Dolphins Fans Rank 14th On Road…Maybe

Dec 23, 2012; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Miami Dolphins fan Elgin Hipp before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

So Miami Dolphins fans may rank next to our near the bottom in terms of engaged fans in NFL cities but travel outside of Miami and that number may jump.  In fact it may jump as high as 14.  Now you have to get a little creative with those numbers and the figures.  According to Vivid  Seats, a secondary market seller, the Dolphins are ranked 14th in the NFL in terms of road popularity.

How it appears to work is this.  Vivid tracks the number of after market tickets sold by home teams vs. visiting clubs and then rank them based on who well they perform off the market price.  For example Denver currently is the number one ranked team in the NFL posting a 53.7% market increase on secondary market ticket prices.  In other words, if you are in say, Cleveland and the Cowboys were coming to town you would have a better chance of selling your tickets for a higher profit as the Boyz rank 2nd with an increase of 47.3%.

Where the numbers come into play is that there is no way of telling who is going to the game to say, “Hey I got tickets for the Browns and Cowboys” and are actually non-season ticket holder Browns fans who wanted to see them play the Cowboys or actual Cowboy fans.  Conversely the same can’t be said about who would be a Browns fan wanting to see them play the Dolphins.

The reality here is however, who the hell would want to see the Dolphins play outside of a Miami Dolphins fan?  The Dolphins have a 1.4% drop in after market pricing but that actually isn’t a bad thing.  It means that tickets for a Dolphins ‘Vs’ game should cost you 1.4% less than the face value on an average.  Normally those numbers could be lower but in stadiums that tend to sell out, it will land closer to that number.

For teams like the Dolphins it’s a good indication of road fans who attend the games.  While some of the local fans who do not hold season tickets may opt to purchase these types of tickets, they will normally get their single game tickets from the stadium or through other outlets such as Ticketmaster.  Secondary ticket markets are tickets bought and resold and most local fans don’t buy those types of tickets unless the game is a sell out and the visiting team is a key opponent.

Regardless of the actual numbers and how they line up, the Dolphins are carrying some weight and their fans do account for some attractive road assistance.  I know that in New York, our friends at DolfansNYC come close to eating up two full sections at Met Life.

To further break this down as the folks over at Vivid Seats got me some more information, the Dolphins are the first team that shows a minus in the resale calculations.  The Philadelphia Eagles are 13th with only a 2.7% increase in second market increase.

According to the statistics of second market reselling, fans in Cleveland will spend 41.3% more than their average home game ticket price to the see the Dolphins play.  In Buffalo that number falls to a 17.9% drop below the average price.  In Indianapolis the number drops 28.8% but only .3% for a game in Foxboro.  A game played in Tampa will cost an avearge of 18.5% more to see the Dolphins play while visiting New Orleans will cost 13.3% less.  Pittsburgh is negative 4.5% and in good old New York, the value drops 6.9% off the value of a home game ticket.