Marlins Park Construction

[GordonGecko]

Me too. I'm tired of giving companies free advertising.

I highly doubt companies can just name stadiums after themselves without paying...

Oh, and Marlins Park won't last long. They'll find a corporate sponsorship sooner than later. Although, I'm surprised the owners of Nationals Park have survived this long without getting a sponsor.

He means free advertising when broadcasters, fans, & signage mention the park by sponsor name. The advertiser does pay, but it's only the team that benefits. NYC put down its foot somewhat with Citi Field. On city signage, they don't call it Citi, they call it things like "Mets Willets Point", "Mets Baseball". The city didn't want to give that "free" advertising, and good for them. Not only do most cities have the name on all highway signs (and have to update after all name changes), but many have corporate logos as well.

[UnderPressure]

He means free advertising when broadcasters, fans, & signage mention the park by sponsor name. The advertiser does pay, but it's only the team that benefits. NYC put down its foot somewhat with Citi Field. On city signage, they don't call it Citi, they call it things like "Mets Willets Point", "Mets Baseball". The city didn't want to give that "free" advertising, and good for them. Not only do most cities have the name on all highway signs (and have to update after all name changes), but many have corporate logos as well.

Well, I'd say getting a company;s name mentioned by anyone is part of it.

[Paul W]

It'll be "Marlins Park" until someone coughs up the money to name it...

Shyster Park has a nice ring to it...

[drdg]

Shyster Park has a nice ring to it...

what happened to
Miami cruise line stadium

or (insert company name) cruise line stadium
a Carnival cruise ship is feature on their video
maybe it going to be carnival stadium/carnival field or carnival cruise line stadium

[djudemiller]

He means free advertising when broadcasters, fans, & signage mention the park by sponsor name. The advertiser does pay, but it's only the team that benefits. NYC put down its foot somewhat with Citi Field. On city signage, they don't call it Citi, they call it things like "Mets Willets Point", "Mets Baseball". The city didn't want to give that "free" advertising, and good for them. Not only do most cities have the name on all highway signs (and have to update after all name changes), but many have corporate logos as well.

This is only partly true, the subway signs say mets baseball but the highway signs do in fact say citifield.

[GordonGecko]

OT: anyone have inside deals on hotels in fort lauderdale / hollywood / miami?

[Paul W]

Look at that picture. Miami is a huge city...There's no reason that city can't support a major league baseball team...

miami ain't a huge city, the population in the city may be larger than cincy but it's still a football first ticket buying place. i know folks in broward and palm beach co.'s who don't want to deal with the downtown p.m. rush hour traffic on 95 or the palmetto and may only go on weekends. those areas north of dade make up most of the market.
btw - look at a satellite pix of where the high rises are, it's a narrow strip, not spread out like midtown manhattan. the "ton of money"ers are far outnumbered by everybody else.

us city size rankings - http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

[GordonGecko]

Does anyone have any recent pictures of the home run "sculpture" in center field?

[milladrive]

Folks, I just got finished moving a boatload of off-topic posts to the thread dedicated to Ballparks in Football Configuration.

Let's kindly keep this thread on topic. And, just so everyone knows, if, after I've left this post, further off-topic discussion continues, it may result in suspensions.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Does anyone have any recent pictures of the home run "sculpture" in center field?

Pictures? No. Nightmares? Yup.

[PeteU]

miami ain't a huge city, the population in the city may be larger than cincy but it's still a football first ticket buying place. i know folks in broward and palm beach co.'s who don't want to deal with the downtown p.m. rush hour traffic on 95 or the palmetto and may only go on weekends. those areas north of dade make up most of the market.
btw - look at a satellite pix of where the high rises are, it's a narrow strip, not spread out like midtown manhattan. the "ton of money"ers are far outnumbered by everybody else.

us city size rankings - http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

Actually, Miami is pretty large--the core city population of 399,457 within municipal limits is decieving due to the fact it is relatively small in land area compared to other cities. Miami Dade County has 2,500,625, and that doesn't even include Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The Miami metro area is the seventh most populous in the country.

[NickEsasky]

Does anyone have any recent pictures of the home run "sculpture" in center field?

The marlins website has a web cam. For the last month it has had what appears to be scaffolding around it so it makes it very hard to see the progress

Home run feature.jpg

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The scaffolding looks better than the final product will...

[GordonGecko]

I'll be in Miami next month, I'll try to talk my way inside to snap some pics

[rmc523]

Here's the home run feature as of this evening - they started putting the actual color pieces on:

[Anubis2051]

Here's the home run feature as of this evening - they started putting the actual color pieces on:

[PeteU]

The scaffolding looks better than the final product will...

It does look pretty horrible.

Its one saving grace is that it is "Plan 9 from Outer Space" horrible. It's LA Coliseum as a baseball stadium horrible. It's William Hung horrible. There is a certain level of horribleness where it is so horrible that the horror creates something of a horrific charm to it all. So I'll reserve final judgment on it until a couple of years in to see if it rises to the level of "it's so bad that it's still bad but in being so bad it's kinda sorta good, kinda" horribleness.

[islandxtreme26]

Does anyone have any pics of other new stadiums 3 months til the first game?

http://sports.webshots.com/album/569821681dTkLhm

Here is album I have from 1/27/09 of progress at Citi Field. You can see, the current overall progress is hard to determine unless you see the status of interior fit-out. From the overview shot, it looks like there was as much done at that stage as there currently is done at MP (aside from the field - but MP still has two weeks to catch up). Upon closer inspection, the The Pepsi Porch and scoreboards still had work to do and inside, the Promenade Club (upper deck) and Ebbets Club were unrecognizable. On the day Citi Field opened up for the college game between St. John's and Georgetown in late-March, there was still much to do but by Opening Day, all was ready. Rest assured, MP will be good to go in time for OD.

[Matt The Hammer]

I worked on the then Miami Heat Arena project. First event in there was a Gloria Estefan concernt. The workers were fastening handrails as the fans were walking into the arena.

[NickEsasky]

Am I alone in being underwhelmed by the scoreboard at this stadium? Considering all the scoreboards that have been upgraded around the league in the last couple years (Comerica and GABP come to mind), I would have expected more here. I'm only going by my glance at the renderings, so i could be way off but this thing doesn't look outstanding.

I like PeteU's stance on the HR fixture. So tacky its great. Only in Miami could this be pulled off. Goes with the uniforms.

[GordonGecko]

They're hoping you'll be hypnotized by the flashing statue of giant flying technicolor dolphins

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I for one welcome our new giant flying technicolor dolphin overlords.

[04golf]

never understand how a team can be down by 5, hit a homerun and fireworks go off! I understand if it ties the game or is a go ahead hr but to set off fireworks when your losing confuses me...

[DJ Starion]

never understand how a team can be down by 5, hit a homerun and fireworks go off! I understand if it ties the game or is a go ahead hr but to set off fireworks when your losing confuses me...

A home run is a home run, no matter the situation.

[NickEsasky]

I for one welcome our new giant flying technicolor dolphin overlords.

I agree Kent Brockman.