Maybe they should have had another University of Florida reunion.
With the Jets and Tim Tebow coming to town, the Dolphins still can’t sell out their allotment of non-premium tickets, even though the team took full advantage this season of the rule that allows the minimum to be reduced from 100 percent to 85.
According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Dolphins have received a 24-hour extension of the deadline for selling enough seats to lift the local TV blackout.
“We’re hopeful of getting it on local television. We’re still hopeful of selling this game out,” Dolphins spokesman Harvey Greene said Thursday, via the Sun-Sentinel. “We said last week that we would be looking at this on a week-to-week basis.”
Last week, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross wrote a check (at 34 cents on the dollar) for all unsold non-premium seats at Sun Life Stadium. This week, that may not be happening.
Or, perhaps more accurately, Ross and the Dolphins want fans to think that he won’t be writing the check.
Typically, extensions aren’t granted absent an assurance that the tickets will be sold, either to fans or to the team. The problem for Ross is that, by buying the unsold tickets in the past, fans will see through the false sense of urgency that the 24-hour extension creates.
In the end, we think Ross will pay the money to get the game on TV. At a time when more and more local residents have become ambivalent about the Dolphins, he needs to do everything he can to keep them from being out of sight and out of mind.
As opposed to being in plain view and out of mind.