Think you are underestimating the amount of people that come from that area. As one of those palm beach fans, I go ahead and tell you most hurricanes fans I know up here would not want to add that extra hour plus to go to a game. We would still go to games but instead of going to all the games including the crappy ones you would pick one or two. With a good Miami team the support will be at HRS. Miami is NOT like FSU or Florida or any other college town. Only college team I’ve ever seen with a fan base more like an NFL team. HRS Is a state of the art facility centrally located to the fan base. That 50K seat stadium won’t be able to hold the amount of people who would want to attend a big game like notre dame, Florida, FSU, Texas A & M, etc.
I'm not underestimating the amount of people that come from that area, I'm saying that if the make-or-break is "I'm not going to drive an extra 12 miles", then maybe those fans weren't built for this. And if you want to skip the crappy games, that's fine. All I can tell you is that based on ACTUAL ATTENDANCE, it's not like the "Palm Beach fans" are showing up anyhow.
If you are trying to tell me that the only fanbase that Miami can rely on (a) can't drive an extra 12 miles, (b) prefers to show up to good games, and (c) only shows up when Miami is winning...
I don't know where else you've seen football games, but Hard Rock is NOT "state of the art". It is a 35 year old stadium that has had lots of plastic surgery. I've been to Dallas and Atlanta multiple times, those are state of the art stadiums. Los Angeles has a state of the art stadium. Las Vegas has a state of the art stadium. Yes, the club section at Hard Rock is nice, but the rest of the stadium is mid-tier. I find it amusing that every Hard-Rock-lover/anti-UM-stadium nutjob continues to tell us how a BRAND NEW college stadium would be terrible and inferior to a (then) 40 year old Hard Rock. That's just a load of crap.
And the attendance smack is just a joke. The capacity at Hard Rock is 64,000. You are crapping on a hypothetical 50,000 seat stadium. If you honestly believe that the entire gameday experience and the entire economic structure of the Athletic Department would collapse based on a 14,000 fan differential for the two good games each year, then you are crazy.
We are currently fourth-class tenants at a facility that continues to put more and more athletic and entertainment events ahead of our 6 or 7 gamedays. We already have time limitations on tailgating, the traffic is as bad as ever even with REDUCED capacity, and we have no other current options when the time comes to negotiate a new lease.
But, yeah, we should put up with ALL OF THIS for some fans in Palm Beach who complain about everything and who only show up when we are good enough to beat Notre Dame? And you realize that Hard Rock IS LITERALLY IN DADE COUNTY, so all the Palm Beach pvssies would have to do is drive a few miles farther south into Dade County?
Yeah, I know traffic sucks. I drive to games FROM ORLANDO. I have to drive a motherfvckin' two-southbound-lanes Turnpike until, what, Lantana, when we get a third lane?
So take the Brightline, for those who hate traffic. But I fail to see why UM should be held hostage by "Palm Beach fans" if we want to have our own stadium AT ANOTHER LOCATION IN DADE COUNTY. Yeah, if we move it to Homestead, I'll understand the complaints. But if we move to the east of Marlins Stadium? Or Tropical? Come on, now.
