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A new low? Marlins suing ex-season ticket holders, stadium vendors
The Miami Marlins have found yet another new way to make themselves look like the laughingstock of Major League Baseball. According to a report from the Miami New Times, the club is suing a number of ex-season ticket holders and stadium vendors who say they either grew tired of the club's unkept promises or were driven out of business when the Marlins didn't meet their projected attendance figures.
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It's not something you see often in sports, particularly not in the case of a pro sports team suing its fans, but this is the Marlins we're talking about, so nothing should be too surprising. Remember, the Marlins are the team that promised Miami taxpayers a winner so they would pay for the team's fancy new stadium, only to dismantle the team mid-way through the first season in that new stadium to cut costs.
There have been a series of Marlins controveries since then, some of which include owner Jeffrey Loria meddling in on-field decisions or other promises the team made and didn't keep.
Here's the scoop on the latest Marlins debacle from the New Times:
[T]he Marlins have sued at least nine season ticketholders and luxury suite owners since 2013. That virtually never happens in sports, experts say. Two stadium vendors are also locked in court battles with the team, both alleging the Marlins promised robust crowds and then didn't deliver.
All this from a team that has gone from world champion to perennial also-ran, hustled taxpayers on a Little Havana stadium, and just lost its best hitter and last year's National League batting champion Dee Gordon to an 80-game drug suspension.
"You bamboozled us for this ballpark and now you have the audacity to sue a small businessman?" says Rene Prats, who went into bankruptcy after his Sir Pizza franchises failed at the ballpark. "I lost it all. I lost my business. And you're coming after me?"
The Marlins declined comment for the New Times' story.
From the fan side of things, the New Times tells the story of Mickey Axelband, a local veterinarian who had been a Marlins season ticket holder since the ballclub debuted in 1993. When they opened Marlins Park in 2012, he agreed to pay the club $24,000 for his pair of prime season tickets. That was up from $13,000 the year before. He says the Marlins promised him a number of first-class amenities, such as bottom-level parking in the stadium garage, a private entrance into the stadium and a special lounge for season ticket holders with pre- and postgame buffets.
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Axelband told the New Times that mid-way through the first season at Marlins Park, just like how the Marlins had shipped off some of their players, they had stopped with the special parking and special entrance. The fancy buffet? It was the same food every game.
Axelband says he felt like he wasn't getting his money's worth, so he wrote the Marlins a letter, asking them to give back the amenities they'd promised. The club said no. So after that season, Axelband decided he wouldn't pay another $24,000 for the following year, even though he'd agreed to a two-year ticket contract. His thinking: The Marlins didn't keep their end of the bargain, so he wasn't going to either. That's how his lawsuit came to be, and Axelband says he'll fight the Marlins just on the principle that they didn't deliver what they promised.
Just how rare is something like this? The New Times cited a few instances involving teams with season-ticket holder lawsuits, but one involved a celebrity and the other just ended up being a threat.
This tough legal approach, experts say, is quite rare but not unheard of. The Dodgers in 2010 sued actor Jon Lovitz and filmmaker Steve Marlton for failing to pay for season tickets, according to Jordan Kobritz, chair of the Sport Management Department at SUNY Cortland. The Washington Redskins in 2008 threatened to sue around 125 season ticketholders who could no longer afford their packages during the recession. The Skins later backed down.
Most teams weigh the lost revenue against attorney's fees and potential bad press, then decide a court fight isn't worth it. "I'm not sure the Marlins thought this through," says Darren Heitner, a Fort Lauderdale sports law attorney and Forbes contributor. "If you're contemplating getting season tickets, now you're worried you won't get everything you bargained for and you even might end up in litigation."
That last part seems like the biggest problem. Lawsuits happen often, especially in the worlds of rich people and million-dollar companies. But the Marlins are a team that has already lost a lot of trust within their own community and among baseball fans in general. So is publicly fighting with ex-season tickets the best way to reconnect with either groups? It sure doesn't seem like it.
Of all the dubious things the Marlins have done over the years — from pulling a bait-and-switch once taxpayers paid for their new stadium to making their general manager their field manager last season — suing ex-season ticket holders seems like the most petulant.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
