Get excited because this is the first time in years the #MetLifeTakeover recap video came out before the season was over. Luckily our director and editor, Curtis Edward Paul, has some free time right after the Takeover and was able to finish the whole things in a couple of weeks. That being said, this video was released on social media before the Cowboys game and I am just now getting around to putting the video thanks to visiting family for the holidays and then not wanting to think about football for a few days after the butt kicking the Ravens put on us. Pain.
But yeah, the video is up and it’s amazing. It features interviews with a lot of the regulars like Nat Moore, Joe Rose, Solo D, 2023 Fan of the Year Chris Barker, plus interviews with Frank The Tank, Mary Martinez, the viral elementary school teacher and more. Another viral Dolfan, Kickball Dad, made the video as well. This year wasn’t officially our biggest event ever, but only because the Jets would only sell us around 950 seats. It was the first time we have ever sold out before the season even started, the most busses we have ever had and I know our section had thousands of Dolphins fans because people bought up every ticket in section. The secondary prices in our section was like $80 more than anywhere else in the upper decks. The video very much reflects how amazing our party was.
Shout out again to Urban Tailgate for helping us throw this party, DJ D Rell and crew for the music, Oscar Collazos for hosting the video, all our volunteers and of course all of you guys who came out to party with us.
Now hopefully the Raven’s game has been pushed down into the deepest parts of your brain and you can actually enjoy this video. We worked really hard on it. Phins up!
The #MetLifeTakeover was a huge success this year and I just want to thank all of you for making it amazing. We weren’t able to get as many tickets this year because the Jets thought they were gonna be good this year (lol), but we sold out before the season even started and gave out our section number to the hundreds and hundreds of people who emailed us requesting tickets too late. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had 2500 Dolphins fans sitting together because our sections were packed. With the great tailgate and the Dolphins dominating on the field it was just an amazing day.
Speaking of the tailgate, we had a huge crowd all day and a video I took from the top of our U-Haul went viral, being reposted by tons of national media outlets, and even a local TV station reached out about using it, although I have no idea if they actually did. Speaking of TV, the film crew from HBO’s Hard Knocks came out to the tailgate, interviewed Michelle and I as well as some other fans and did a short segment during episode two of the show. If you didn’t watch the episode you can watch the short segment here.
We had some cool guests at the tailgate this year. Dolphins legends Joe Rose and Nat Moore never miss a tailgate but we also had a couple of social media stars, with Kickball Dad returning to the Takeover to film some videos, and elementary teacher extraordinaire Mary Martinez celebrated her 30th birthday with us. We had two Miami Dolphins Fans of the Year in attendance, Dolphreaky and the newest Fan of the Year Chris Barker. Solo D performed as he always does and my cousin came out because her husband is a huge Dolphins fan and that was really cool for me.
On the charity front, we raised over $6000 just from raffle and merch sales and that doesn’t include the money we made from ticket sales. We are unfortunately dealing with some possible unexpected expenses because of an unfortunately incident that we won’t get into, but we should be able to donate over $10,000 to charity this year. We will be announcing donations as they happen on Twitter but hopefully at the end of the year I can do a run down of the good that money is doing. By the way, all donations to us are tax deductible so if anyone is interested in donating please reach out.
Shout out to DJ Drell, our new regular Slattery’s DJ for killing it at his first #MetLifeTakeover and Solo D for his yearly performance. Solo came to the second or third one of these we ever did and hasn’t missed one since. He’s become such a huge part of our tailgate experience. Thanks as always to our tailgate partners Urban Tailgate. Those guys take everything off our plate and handle all the food, drinks, games and simple stuff like getting there hours before the gates open to make sure we get our regular spot. And lastly, huge thanks to all our volunteers who we couldn’t do any of this without. From our bus captains, to the people selling merch and raffle tickets, to just random people who grab a bin from the bus and bring it over to the tailgate for us, we appreciate you guys a ton.
Anyway, I did a terrible job of documenting the event, but I did technically take some photos, so I got a gallery of stuff for you guys to look through. Don’t worry though, we will have one hell of a recap video for you guys coming a lot sooner than last year’s video. I can’t wait for you to see it.
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!
The problems aren’t happening for everyone, we have already sold a LOT of tickets. Really impressive start even with the shopping cart system being messed up. If you are one of the people having issues you can try a few different things. The first is try a different browser. It works for me on Chrome but not Safari for example. Try on your phone, or try on a desktop. Just whatever options you can think of, try that first. If you still can’t get it to work, just keep adding random stuff to your cart and if anything adds try deleting it. When that happens for some reason everything will just suddenly show up in your cart and you can adjust it from there. Honestly the whole thing is so weird and I have sent a bunch of support requests trying to figure it out but haven’t had any luck yet.
If you still can’t get it to work, just wait a couple days because we are going to get it figured out. We aren’t gonna sell out of tickets in the middle of the summer so don’t panic. And if you are still having issues in a week, just email us at dolfansnyc at gmail and we will get you sorted out another way.
Okay, now that we have talked about troubleshooting, let’s talk about the event.
As you probably know by now we are throwing another massive group takeover when the Dolphins play the Jets in New Jersey on October 9th. We do a free party the night before at our bar Slattery’s, an all you can eat and drink tailgate before the game and of course we buy multiple sections of upper deck tickets so you can be surrounded by Dolphins fan at an away game. There’s no experience like it. We even do bus transportation to the game from our bar Slattery’s.
If you haven’t been before, check out our video page to get the full experience and then head on over to our FAQ if you have any questions. If you have been before you know what to expect so let me just give you the updates. The big update is the price unfortunately. EVERYTHING has gone up in price since last year. The Jets are charging us way more for tickets, food prices have gone way up and my god the busses got expensive. This means two things 1) You are gonna pay a little more this year and 2) We are gonna make less money for charity. Ultimately this event is about bringing us all together and while the charity aspect is a huge part of what we do, hopefully we can make up those margins by doing some raffles and merch sales. We need to make this event affordable.
Ticket prices if you order before the season starts are $65. That’s exactly what they were if you bought during the season last year so it’s not bad. We have had more expensive years ticket wise in the past so I don’t think that’s a big deal. Food prices are up more than 20% but our tailgate partner Urban Tailgate is also willing to take a cut on his margins and we are offering the full food and drink package for $85 which is exactly where it was last year too. We had a $10 off deal for a little bit last year which we don’t have this year but the tailgate is $100 after the season starts so it’s still a pretty good deal. You can also just hangout out with us at the tailgate and BYO if you like. Everyone is welcome.
The biggest increase is the bus and it’s dramatic. In the past we charged $40 for round trip tickets and we made a decent bit of money for charity on those and this year we have to charge $50 and we might end up actually losing money on the bus. There are cheaper public transportation options so if you are on a budget look into those, obviously not as fun as a rowdy bus of Dolphins fans, but we just want to make sure you know about it. We are pretty upset about the bus situation honestly.
Oh and one more thing, we introduced “The Total Package” last year where we offered transportation, tailgate ticket and game ticket at a discount. Unfortunately we can’t offer a discount anymore, so we are giving everyone who buys the total package a free DolfansNYC drink koozie. It’s obviously not as good as saving $10 but we wanted to do something fun for you guys. We will also have extra koozies for sale at the tailgate for $5 if anyone wants to pick one up who didn’t get the Total Package.
I realize this post has been a little bit of a bummer, but this event is so amazing and we do so much good that I had to end it off with some good news. We did a raffle to win two Total Packages to the Takeover and in the process raised almost $900 for the National Compassion Fund who makes direct donations to victims of mass casualty events like the recent events in Buffalo and Uvalde. The winner of the raffle was actually 2020 Dolphins Fan Of The Year Big E who then immediately donated the tickets back to us and bought his own, so we will find a deserving recipient for them and let your you guys know about that when we figure it out. Really great from Ian.
Thank you guys so much for everything and we can’t wait to see you on October 9th, or evens sooner at Slattery’s!
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.)
Once again the #MetLifeTakeover is back! This Sunday the Dolphins play the Jets in Jersey and once again Dolfans NYC will be rolling deep. We have over 700 Dolphins fans sitting together and hundreds more at our tailgate. No matter what happens on the field, this is the one Dolphins event you can’t have a bad time at. We are all sold out of tickets and transportation but you can still buy tailgate tickets.
As always we have TWO events planned, we do a pre-party Saturday night at our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub and then of course we do the tailgate on game day.
Saturday night: We will be officially starting our party at 7pm and will have a DJ and raffles and a ton of fun and maybe a few surprises. It’s a great, low key way to meet everyone and hang out with a bunch of Dolphins fans. The party ends at 9pm so we can start getting ready for Sunday morning, but you are welcome to continue hanging out at the bar down stairs all night. For those coming from out of town, remember that New York State has a law requiring a Covid vaccination to enter a bar or restaurant. Please don’t show up without proof of vaccination and please don’t argue with Slattery’s staff about it. Thanks for understanding!
Sunday morning: If you are coming with us on the busses Slattery’s opens at 7am. They will have free coffee and bagels for you. Please arrive no later than 7:30am. You must be signed up and on the bus by 7:45. We will not wait for anyone. If you aren’t coming with us, the tailgate starts shortly after 9am when the gates open. We will be in the charter bus lot in Lot L. You can’t park right next to us but you can get very close by purchasing a gold parking pass. If you purchased a tailgate ticket we will have all you can eat and drink. If you don’t have a tailgate ticket, then just BYO and you can still hang out with us. Everyone is welcome! We will have a DJ, raffles, a musical performance by Solo D, and some special appearances. I don’t want to give too much away, but Dolphins legend OJ McDuffie did Tweet about coming to the tailgate so I guess that cat is out of the bag.
This weekend should be a blast and we can’t wait to see everyone. We will be filming our annual #MetLifeTakeover video so be on the lookout for our camera crew and in the meantime you can watch our past videos here. Phins up and see you guys on Saturday!
We are so psyched to be able to bring you another #MetLifeTakeover! It was obviously incredibly disappointing to have to go virtual last year, but with things getting back to normal we are full speed ahead with the 2021 Takeover (November 21st, 1pm at MetLife Stadium) with a full tailgate, our normal massive group ticket purchase and bus transportation from our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub all for less that you have paid in the past.
We were able to get a great ticket discount because we put a down payment on tickets last year during the pandemic and we are passing that on to you. Tickets are only $65 and just $55 if you order your tickets before the start of the season.This is the cheapest we have been able to sell tickets in years and it’s pretty incredible. Our round trip bus from Slattery’s is also less this year, returning to the $30 price after an increase in 2019.
Speaking of Slattery’s, they officially reopen September 1st but the current plan is to do a small scale Dolfans NYC pre launch for the final preseason game on August 29th. More details to come on that, but it’s pretty exciting news as they have been closed for over a year.
Our other big update is that for the first time we are selling tailgate tickets directly this year. Food and alcohol costs have risen this year so our partners at Urban Tailgate have had to raise prices, fortunately we worked out a deal where if you buy directly from us you can save $10 on the all you can eat/drink tailgate ticket and $5 on the non-alcoholic ticket. With our discounts they are priced at $75 and $50 respectively which is still one hell of a deal considering the super high end food and drink options. You can always BYO too, but we make it easy for you with our fully catered tailgate.
The other great thing about selling tailgate tickets directly is that we can now sell you our TOTAL PACKAGE BUNDLE with a game ticket, round-trip bus transportation from NYC and a tailgate ticket at an even bigger discount. All three options are only $150 or $125 with no alcohol. It’s a hell of a deal for an entire day of you just sitting back and relaxing and enjoying the Dolphins stomp all over the New Jersey Jets.
Keep in mind ALL prices go up after the start of the season so make sure to get your ticket purchases in before September 12th. Plus the earlier you order, the better the seats! Also, if you want to sit in a “Family Friendly” row, you MUST order before September 12th as well so we can make sure you guys are all sitting together.
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!
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. 