MIAMI _ The Miami Dolphins, like every other sports franchise, are projected to lose a significant amount of money in 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis.
But unlike many of their peers, they have refused to use layoffs or furloughs as a tool to cut costs.
Instead, they have significantly reduced expenses, are allowing up to 13,000 fans to attend home games, have developed safe, new ways to monetize Hard Rock Stadium during the pandemic and are viewing the current downturn through a three-year lens, with the hope that profits from 2019 and an expected recovery in 2021 will erase this year's losses.
"We have a great group of people at the Dolphins and we want to try to keep that intact and take care of people," Dolphins CEO Tom Garfinkel told the Miami Herald. "We feel like the pandemic is a very serious, but hopefully short-term situation. We want to try to keep everything intact if we can and look at it as three years of revenues and expenses, as opposed to one year. We're fortunate to have an owner who understands that and cares deeply about people."
Avoiding cuts has proven difficult, if not impossible, for many other organizations throughout sports that either do not have the strong financial backing of their owner, as the Dolphins have in Stephen Ross, or don't have healthy enough balance sheets to withstand such a shock to their cash flow.
The Miami Marlins first furloughed and then recently laid off some 50 business operation employees due to their budget shortfall.
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (which owns the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards and Washington Mystics), the Utah Jazz, Arizona Coyotes, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Red Sox and WWE are just a few of the many sports franchises to institute layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts.
In April, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell informed league employees of a cost-cutting plan that included furloughs, salary cuts and benefit reductions. Goodell also declined to take a salary early in the crisis, but it's unclear if his compensation has since resumed.
The Florida Panthers, meanwhile, pledged in May to pay their employees throughout the duration of the shutdown. And as of late spring, the Miami Heat had no plans to cut staff or pay.
Had this pandemic hit just a few years back, the Dolphins would surely be in far worse shape than they are.
When Garfinkel took over in 2013, the Dolphins were one of few, if any, NFL teams losing money. But he led a culture change and modernization of Hard Rock which has resulted in a turnaround in the then-dwindling ticket base and has also opened up substantial new revenue streams.
Those upgrades, according to Fitch Ratings, "have played an instrumental role" in the stadium being selected for marquee events that include Super Bowl 54 and the College Football Playoff National Championship in 2021.
Stadium revenues were up 2% in 2019 after spiking by 40% the year before, Fitch reported.
Those numbers will surely be in the red this year due to decreased stadium capacity in the NFL regular season, no preseason games and other, less obvious, constraints. The Miami Open, held on Hard Rock Stadium's grounds for the first time in 2019, was canceled, along with concerts, soccer matches, and the popular Rolling Loud music festival.
To offset those expected losses _ which the team has declined to specify but are expected to be in the tens of millions of dollars _ the Dolphins embarked in March on a major austerity plan, with an eye on saving every dollar they could without impacting their employees.
They also began thinking of other ways to generate revenue. One of their more successful ideas: converting the stadium into a drive-in movie theater, which provides a socially distant social activity.
"We're not making money on the drive-ins, but that was an initiative to try to give people something safe to come do and keep people employed," Garfinkel said. "We're going to lose a lot of money this year. We're going to lose maybe a little bit less if we have 13,000 (fans at Dolphins games) instead of zero. But this pandemic has affected people financially, physically, and emotionally. People need to experience life together and we're trying to provide a safe outlet for them to do that responsibly."
Dolphins season-ticket holders have first crack at the limited number of tickets made available this year, and the response has been strong. Every game is expected to sell out. Prices have not increased despite the decreased supply, the Dolphins add.
_ Running back Kalen Ballage, traded to the Jets for a conditional draft pick last week, failed his physical due to a hamstring injury and will revert back to the Dolphins' roster, NFL Network reported. The Dolphins had planned to cut Ballage before finding an unlikely trade partner.
