2023 #MetLifeTakeover – 11.24.23
Last week the NFL played its first ever Black Friday game. The game just so happened to be the annual Miami Dolphins at “New York” Jets game, which happens to be played in New Jersey. Fortunately New Jersey is close enough to NYC that the NYC based Miami Dolphins fan club that I founded can charter a ton of busses and meet up with thousands of Dolphins fans from around the world who come to our yearly event called the #MetLifeTakeover.
I write about Dolfans NYC a few times a year, but I always feel like I need to do a quick rundown, here’s the quickest possible explanation. My business partner Michelle and I were looking for more Dolphins fans to watch with every week so in the offseason between 2008/2009 we founded a fan club called Dolfans NYC. That club has grown to the biggest Miami Dolphins fan club in world and we became a non-profit and have donated over $100k to charity over the last 15 years. Our biggest fundraising event of the year is the #MetLifeTakeover a huge tailgate and group ticket purchase when the Dolphins come up to play the Jets. Okay, now you have context.
Anyway, this year wasn’t our biggest year from a number of tickets sold standpoint, but only because the Jets thought they were going to have a successful season so we could only buy about 950 seats together. However, as the Jets lost more and more games and the Dolphins won more and more games, we got thousands of requests for tickets. We had sold out before the season even started so we started telling people how they could sit with us, and all four sections of the stadium seemed absolutely jam packed with Dolphins fans.
The tailgate was incredible, thanks to our partners at Urban Tailgate. We had music from DJ Drell and Solo D and had appearances from all sorts of well known people that are only well known if you are a Dolphins fan. The whole thing went over perfectly (except for a tiny frustrating incident I am not allowed to talk about for legal reasons) and everyone seemed to have an incredible time. The Dolphins did their part and kicked the shit of of the Jets and we even ended up on Hard Knocks!
If you aren’t familiar, Hard Knocks is an HBO docuseries that follows NFL teams. Originally it was just during training camp but for the last few years they have been following teams in season. NFL teams seem to hate it, but NFL owners like money, and the fans love it. It’s been awesome for more as a Dolphins fan and it was even cooler that they came to our tailgate and did quick 45 second clip about our event. They interviewed Michelle and I, but only used a second of the dialogue, but it was cool that they focused on how Dolphins fans filled the stands and the parking lot. You can watch the whole clip here.
Anyway, it was a great event and we raised thousand and thousands of dollars for charity in the process. Hopefully I will be back in a few weeks with the recap video, but I should be back even sooner with some party pictures as I am shooting an event tonight and headed to Miami Art Basel (and another Dolphins game) in about a week.
These photos from the Takeover aren’t great because frankly I was way too busy and way too stressed out to do a good job taking photos, but hopefully you can get a sense of the event anyway.
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