The effort to renovate the Miami Dolphins’ home stadium with public money has sparked a fight between two guys with a lot of it.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and former Eagles owner Norman Braman (pictured), both billionaires, continue to battle over the question of whether taxpayer funds should pay for part of the effort to upgrade Sun Life Stadium. According to Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald, the spat is getting personal.
In other words, it’s getting good.
In recent days, Dolphins CEO Mike Dee called Braman a “bitter man” and “irrelevant.” (At least he’s not the world’s most irrelevant billionaire, a title I still aspire to achieve.) Braman, in turn, privately has called Dee “an [expletive].” (Armando, you’ve got to give us something more than that. First letter or last letter, please. Otherwise, the imagination leads to all sorts of places, including words that may or may not include hyphens.)
Not to be outdone, Ross privately has said that Braman is “full of [expletive].” (OK, that’s a little easier.)
At a stadium-related press conference on Wednesday, Dee said Braman took public money to fund his car dealerships. Also on Wednesday, Braman accused the Dolphins of funding “union thugs” to picket Braman’s downtown Miami car lot.
While it’s fun to watch a couple of really rich guys act like the rest of us sometimes do, the mere existence of the fight hurts Ross, since it ultimately will do nothing to make people more inclined to show up at the polls and vote for public money to be used to help any billionaire with any project.
So, for now, advantage Braman.