Hard Rock Stadium will take full advantage of its clubs and suites for hospitality options during the tennis tournament. Rossetti
The Miami Dolphins are building more than a new home for the Miami Open tennis tournament in time for next year’s competition. They will also sell the tickets, market the event, and advise on sponsorship sales.
The Dolphins are forming a 12-person sales staff dedicated to only the tournament and will use their own fan data, with cross-sell emails scheduled to go out in May to season-ticket holders. Bank Itau, which is sponsoring the event, will even get use of Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ personal suite during the tournament (the main court will be on the field of Hard Rock Stadium).
“We believe eventually this is a model” for other tennis events, said Fernando Soler, head of IMG tennis, and who with Dolphins President Tom Garfinkel will jointly oversee the Miami Open.
Certainly, it could become a model for events to carve out territory within a stadium complex. The unique arrangement has a top professional tennis event working hand in glove with an NFL team to build a $60 million tennis venue on the side of a stadium and handle the business together. IMG’s full-time Miami Open staff, numbering just under two dozen, will relocate to the stadium from their offices in Coral Gables.
IMG, a division of Endeavor, turned to the Dolphins after a years-long effort to expand its now former and decaying tournament home on Key Biscayne was stymied by an environmentalist who oversaw the parkland where the event resided for 32 years. The last men’s final was scheduled for this past Sunday.
Outside, the Dolphins are carving up part of the parking lot to install a tennis garden that will feature 30 courts.Rossetti
Of the $60 million in work underway at the stadium in preparation for the tournament, Ross is spending $52 million and IMG is providing $8 million.
The Dolphins are carving out part of the stadium’s parking lot and installing a landscaped tennis garden featuring 29 courts, eight more than the old facility used by the tournament, and capacity 30 percent higher at 32,474. IMG is also getting the elite sales know-how of the Dolphins.
There is some irony here in that tennis events have always lived and died selling tickets, whereas for NFL teams until recently sales was more an afterthought in a low inventory business driven primarily by television.
Under Garfinkel, though, the Dolphins have become an NFL leader in marketing, as well as pulling events into the newly renovated Hard Rock Stadium. Walking through the many clubs that will host tennis fans next year, Garfinkel promised the event would draw a wider audience that would receive hospitality unmatched in tennis because of the stadium’s clubs and suites.
What is now commonplace across team sports — club lounges that spill out to outdoor seats — is rare in tennis. The stadium will seat 12,000 to 13,000 for tennis, and take full advantage of its suites and clubs, from the 72 Club to the The Nine Hosted by Aston Martin Residences. The stadium also boasts reclining chairs in certain areas that are sure to be a first for tennis.
The rest of what will be a permanent facility is under construction, and will boast tree-lined plazas, a No. 2 court that seats over 5,000, and another show court that seats 3,000. A 90-foot-wide by 40-foot-tall video board will be attached to the outside of the stadium and overlook the tennis plaza.
Players will get use of the stadium locker rooms, which will be retrofitted for tennis.
