What will Heat home games look like at FTX Arena next season? Here’s an early prediction
The Miami Heat opened this past season with no fans in attendance at home games because of the COVID-19 pandemic and progressed far enough to close the season with a capacity of 17,000 for the playoffs.
Next season? The hope is the Heat’s newly renamed home building, FTX Arena, will operate at its full capacity of 19,600 from the start.
“Listen, I don’t know about full capacity. I think it remains to be seen,” Heat president of business operations Eric Woolworth said to the Miami Herald earlier this month. “Certainly our hope is that we are back to a full-capacity situation. I think barring some curveballs with what happens with the virus, I think we will be.”
The Heat wasn’t the only team that increased capacity at its home arena for the playoffs after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened some of its recommended protocols for those who are fully vaccinated. Most of the teams that qualified for the postseason announced increased capacity, with the positivity rate for COVID-19 dropping for most of the country as vaccination rates increased.
Woolworth noted that the demand from season-ticket holders for next season has been “super great” despite some lingering uncertainty on what the fan experience will look like at FTX Arena in a few months. The Heat does not release specific renewal rates.
“It was one of our best renewal years ever,” Woolworth said. “I think you saw it, right, in the playoffs. People are super excited to be back in community gathering situations. We provide that like nobody else can. Every concert we’ve put up for sale has sold out in minutes. Demand is through the roof. Everybody is looking for reasons to get back together and do things again in public.”
The NBA plans to move back to its traditional October-June schedule next season, with training camps set to open Sept. 28 and the regular season beginning Oct. 19.
Returning to some semblance of normalcy next season would be a clear step forward after the Heat went through the first month of this past season with no fans in attendance at home games. The Heat first allowed fans back in the building in late January with the help of COVID-19-sniffing dogs for home games and strict health and safety guidelines, and then slowly increased capacity throughout the season before reaching 17,000 for the playoffs.
“The rules were changing so rapidly from the league and here in Florida,” Woolworth said. “Trying to keep up with it was incredibly challenging. We wanted to increase capacity, but we wanted to make sure we were doing it safely. The last thing we wanted to have happen is to have people be uncomfortable and put in a position where they didn’t feel like it was the right time to do be doing whatever it was we were doing.
“So we were as aggressive as we could be within the confines of being responsible. That’s a challenge. You have to get the whole staff on board, you got to get your season-ticket holders on board and then you got to get the greater community on board. We tried to over-communicate. We tried to let people know what we were doing and why we were doing it. I think we did as good a job as we could do under the circumstances.”
A MIAMI NBA ALL-STAR GAME?
Miami has hosted NBA All-Star Weekend just once, when the All-Star game was held at Miami Arena in 1990.
There’s a reason for that, as the Miami International Boat Show is often held on the same weekend as the NBA All-Star Game — Presidents’ Day weekend. The boat show usually uses the Miami Beach Convention Center and takes up a good amount of hotel rooms in the area.
But Woolworth noted earlier this month that bringing the NBA All-Star Game back to Miami at some point down the road is “a possibility.”
“Part of it is trying to fit in between the Super Bowl and the Boat Show,” Woolworth said. “With the Super Bowl now changing, with the NFL going to a longer season. I’m not sure what’s happening with the Boat Show, it may be in flux as well given what has happened. So we are talking to the league and we’ll see. It’s a possibility.”
The host cities for the next three All-Star Games have already been announced, with Cleveland hosting in 2022, Salt Lake City hosting in 2023 and Indianapolis hosting in 2024.
