Team Branding - The new Marlins

[Spider-Dan]

Making the playoffs twice in 18 years is a good product?

Wow.  It takes some mighty impressive skills at understatement to somehow describe "winning the championship" as "making the playoffs."

[Brian]

Wow.  It takes some mighty impressive skills at understatement to somehow describe "winning the championship" as "making the playoffs."

Where is the consistency though? And i'm not saying they should win titles every year but atleast be in the pennant race here and there. They haven't been close other than those two years.

[Dave Gray]

The economics don't allow for long-term consistency with a team like the Marlins.  They would be hemorrhaging money in the down years.

[Spider-Dan]

Where is the consistency though? And i'm not saying they should win titles every year but atleast be in the pennant race here and there. They haven't been close other than those two years.

It sounds like you prefer the Andy Reid model of franchise performance: always "in the mix" but never winning anything.

The team won two titles in its first decade of existence, and still never established a real fan base.  I'm not sure how else you can spin that.

[Brian Fein]

Its not to be taken lightly that there is a large portion of the fan base that still says "every time they win something they sell off the whole team..."  It hasn't happened in almost a decade, but people still say that.  These people are likely the exact same fair-weathered fans that lined up to buy World Series tickets, and didn't go to one other single game in 2003 or 1997.

In Florida, winning trumps everything.  Until the Marlins are relevant, hell, even make the playoffs one time, they won't have a large enough fan base to fill their new stadium.