Marc Anthony and J-Lo Become Minority Owners of Miami Dolphins (No Pun)

Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez announced that they have become minority owners of the Miami Dolphins, after weeks of speculation. They join fellow Latino superstars Emilio and Gloria Estefan as co-owners of the team. It seems suspect that in a city whose population is 70% Latino, that the Dolphins’ owners would seek out high profile Latino millionaires to invest in the team. Marketing Ploy or coincidence?

The announcement of Anthony’s investment comes on the tails of some pretty heavy Latino pandering on the part of the Dolphins and the NFL. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and ESPN president George Bodenheimer rolled out Marc Anthony when they announced that the NFL would be celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month in September and October. On October 12th Marc Anthony will sing the national anthem before the game that will include several Latino themed events including a video of Gloria Estefan and Hank Williams, Jr. doing a bi-lingual duet version of the Monday Night Football theme (WTF?) It seems pretty clear that the football establishment is trying to market to Latinos, but why? Aren’t sports supposed to be beyond race?

Race and sports has had a complicated past. It took until 1948 for the color barrier to be broken in baseball when  the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson up from the negro leagues. Before this time non-whites were relegated to playing in racially and ethnically exclusive leagues in which some of the greatest players of all time were relegated to relative obscurity. Fifty years later you have an NFL in which black players make up half of the teams and an MLB where there seem to be more Latino names than not. People of all races and ethnicities come to cheer on the players whether they are white or not. Sports seems to be the one facet of American life in which there seems to be any kind of true racial harmony. Players are judged by their abilities and talent and not on the color of their skin. So, why all the pandering to Latinos all of a sudden? A clue may be found in a statement made by Dolphins’ majority owner Stephen Ross:

“Having Marc and Emilio and Gloria is important in showing this community, this team is about them. They are great representatives of the Latin community,” Ross said. “There will be a few more people who will join them.”

Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, and will become the majority in approximately 50 years. Many Latinos also have amassed great fortunes in the United States, and it seems that Ross is trying to capitalize on that. By having high profile Latinos investing in the team it might lure other rich Latinos to invest. It would also, presumably, up ticket sales among Latinos who would shell out money to see a team that was so open to them, truly making it the “people’s team.”

The impetus behind this move seems to be Ross, who has launched an all out campaign to Latinofy their organization. It is Ross who has approached these Latino stars and worked with the NFL to create the Hispanic Heritage month festivities.  He spoke pushed to create a Spanish language website for the team saying:

“That’s one of the first things I said: ‘How can we not have this?’,” Ross said in comments appearing in the Miami Herald. “Pittsburgh has one. San Diego has one. How can Miami not have a Hispanic website? That was one of the most obvious things.”

Is any of this really necessary? People tend to root for their home team, or at least one near their home. If you live in South Florida, who the hell else are you going to support? In Texas, for example, many Latinos tend to favor the Dallas Cowboys, not because they are Latino friendly but because they are a team that has won a lot of Super Bowls and they are from their home state. In New York the eternal question of Jets Vs. Giants has absolutely nothing to do with which team shows that they are most down with their homies in the barrio. There is no need to market sports teams to Latinos, they already like them. It is like marketing crack to crackheads. This effort is mainly indicative of a greater problem with corporations that they think that in order for Latinos to like something they need to dress up in sombreros and dance salsa for our entertainment.

It seems like a marketing scheme on the part of the Dolphins and the NFL to appeal to the growing Latino population, but it probably won’t work. Nothing is going to make a die hard fan root for another city’s team…well, except for money, which helps ease native New Yorkers Marc and Jenny from the block’s conscience about investing in an enemy team.

Marc Anthony Buys Stake in Miami Dolphins [Sun Sentinel.com]
Singer Marc Anthony In Talks To Become Miami Dolphins Minority Owner [The Miami Herald]
The Miami Dolphins Learn To Swim Towards Spanish Speakers [Hispanic Market Weekly]