We are so excited to bring you an all new #MetLifeTakeover purchase process that should go much smoother than things have in the past. If you were wondering why we are late getting tickets up this year it’s because we designed a brand new MetLifeTakeover website and moved our PayPal checkout system to a Shopify store. On top of that we now have a whole new seat selection process which should make our life easier and give you the flexibility to choose where you sit and with whom. I don’t need to get into this all here because we have a brand new website and a full frequently asked question page for you to learn all about the new process, but I will let you know a few things.
First of all, sorry for the delay. We were looking for a web designer and finally found one that was willing to work for free and of course you get what you pay for. We supper appreciate her, but she ended up getting swamped at work and unfortunately the page just wasn’t ready in time. I gave up on my dreams of a fully custom website, and we signed up for Wix and I spent countless hours learning how to build us a site. It’s not perfect but I think it will work.
The Shopify store is great and should make your lives much easier. Easier checkout, more options and unlike PayPal you will actually get an email confirmation. Plus we are set up as a non-profit with them and we can accept tax deductible donations with ease. The new seat selection should make this process much easier (and faster). Plus you will be getting the seats directly from the Jets instead of from us via the Jets and you will now be able to get support directly from them if you have any ticket issues. Basically once a week we will be sending codes out to people who purchased tickets and you can use your code to pick your seats and download your tickets.
Now the bad news. Prices have gone way up. Fortunately we put down a deposit last year and so we have over 900 tickets to the game and the prices are significantly cheaper than the secondary market but they are still $110 per ticket which is up $100 from last year. After the regular season starts the prices go up to $120 so it’s a good idea to order soon. Tailgate tickets have gone up quite a bit too, but we aren’t marking up those at all, so we are actually losing money on tailgate tickets because of credit card fees. Also for the first time kids under 10 eat free with an adult tailgate ticket purchase! Bus tickets are the one thing that haven’t gone up in price but we are raising them $5 once the season starts as well to encourage early sales. All that being said, we still have a great deal on a total package which saves you $10 if you buy game ticket, tailgate and bus.
Okay, now with all the changes and new system please read the site and the FAQ carefully, and please read it again before sending us an email. We get crushed with emails during these few months and even if it’s something simple they add up so please make sure you can’t answer it yourself before reaching out. We really appreciate it.
Despite the loss the Dolphins took on the field, the #MetLifeTakeover weekend was absolutely incredible. I cannot believe how much we have grown and it’s been so great to hear from so many people about how much fun they had despite the game. It means so much to us that you guys keep coming back and we can’t wait to do it again next year, hopefully even bigger. So let’s get to some numbers.
We had over 1400 people sitting together across four sections. We had over 500 people pay for our tailgate with a lot more people just coming to hang out around us in lot L4. We had five busses and gave out 800 rally towels for free. Between two raffles we raised over $5000 for charity and our friends at Ticketboard raised another $1000 with their raffle. We were able to donate $2500 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation, $2000 to the Jason Taylor Foundation, $500 to the Concern Foundation for breast cancer awareness month and we will be matching Ticketboard’s $1000 donation to the Dolphins Cancer Challenge at the end of the season (The DCC is in February 2023).
Next up we have some thanks to give out. First of all thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out, donated raffle prizes and just showed up. Only two of us run this whole thing, but we couldn’t do it without you all. We need to thank our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub, our catering company Urban Tailgate, The Dolphins, The Jason Taylor Foundation, DJ Syckturtle, Solo D & Miami Sports Music for providing music (and a live podcast). We need to thank Liquid Death, Sailor Jerry, Reyka Vodka & Fistful of Bourbon for providing beverages for our tailgate. Thanks to Oscar and RizeOptix for our recap video (hopefully coming soon – check out last year’s here). Thanks to Antwan Staley for writing about the event for the NY Daily News (if anyone has a copy of Saturday’s paper let us know) and big thanks for Nat Moore & Joe Rose for making it out to the tailgate to sign some autographs and take some pictures.
Between the party at Slattery’s Saturday night and the tailgate on Sunday we had so much fun this weekend. If only the Dolphins could done their part and won. But this isn’t just about football, it’s about friends and doing some good for the community, and on those levels we came out with a huge win. Thanks again for coming out and check out some of the photos I took on Sunday below.
This recap video is very late, but honestly after three huge wins and the next takeover less than two weeks away, maybe it’s the perfect time to release it. Last year was such a blast. We had a really fun pre party at Slattery’s where we raised a ton of money for charity, then we had one of our smoothest tailgates ever, good weather and a huge win. We also had a bunch of the Dolphins media crew show up including Dolphins legend OJ McDuffie, his The Fish Tank podcast co-host and our old friend Seth Levitt, Travis Wingfield from Drive Time and Johanna Torres from Dolphins Today. Check out the video below to see interviews with all of them and a bunch of Dolfans, a mini Solo D music video, and tons of shots of Dolfans taking over MetLife Stadium.
This is also a great time to let you guys know that we are only about 50 tickets away from the most tickets ever sold to a #MetLifeTakeover EVER. We want to break our record of 1250, so if you have been thinking about going, now is the time! This is going to be our best event ever. Phins up!
Thanks you all for coming out to the 2021 #MetLifeTakeover. What an absolute blast! From the party at Slattery’s to the tailgate to the Dolphins play on the field everything went off without a hitch. Despite a slightly less than normal turnout (the team’s record, the pandemic and the Jets only selling us 700 tickets didn’t help) we still had one of our most successful years. Thanks to you guys we raised over $6000 for charity between raffle, auction and merch sales. And that doesn’t even include the money we made off the tickets sold. That money is going back into our war chest to make new merch, raffle prizes and other expenses for next season, but it will all eventually be turned into even more money that we can use to do more good. The merch/raffle/auction money will be going to the Miami Dolphins Foundation, The Dolphins Cancer Challenge and the Jason Taylor Foundation.
So here’s a quick breakdown on the weekend. On Saturday night we had a great crowd at our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub. We had DJ Syckturtle spin both that night and the tailgate the next day. We had a live auction that raised over $1000 on just three items and we had a big raffle as well for a bunch of great signed stuff. One of our members even brought a team signed ball from the Philbin era that had some great signatures on it despite how we may feel about those years. Another one of our members donated a Marino jersey that raised $275 in the live auction. Special shout out to Robert who bought it AND the Christian Wilkins signed jersey for $500!
One of the coolest parts of Saturday night, and the tailgate, was that the Miami Dolphins entire podcast network came out. We had Dolphins legend OJ McDuffie and his The Fish Tank co-host Seth Levit (and DJ DJ Prēc), Drive Time’s Travis Wingfield and Dolphins Today host Johanna Torres all come out and party with us both days. Nat Moore and Jason Jenkins also came out during the tailgate… those guys never miss one. Want to give a special shoutout to OJ who signed autograph after autograph and posed for picture after picture the entire time he was there. And another shout out to Seth who also runs the Jason Taylor Foundation who donated the Jason Taylor jersey to our game day raffle. He told us to give all the money to the Miami Dolphins Foundation in the DCC but we raised so much that we had to surprise him with donation to the JT Foundation as well.
The tailgate itself was an absolute party. We took over the entire parking lot between L4 and L7. It was massive. Our partners at Urban Tailgate killed it again. They were a little understaffed at the last minute and that led to some long lines, but the food was incredible. We will get that worked out for next year and make sure the lines aren’t nearly as bad. Huge shout out to our friends at Sailor Jerry for providing not only Sailor but also some bottles from their sister brands Reyka Vodka and Fistfull of Bourbon.
The game couldn’t have gone much better. The Jets hung around for a bit, but in the second half the Dolphins put them to bed and you could hear our “Let’s Go Dolphins!” chants on TV. Several of the Dolphins players Tweeted about us after the game and the #MetLifeTakeover hashtag absolutely exploded on Twitter. I couldn’t even keep up with it. We even got a little write up in the Miami New Times. Very cool.
So thanks again everyone for making this year one of the best years ever. I can’t wait to do it all again next year. I got a pretty good gallery of photos for you too. I have a back injury so I didn’t do a great job documenting it, but there are still some fun shots here. Also we have the 2021 #MetlifeTakeover video coming soon. That should be amazing. Now go check out the photos below! (Click here to view the gallery directly on Flickr where it looks less wonky than the embedded gallery viewer.)
Huge congratulations to everyone who won our raffles and social media giveaways. It was great to be able to do something that felt a little like #MetLifeTakeover week even if we didn’t actually get to be together. We gave away three Don Shula memorial Yearbooks/ Dolfans NYC swag packs, a Mercury Morris signed photo, an actual seat back from the Dolphins stadium, ball signed by Dwight Stephenson, a Flo Knows shirt and of course the incredible Brian Flores signed game used helmet. I honestly am pretty upset I wasn’t allowed to buy tickets.
On the football side of things it was great to see the Dolphins play a pretty mediocre game and still win. That’s not something Dolphins fans are used to and a sign of a good team. I know the Jets are one of the worst teams in NFL history but even when we made huge mistakes at no point was I ever worried that we were going to lose. It’s nice to have that feeling during a game, especially when I was having to help moderate the Zoom meeting as well. Let’s do it again next week.
And finally check out this video RizeOptix put together for us from his last two years of filming #MetLifeTakeovers for us. As always shout out to Solo D for our Dolfans NYC anthem that we used for the video. Phins up!
I cannot imagine how crazy this week would be for us if it weren’t for the coronavirus pandemic. It would be #MetLifeTakeover week with the maybe best Dolphins team in Dolfans NYC history going against a winless Jets team. Yeah the loss yesterday was tough, but this would undoubtedly be our biggest year ever. Unfortunately, 2020 hit and life might never be the same, but at least we have the Dolphins to look forward to every week and I can’t remember the last time we could say that. It goes without saying that there will be no in person #MetLifeTakeover this weekend, but we can still have a virtual one and raise some money in the process.
The biggest thing of the week is our raffle benefiting the Miami Dolphins Foundation Food Relief Program. The Dolphins sent us a Coach Brian Flores signed helmet as the grand prize and this is one of those times where we are pretty bummed out we can’t enter our own raffle. Our friends at This Is The Year are including a Flo Knows t-shirt in any size to go with the helmet. The second place prize is a mini football signed by one of the greatest centers ever to play the game of football, Hall of Famer Dwight Stephenson. And third place prize is the Don Shula commemorative Yearbook the Dolphins sold during the opening day game back in September as well as some Dolfans NYC patches and stickers. Raffle tickets are $5 each or 5 tickets for $20 and the drawing will be done after the Jets game.
On top of the raffle we will be doing some giveaways on social media as well. We have a few cool prizes including a Mercury Morris signed photo, another Don Shula Yearbook and an actual seat back from Hard Rock Stadium (technically it was SunLife at the time). Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for a chance to win those prizes throughout the week.
We will be picking the winners after the game during our VIRTUAL #MetLifeTakover on Zoom! Join us for a big watch party in a giant Zoom meet up!
And that is our other big news — we are doing a game day Zoom watch party! So once you have the game on, come join our zoom party at the link below and we can all watch and celebrate together. We will have everyone muted during the game but will unmute everyone during big plays so we can all celebrate together. Hopefully we can get the fight song going and of course some J-E-T-S Suck chants! We haven’t done anything like this before but hopefully our virtual Zoom chat will work out without too much trouble and we can at least get to see each other a bit during the game. Should be a lot of fun.
I know it’s hard to get excited about Dolphins stuff after a big loss, but this team is headed on the right direction and we have two very winnable games coming up. We should be rolling again when we face the Super Bowl champs in three weeks. I can’t wait to see hopefully the first of many games between Tua and Mahomes. In the meantime, let’s raise some money for charity, win some great prizes and stay excited about the future of the Miami Dolphins. Phins up!
The 2019 #MetLifeTakeover video is finally here! It took way longer than we wanted it’s been a crazy winter for all of us here at Dolfans NYC and I am just glad we finally got it done and I think you guys will see that it came out great. 2019 was not exactly a great year for the Dolphins, and this game didn’t go super great on the field, but despite our lower than normal numbers, we had one hell of a tailgate and having two full sections of Dolphins fans is still pretty damn impactful. You could easily hear us on TV yelling from the upper decks.
The video includes interviews with Dolphins alumni Nat Moore, Dolfans NYC regular Shawn Wooden, and Joe Rose plus the Dolphins Jason Jenkin’s who presented us with a framed custom Dolphins jersey celebrating our 10th anniversary of our Jets game takeovers. The video also includes interviews with South Florida South Sentinel Dolphins writers Safid Deen and Omar Kelly and of course a ton of Dolphins fans.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped out, Oscar Collazos for hosting, Curtis from RizeOptix for directing and editing the video, Urban Tailgate for the great food and drink, Solo D for the live performance, Tropic 2.0 & DJ Syck Turtle for the tailgate music and Sailor Jerry for sponsoring the event. Also, a big shout out to Hotels.com for coming out and filming a video about us. And of course big thanks to the Miami Dolphins for all the support including setting up a live taping of The Joe Rose show in the middle of our tailgate.
We also want to thank all of you guys for helping us raise over $10,00 for charity this season. And we need to ask your help again. We are trying to raise money for the 14 members of the Slattery’s staff who have been laid off because of the Coronavirus. So far we have raised enough to give them each $200, but we would like to do more, so if you want to help out, please PayPal us whatever you can to DolfansNYC@gmail.com. We are going to randomly select one of the people who donate to win a prize once the world gets back to normal, but we don’t know what that is yet because we need to be able to get back into Slattery’s to see what we have to give away.
Okay! That’s it. Please take the time to watch the video, we put a lot of work into it. Plus, I have a feeling you guys don’t have anything else to be doing while you are stuck in quarantine! NYC and Florida are two of the hardest hit places so please, please stay safe out there! Phins up!
Our #MetLifeTakeover video is taking longer than expected to get finished, so I wanted to get up something to hold you guys over in the meantime. During the Jets game the Dolphins and Hotels.com followed us around and did a little video about us, Slattery’s and the event. It was pretty cool but they only posted it on social media so we wanted an easier to find permanent location for it. We put it on our Vimeo page and I figured I would post it for you guys as well.
It’s a great video and hope you guys will check it out if you haven’t already. We will be back soon with our official #MetLifeTakeover wrap up video!
Wow, this weekend was amazing, well at least it was until that pass interference review… But even with the loss the #MetLifeTakeover event was a huge success. With the Dolphins having some issues on the field we had less fans join us this year, but it turns out 500+ Dolfans is still a huge party!
Not only was it a blast but between the pre-party at Slattery’s on Saturday and the tailgate on Sunday we raised a TON of money for charity. Our raffle for a signed Dan Marino/ Zach Thomas hat ended up raising over $700 for the Dan Marino Foundation and we raised a lot more money throughout the weekend. We also collected three huge boxes of toys for Toys For Tots and the Dolphins came out as part of their Huddle For 100 initiative and set up a table where people could make Christmas cards for troops overseas.
We also had a South Florida CBS affiliate come do a live Facebook video from the tailgate which was pretty cool as well. We will have a bunch more video coming soon as the Dolphins did a video about us in collaboration with Hotels.com and we of course have our yearly wrap up video that should be out by the end of the season.
We had a bunch of Dolphins alumni make it to the tailgate. Along with Joe Rose and Nat Moore who are regulars we also had Shawn Wooden, Terry Kirby and Ed Perry. Shawn’s son plays football at Columbia so he comes by Slattery’s enough that he’s part of our crew now. Glad he got to check out the Takeover.
Huge thanks to Solo D, DJ Tropic and DJ Syck Turtle for providing the music for the tailgate and Outsnapped for doing our photobooth. (See the photo booth photos here!) Thanks to Sailor Jerry for providing a bunch of rum as always and Hotels.com for providing a $500 gift card and pregame field passes for the raffle.
And finally, huge thanks to Urban Tailgate for running the catered tailgate again. They make our lives so much easier and we are doing it all again on Sunday! We decided to do a scaled down tailgate for the Giants game. Tailgate tickets are only $45 ($35 for food only) and will feature the same great food, just a few less options and of course all you can drink alcohol. Get your tailgate tickets here! Prices go up to $55 if you wait until game day. We will be in the same spot, bus lot, L4 and feel free to BYO as well. The tailgate won’t have a live DJ, but we will have music and our merch for sale, cornhole set up and a bunch of other stuff and we still have a bunch of the boom sticks we gave away on Sunday left, so come and grab one to bring inside.
So that’s the full wrap up and now it’s time to look at some photos. I didn’t do a great job taking photos and working the event at the same time, but I think you are going to enjoy them anyway! Thanks for coming and hope to see a ton of you guys on Sunday! Phins up!
This is a very different Miami Dolphins team from the last time we updated our website. The Dolphins have had a full 25% roster overhaul in the short time since we first put #MetLifeTakeover tickets on sale. The team that is suiting up this Sunday vs the Ravens is going to have a lot of new faces and may not be the juggernaut we expect from the Miami Dolphins, but we’ve been through tough seasons once or twice before and I am hopeful that looking back in a few years this will be the best thing to happen to us since we drafted Dan Marino.
The reason we started Dolfans NYC is because football is more fun when you are watching it with other people. The wins are better, but maybe more importantly, the losses are a lot better. You get to commiserate (and perhaps get very drunk) with people who know what you are going through. There aren’t a lot of places where you can make new friends as an adult but I know there are Dolphins fans that I will talk to for the rest of my life because of this club.
10 years ago when we founded Dolfans NYC we expected a few dozen people to walk into our bar Third & Long but by kickoff there was a line out the door. A few years later Third and Long sadly closed and we moved to Slattery’s Midtown Pub and once again on week one we packed the place despite being three times the size of our old home. The #MetLifeTakeover started with 35 people and grew to 70 and then 200 then 750 and it’s averaged over 1000 for the last 5 years. It’s been one hell of a ride and despite the team on the field I am very excited for our 10th season.
To celebrate our 10th season we have a BUNCH of new merch designed by one of our members Jackie who moved upstate and as a going away present made a bunch of stuff for us. You might have seen our 10 Years logo already but you haven’t seen these new shirts. We created a MIAMI NORTH shirt and tank top in the Miami Vice colorway that will look as good in your all white Air Force Ones in NYC as it will walking down South Beach in flip flops. We also have a 10 Years iron on patch for your jerseys and we have two new hats that are in the works.
For one week only (well more like 10 days) this stuff will be available to purchase online. Our regular merch store is closed while we are selling #MetLifeTakeover tickets because it’s impossible for us to deal with both at once, but next Sunday I am going to bring everything I need to ship home from Slattery’s and mail it out the next day. I don’t have time to be shipping constantly, but I can dedicate and afternoon to it. So if you want some of our new merch and you don’t live in the area here’s your chance to get some of our merch. We have our normal Dolfans NYC stuff in the shop as well. And remember, all proceeds go to charity. SHOP HERE.
Speaking of charity, for our 10th anniversary season, our goal is to donate $10,000 to charity and we will be making a donation to a different charity every week of the season. This Sunday we are doing a huge fundraiser for the Jason Taylor Foundation. They sent us a full sized Hall of Fame helmet signed by Jason that we will be raffling. We also have a signed ball that we will be auctioning off at Slattery’s. If you can’t make it to Slattery’s we are selling raffle tickets online as well. If you want a chance to win the helmet send $20 for every 5 tickets to DolfansNYC@gmail.com using PayPal. We will be drawing tickets during the 4th quarter of the Ravens game live on our Instagram so you can watch at home to see if you win.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that after emailing them for months we finally heard back from the Giants about trying to buy group tickets. We don’t have anything set in stone because they have been very slow responding, but it looks like we are going to be able to buy a small block of tickets in the lower level. We will be selling them for $150 which is a lot more than our Jets seats, but at least we get to be near the field for a change. If you don’t have your Giants tickets yet, you might want to hold off for a bit. Feel free to email us (DolfansNYC@gmail.com) to get on our email list when the tickets go on sale. For now, get your Jets tickets here!
Okay, that’s it! Sorry for the longer than normal post, but just so excited for our 10th season of Dolfans NYC! See you guys on Sunday! Phins up!
Despite the loss the Dolphins took on the field, the #MetLifeTakeover weekend was absolutely incredible. I cannot believe how much we have grown and it’s been so great to hear from so many people about how much fun they had despite the game. It means so much to us that you guys keep coming back and we can’t wait to do it again next year, hopefully even bigger. So let’s get to some numbers.
I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on our virtual #MetLifeTakeover event. I think yesterday went just about as well as we could have possibly planned. 
I cannot imagine how crazy this week would be for us if it weren’t for the coronavirus pandemic. It would be #MetLifeTakeover week with the maybe best Dolphins team in Dolfans NYC history going against a winless Jets team. Yeah the loss yesterday was tough, but this would undoubtedly be our biggest year ever. Unfortunately, 2020 hit and life might never be the same, but at least we have the Dolphins to look forward to every week and I can’t remember the last time we could say that. It goes without saying that there will be no in person #MetLifeTakeover this weekend, but we can still have a virtual one and raise some money in the process.
