We’ve previously noted that when the Miami Dolphins changed their ticket prices this year, one of the changes was charging about $5 more per ticket for seats in the shade than for seats in the sun.
But the Dolphins’ preference is simply to avoid having any early-afternoon games in the sweltering heat.
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports that the NFL said it will consider Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’s request to have few, if any, 1 p.m. hot-weather home games. But a league source also told Jackson that “it’s impossible to fulfill the wish list of every team.”
Scheduling games in September in Miami can be tough both because of heat and because of the threat of hurricanes, and the league might be tempted to skew the Dolphins’ schedule so that they play mostly on the road for the first several weeks of the schedule and then get to play at home for most of the late part of the year.
But the Patriots, Jets and Bills likely wouldn’t favor that idea, and ultimately, there’s just not much that can be done about the fact that the weather plays a part in outdoor football.
And if the Dolphins are so concerned about the heat, they could always build a dome.