As senior vice president of operations at Sun Life Stadium, Todd Boyan is charged with adding revenue-generating events to the venue’s staples: the Miami Dolphins and University of Miami football. One such event comes next month, with the championship round of the Guinness International Champions Cup, an eight-team soccer tournament featuring some of the world’s more prominent clubs.
— Compiled by Bill King
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Photo by: MIAMI DOLPHINS
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There are a large number of people coming to the stadium because of the sport of soccer who have never been here before. … The great opportunity for us is to have people become more and more comfortable with coming here, and hopefully that will translate with respect to their attendance at Miami Dolphins games.”
International soccer in South Florida: In 2011, we had Barcelona play against Chivas and broke the state record: Over 70,000 people attended that match. That was really an impetus for folks to say, “There’s an opportunity here.” But we can’t take it for granted. We’ve got to go out and be smart with how we approach that.
Challenges in ticket sales: There are so many different nationalities here that one of the things we’re finding is, they don’t all consume content from the same place. Ecuadoreans are getting their media in a different place from the Argentinians, so one size does not fit all. You’ve got to get into the community. We’re very focused on grass roots.
Impact of the Marlins’ move: We had primary tenants who took up the stadium most of the year. We had pro football, college football and Major League Baseball. There weren’t many openings once you had those three. Take away the Marlins, and that opened up 81 baseball dates, so the opportunities were large and wide.
Soccer events having a broader effect: Colombia played twice here, against Mexico and Guatemala. Colombian fans are familiar with coming here now and are far more likely to come to events, so now we’re also focusing on events that are not soccer. The Colombian Independence Festival, going into its 25th year in Miami, moved to Sun Life Stadium in July. Also in July, we added the Venezuelan Independence Festival. We’ve signed on four festivals and have more in the pipeline. … Our hope is that we’ll attract people who wouldn’t otherwise come to the stadium and they’ll learn more about the Dolphins and want to come back.
