Stadium Stories: Fans and a Sneak Preview
The Miami Dolphins announced Monday they will accommodate up to 13,000 fans for their home opener against the Buffalo Bills at Hard Rock Stadium on Sept. 13.
The figure represents 20 percent of the capacity at Hard Rock Stadium. The game against Buffalo will come one week after Miami's regular season opener against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, where no fans will be allowed in the stadium.
The decision came as great news for quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick.
“I played a lot of games in college with less fans than that, so I might be a good one to ask about that," joked Fitzpatrick, who — in case you haven't heard — played at Harvard. "I just heard that walking over here, so I’m excited. I think just from everything that I’ve seen within this organization, the day-to-day, I know that they made that decision with everybody’s health and safety as the No. 1 priority, so I think I’m very comfortable with that and knowing that they’re doing it for the right reasons and they’re going to do it the right way.
"It’s huge for us as players to have some noise, to have some crowd reaction. It’s a big thing. It’ll be interesting as that plays out all year long — which stadiums do, which don’t — but as players, we’re excited to get fans out there cheering for us.”
The Dolphins previously announced precautionary measures for fans at Hard Rock Stadium in 2020, including:
-- Socially distanced seating clusters
-- All fans and stadium employees will be required to wear a mask when not actively eating or drinking
-- Upgrading Air Conditioning filters from Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) 10 to MERV 14 (Hospital Grade)
-- Mobile touchless entry with more points of entries and exits to help avoid bottlenecks at ingress/egress
-- Staggered gate entry with entry times listed on game tickets
-- Cashless experience for food service, parking and retail
-- New walk through metal detectors with touchless security screening to allow fans to keep all items in their pockets for faster entry
-- 1 metal detector for every 104 fans vs 1 metal detector for every 394 fans in 2019
-- Changing from manual to contactless toilets and faucets
-- No smoking inside the stadium or helixes
-- No tailgating for 2020 season with parking lots open two hours before kickoff instead of four hours
These programs are in addition to Hard Rock Stadium becoming the first stadium in the world to receive GBAC STAR™ accreditation from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), a Division of ISSA, the worldwide cleaning industry association. Hard Rock Stadium completed 20 program elements focused on cleaning, disinfection and infectious disease prevention practices to control risks associated with infectious agents.
“When we started the process back in March of exploring what a socially distanced stadium could look like, we made the health and safety of everyone the first priority; knowing that if we felt that we couldn’t make it safe, we simply wouldn’t have fans,” Miami Dolphins Vice Chairman and CEO Tom Garfinkel said in a statement.. “We’re happy that our elected officials recognize the attention to detail and diligence that we’ve put into creating a safe environment and that they made the decision to move forward with a 13,000-capacity stadium at this time.”
On the topic of Hard Rock Stadium, the Dolphins were there Sunday to conduct a walk-through and give their new players a feel for their new home for their 2020 regular season games.
“It was good," head coach Brian Flores said. "We have a lot of new players that have never been there. They’ve never seen our locker room. They don’t know where the training room is or where the equipment room is or where the showers are, how we walk out to the tunnel. I think it’s good to get out there. It’s our home stadium, so where is the game clock? Where is the 40-second clock? As a coaching staff, to check the headsets and do a dry run from that standpoint, I thought it was good.
"It’s always good to go to the stadium and get on the grass there and get a feel for where we’re actually going to play the games that we’re preparing so much for. We’re putting all of this hard work and energy into these practices and it’s good to get out there, even in a walk-through setting, to kind of feel the atmosphere of being at the stadium. I think we got a lot out of it.”
The Dolphins actually won't be the first team to play a game at Hard Rock Stadium this season because the University of Miami's season opener is scheduled to be played there Sept. 10.
