Google, if you will, the phrase “Miami Heat Game 6 fans.” What you’ll find is a flurry of articles written by various news outlets – both local and national – embarrassingly calling out fans that left last year’s intense NBA finals face-off early.
What was the main reason that these seat holders gave reporters for leaving early?
They just had to beat the Miami traffic.
Those fans may have gotten home 30 minutes earlier, but the articles written about them will stay on Google’s search engines for years to come.
The University of Miami athletics department and head football coach Al Golden are planning to release a video during the next football game to urge students to stay for the entire duration of games. I think this is a great idea. But will it work? That I’m not so sure about.
Every year at the beginning of the fall semester, I hear so much excitement about football games, tailgates and cut-up game day shirts. The intensity is palpable. Because of all this energy, it has taken me three years to realize something so readily apparent. While there are many die hard football Canes fans out there, there are also a lot of pseudo-fans that go to games more for the football culture than for the actual football.
These are the fans that will wake up at 5 a.m. to be at Sun Life Stadium by 6 a.m. with a foam finger in one hand and two mimosas in the other. They are the ones ready to leave at halftime in order to escape the endless list of hassles they magically hadn’t felt before kickoff: Heat, noise, boredom and exhaustion. Must have been all those intense games of beer pong.
Everyone is entitled to make his or her own decision about how to spend time on game day. However, lack of attendance – or even worse, dwindling fans as a game progresses – reflects poorly on our student body, our university and our team. Most of the time, this damage is irreparable.
Considering the negative attention Miami Heat fans garnered for leaving Game 6 a bit too soon, I think a true Canes fan would think twice before hopping on that shuttle back to campus.
Amilynn Soto is a senior majoring in advertising and psychology.