Martin Schwartz and Matthew Mandel are having a moment. Actually there are two. The two teams, lifelong friends, hit the sports jackpot this month when the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers both made the playoffs and advanced to the Finals. They are currently competing for both the NBA and NHL titles.
Schwartz and Mandel, lifelong South Florida residents and friends since college, have shared season tickets for both teams for years. The Heat won just 15 games in the 2007-08 season, and home games were filled with raucous fans rooting for the visiting team.
They celebrated the Heat’s title runs in 2012 and 2013 under Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and enjoyed the Panthers’ sporadic playoff appearances. But they never believed that both teams would start the postseason as No. 8 seeds, upset the top-ranked clubs and fight for a championship.
“I was very pessimistic when the playoffs started,” said Schwartz, who was a bat boy for the Florida Marlins in the 1990s and wore a Panthers jersey during Wednesday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets. “But we realized it’s all about the playoffs. You have to enjoy it. “You only get one chance.”
this 10th two teams In one market, we played in the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals in the same year. The last time that happened was in 2016, when the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks (both losers) were competing for a title. The Bruins and Celtics have done it three times, dating back to 1957, and the Knicks and Rangers twice. However, the hockey and basketball teams from the same region have never won championships in the same year.
The chase for a championship turned into a night game in South Florida this week as the Heat and Panthers played at home for the fourth straight night. The stadiums are about 40 miles apart and each team has a core of fans, but some, like Schwartz and Mandel, are all in on both sports. Both teams are 1-2 in the series heading into Friday’s game against the Heat.
“It’s something that rarely happens, so we wanted to give it a try,” said Raul Arias, a Miami native who attended back-to-back Heat and Panthers games with his brother, father and friends.
This is the first time two teams from a southern market are chasing the title at the same time, but it could happen. The nation’s biggest sports leagues have been coming to Florida for years, and for good reason. They are businesses looking for new fans, new sponsors and larger television audiences, and America’s demographics have tilted toward the South and West for decades.
The Rangers and Bruins have been on the ice since Calvin Coolidge was president. But history is fungible and fleeting in sports. The Heat arrived in Miami in 1988 when Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was a hit. The Panthers joined the NHL in 1993. Six more teams have since joined the league: the Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights.
The final between the Panthers and Las Vegas Golden Knights will likely disappoint traditional fans in Canada and the northern states and be the ultimate culmination of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s “Southern Strategy.” Bettman defended the change despite financial difficulties for teams in Arizona and other new markets. But teams in northern markets, including the Devils and Islanders, have had financial problems. And while teams in southern markets (Atlanta comes to mind) have lost teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars are both on solid footing.
Speaking with reporters before the first game of the Finals, Bettman’s agent, Bill Daly, noted that Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith has also expressed interest in bringing a hockey team to Salt Lake City.
When another team enters the “traditional” hockey market, fans of older teams may groan. They think little of South Florida fans, who are already accused of showing up fashionably late to games and leaving early to avoid traffic. They are often labeled as transplants who root for their old hometown team. Or Ultimate Burn: They show up when the going is good and disappear when the team is in the tank.
All of that is true to some extent. But fans are like that wherever they go, including New York and Los Angeles. And while Florida is growing by leaps and bounds, adding millions of new residents over the past decade, some of its transplants are embracing its newfound sporting bounty. Playoff games sold out for some tickets on the resale market, reaching four-figure sums. According to Fanatics, since May 1, Heat and Panthers equipment sales have surged 460% compared to the same period last year. Sports radio hosts have been enjoying some hoops and hockey – and even added some football – after Lionel Messi announced he was joining Inter Miami on Thursday.
“The more they win, the busier we get,” said Norma Shelow, who has co-owned Mike’s in Venetia for more than 30 years, a short walk from the Kaseya Center. She said sales are up 40 to 50 percent during the playoffs, when fans start filling restaurants hours before game time.
Shelow said they have many regulars, including NBA referees who stop by after games. But she also welcomes many newcomers, usually requiring reservations even though the bar is first-come, first-served.
“I’ve lived here for many years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Abel Sanchez, 50, an amateur sports historian. “If either of them wins, it will be a moment. If both win, who owns the movie rights? And if you want to jump on the bandwagon, there’s space.”
It is not uncommon for transplant teams to adopt or divide loyalties with their new home team. My father rooted for the Giants in baseball growing up in New York, but switched his allegiance to the Mets when our family moved to Long Island in the 1960s. (He still loved Willie Mays and took me to see the San Francisco Giants when they came to town.) A move to West Palm Beach in the 1990s brought him the Marlins, who rewarded his loyalty with two World Series titles.
Florida has added 4 million new residents in the past decade, including people who moved to Miami from Latin and South America. Some of these newcomers adopted the Heat and Panthers as their home teams, even if they had never played basketball or hockey. And why not? Cheering on a sports team may be the most communal activity in American life.
“I’m all in for Jimmy Butler,” said Adam Trowles, a Briton who travels between Miami and London to watch Heat games in the wee hours of the morning. “If I could, I would like to marry him.”
On Wednesday, Trowles found tickets to attend Game 3 against the Denver Nuggets. It was so expensive that he and his girlfriend, Gessica Jean, watched the game at Duffy’s Tavern in Coral Gables.
Despite all the turmoil, football remains the undisputed king of Florida sports. The city still cheers when the Dolphins and Miami Hurricanes win. Tampa went wild in 2021 with the Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl and the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup.
But it has its place in basketball and hockey. Transplants from Canada and the Northeast and Midwest remained loyal. But over time new fans emerge, even for the Panthers whose home ice at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Florida is sandwiched between a shopping mall and the Everglades Wildlife Management Area. For the locals, it was a parade of wealth.
At the Quarterdeck, a sports bar 10 minutes from the stadium, Tyler Craig watched the Panthers beat the Knights in overtime Thursday.
“We’ve watched so many games it’s almost exhausting,” he said.
