Ballpark Issue Looms for Marlins

The Florida Marlins were less than six weeks into their first season in 1993 when founding owner Wayne Huizenga began talking of the need for a new ballpark.

Huizenga formulated plans to build “Wayne’s World,” a 2,300-acre sports and entertainment complex between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, anchored by a 45,000-seat stadium for his team.

More than a decade later, that site is a housing development. And though the Marlins won World Series titles in 1997 and again last year, the two-time champions appear no closer to a new ballpark than when Huizenga first raised the idea.

As the Marlins assemble in Jupiter, Fla., for spring training workouts starting Monday, the ballpark issue looms like one of those summer thunderclouds so familiar at Pro Player Stadium. Team president David Samson set a March 15 deadline to reach a deal with Miami-Dade County.

“It’s my experience that without a deadline, nothing ever gets done,” Samson says. “The deadline is firm. It’s not flaccid.”

Unless the Marlins get a new ballpark with a retractable roof, Samson says, they won’t stay in South Florida, but it’s unclear where they would go. The threat of contraction has passed, at least for now, and it’s been 32 years since a major-league team moved.

At the very least, failure to land a ballpark deal could trigger another round of salary slashing, forcing a dismantling reminiscent of the Marlins’ payroll purge that followed the 1997 title season. Given likely fan reaction, the franchise might never recover.

Samson, who correctly predicted the Marlins’ improbable 91-71 record last year, now predicts a stadium deal.

“We do not plan on failing,” he says.

This is only the most recent push for a new ballpark.

“Wayne’s World” fizzled in 1994. Huizenga subsequently sold the Marlins to John Henry, whose plan to use cruise-tax money to build a stadium in downtown Miami was scuttled by Gov. Jeb Bush on opening day 2000.

Now the issue again comes to a head -- this time with Jeffrey Loria as team owner and the Marlins as the reigning World Series champions.

They want a new home because they receive only a small percentage of the revenue from concessions, parking, signage and suites at Pro Player Stadium, which is owned by Huizenga. They want a roof because they believe almost daily summer showers hurt attendance.

Despite winning it all last season, the Marlins say they lost $18 million. Without the revenue increase resulting from a new ballpark, Samson says, the team can’t afford a player like All-Star third baseman Mike Lowell.

That’s why the four-year, $32 million contract Lowell signed in December includes an escape clause after this season tied to a new ballpark. But he dismisses the issue as a distraction.

“There are a lot of other things to talk about,” Lowell says. “I don’t think the players really care. They would prefer a new ballpark, but when it comes to preparing for a season, the stadium might be topic No. 1,000 on a list of 900.”

Loria and Samson have made little headway trying to transform Marlins mania into taxpayer support for a ballpark. South Florida residents are still paying for three arenas that opened from 1988-99, and the teams that benefited -- the NBA Miami Heat and NHL Florida Panthers -- have nonetheless lost lots of money and games in recent seasons.

“Clearly new buildings are not a panacea,” Heat owner Micky Arison says. “There are a lot of markets you can see where maybe there’s an uptick for a year. But if you’re not doing the right things on the marketing side, the customer-service side and on the field or the court, the new building isn’t going to solve any problems. Clearly it hasn’t solved our problems.”

In South Florida, such problems as overcrowded schools and roads are widely regarded as more serious, and the alternatives for a new stadium all seem flawed.

One proposal pushed by the city of Miami calls for a ballpark adjacent to a renovated Orange Bowl. But financing is uncertain and the plans lack a retractable roof.

Farther north, boxing promoter Don King suggests a site he owns in Palm Beach County, where some of the nation’s wealthiest residents live. King promises big crowds that would include Venus and Serena Williams, and other rich and famous fans.

“We’ve got everything here -- a great population, great wealth, everything from the proletariat to the elite,” King says. “We’ve got to step up to the plate.”

A civic group proposed expanding the 8,340-seat Fort Lauderdale Stadium, but that plan -- like King’s proposal -- lacks details on financing. The Marlins have shown little interest in either site, although that could change after March 15.

Samson says the Marlins are less concerned about location than about how to pay for a ballpark costing $325 million or more, and they’ll happily rename the team.

“Whether it’s the Florida Marlins, the Miami Marlins, the Broward Marlins, the Stuart Marlins, the Palm Beach Marlins, the Key Largo Marlins, what matters is that we’ve got major league baseball in South Florida,” Samson says. “We care more about keeping the team here than what name is on the front of the jersey.”

At this late date, more than a decade into the search for a new ballpark, all that can be ruled out is “Wayne’s World.”