The Dolphins told some season-ticket holders they "will not be allowed to renew their memberships" for '16 because they have "re-sold a majority of their tickets on secondary markets in the past," according to Armando Salguero of the MIAMI HERALD. This is the second year the team "is using this approach to weed out what it believes to be professional brokers who in the past have bought swaths of seats on a season ticket basis and re-sold them to out-of-town buyers who are typically fans of Dolphins' opponents." The program this year is "affecting fewer season ticket accounts but is identifying more than merely brokers." Dolphins Senior VP & CMO Jeremy Walls said, "We want to protect our most valuable fans, provide them opportunities to get better seats and defend our home field." Salguero noted the Dolphins are "not the only professional team that does this," but the approach "raises questions about how the team monitors the activities of its season ticket members and whether or not those members can do with their tickets whatever they wish." The team privately insists that it understands fans "may sometimes resell their tickets out of choice or extenuating circumstances and it will try to work with fans flagged as having sold their seats 'too often' -- a term not defined by the team" (MIAMIHERALD.com, 12/16).
DISFUNCTION JUNCTION: The Dolphins' 31-24 "MNF" loss to the Giants clinched the seventh straight season they will miss the playoffs -- the team has only played in the postseason once since the '01 season -- and NBC Sports' Mike Florio said of the team, “All flash, all sizzle, paying out that money, dysfunction in the front office." He noted Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross "doesn’t live in Miami" and is "rarely around." Florio: "If you are going to have a billion-dollar operation and you want it to run the right way, you have got to be there. So he either needs to move to Miami and be there every day, or he needs to finds a buyer in Miami who will do that instead of him.” NBC Sports’ Rodney Harrison said, “You’ve got to start at the top, and that’s leadership. Whoever’s writing those checks for guys like Ndamukong Suh and Mike Wallace and Ryan Tannehill -- you expect those guys to be the faces of your franchise and those guys haven’t played well. So that’s what happens year-in year-out, paying the wrong guys, not getting the right people in” (“PFT,” NBCSN, 12/15).
