As the Miami Dolphins struggle to regain relevance in South Florida, they’re also struggling to get paid by season ticket holders who have stiffed them.
Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports, in an item that ponders the status of a franchise that seems to be dog paddling at best, reports that the team has hired an outside company to obtain payment from “a couple of hundred” season ticket holders.
Adam Grossman, the Dolphins’ V.P. of public affairs, said that the outside company isn’t a collection agency. Even though it’s an agency that is attempting to collect money owed to the Dolphins.
“We enlisted the services of a company that has an accounts receivable recovery module,” Grossman told Cole. “This is not a collections service. They are a third party that is helping us contact account holders that we [haven’t] been able to reach over the past six months, even though they have received – on average – 8 to 10 communications (letters, e-mails, personal phone calls, video blasts, invitations to participate in private, special events, etc).”
So it’s not a collection agency. It’s a company that does several things. Including the collection of debts.
It’s not the first time a team has tried to force its customers to make good on their commitments; Cole points out that the Redskins have done something similar. But it’s arguably not an ideal time for the Dolphins to be getting attention for something like this. The team responded to a dreadful 1-15 season in 2007 with an unexpected division title in 2008, which served only to create unreasonable expectations in 2009 and 2010.
And now the team with an owner who wanted Jim Harbaugh but settled for Tony Sparano and a coach who wanted Kyle Orton but settled for Chad Henne has a fan base that wants the Miami Heat but due to a lockout that would wipe out the NBA season may have to settle for the Dolphins.
