout, the NHL is having to win back fans. Sure would be a lot easier if you allowed the core fans to watch hockey, wouldn't it?

The city of Miami is stereotyped for having the worst sports attendance, yet we continue to shoehorn franchise after franchise into this market. Let's take a look at where the Marlins, Dolphins, Panthers, and Heat all rank within the past 6 seasons.


2002:

DOLPHINS: 7th
HEAT: 22nd
MARLINS: 29th
PANTHERS: 18th

2003:

DOLPHINS: 6th
HEAT: 25th
MARLINS: 30th (last)
PANTHERS: 20th

2004:

DOLPHINS: 8th
HEAT: 4th
MARLINS: 26th (won the World Series the previous season)
PANTHERS: 18th

2005:

DOLPHINS: 8th
HEAT: 4th
MARLINS: 27th
PANTHERS: no season

2006:

DOLPHINS: 7th
HEAT: 5th
MARLINS: 30th (last)
PANTHERS: 19th

2007:

DOLPHINS: 10th
HEAT: 8th
MARLINS: 30th (last)
PANTHERS: 22nd


Dolphins do well. Heat are already slipping after winning the title. Marlins are atrocious. Panthers are pretty bad as well. I was expecting to see worse numbers for the Dolphins, other than that I'm not surprised.