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A smiling Dolphins contingent including owner Wayne Huizenga, coach Cam Cameron and star player Jason Taylor has been on a promotional junket in London this week, bugling the Oct. 28 game vs. the Giants there, and predictably reporting an enthusiastic response.
There is said to be such excitement and anticipation across the pond, you half expected the welcoming party to include a helmeted Queen Elizabeth in a three-point stance. Have they painted Big Ben in aqua and orange yet or does that come later?
Well, jolly good! Britons should be happy. They get the novelty of a major American sporting event, hand-delivered.
Cheerio! The NFL should be happy, too, of course. It gets a big shot of international publicity, growing the product, boosting its struggling NFL Europa league and watching all of that officially licensed merchandise fly off U.K. shelves.
You know who shouldn't be real happy about this London game, though?
Any South Floridians who care passionately about the Dolphins.
Miami agreeing to participate in the NFL's historic first regular-season game outside of North America might be financially smart for the club or by a modicum grow the franchise's stature. But the point of our concern here isn't the business product, it's for the team on the field. Our concern isn't watering Huizenga's money tree.
The Dolphins officially will be the ''home'' team in the game. Ain't that a hoot! To be home the Dolphins will take a 10-hour flight to a foreign stadium. That's three hours longer than the Giants must travel, by the way.
In reality, Miami -- a team struggling to end a five-season playoff drought -- will have one fewer actual home game than every other team in the league. You can bet some of the people cheering loudest when the Dolphins in London was announced were Miami's AFC East rivals.
And you seriously wonder how much Cameron and Taylor and the rest of the team are smiling in private at the thought of traveling 4,500 miles for this ''home'' game. And whether those smiles are grimaces.
Losing one home game might not be such a big deal in other sports, but losing one game is magnified when there are only eight to begin with. And when history tells us the Dolphins are 20 percent more likely to win at home than when bags are packed.
Dolfans get cheated in this deal, too. The vast majority will lose out on a home game, because only a relative few can spare the time or afford the pricey package deals to attend a game overseas. Only season-ticket holders even have the chance to.
As if games at Dolphin Stadium weren't expensive enough, a couple attending Miami's Oct. 28 ''home'' game can figure to spend between $5,000 and $10,000.
It would be fitting if season-ticket holders at least were able to obtain tickets to the London game and then re-sell them on the open market -- a small profit in exchange for being cheated out of a home game -- but the NFL isn't even allowing that.
Tickets bought separately from one of the pricey tour packages must be picked up in London the week of the game by a season-ticket holder with a photo ID. The NFL has no such safeguard in place for Super Bowl tickets, but suddenly the league wants to prevent a Dolphin season-ticket holder from making a few bucks on a London ticket he is able to order but not sell.
That doesn't seem right, just as it isn't fair to a team's fans for the NFL to play games that count overseas simply to pimp the sport internationally. Yet it's a trend that will only grow. Two years ago the NFL staged a Cardinals-49ers game in Mexico City, the first regular-season game outside the U.S. Dolphins-Giants this year will be the first in a parade of nine regular-season games played abroad over the next five years.
The NFL's allegiance should be to its teams' local fans, and the league should not pander to a global market at those hometown fans' expense.
The NFL playing a serious game in London makes about as much sense as the European Cup soccer championship being held in Milwaukee.
Supposedly the Dolphins have many serious fans throughout the United Kingdom? Well here's a novel concept then: Let them come here.
It would make sense both ways, right?
The Dolphins and their fans would experience the simple delight of having every home game within a short drive rather than a transcontinental flight.
And Londoners in turn would enjoy the bonus of some needed South Florida sun on those milk-bottle complexions.



Dolphins' 'home game' in London cheats fans - 06/21/2007 - MiamiHerald.com