Martin Schwartz and Matthew Mandel are having a moment. Actually two. Friends for life hit the sports grand prize this month when the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers took on the challenge and advanced to the Finals, now competing for both the NBA and National Hockey League titles simultaneously.
Lifelong South Florida residents and friends since college, Schwartz and Mandel have shared season tickets for both teams for years. They’ve had a rough few years – the Heat won just 15 games in the 2007-08 season – and home games are packed with rowdy fans who boo the visiting teams.
They celebrated the Heat in 2012 and 2013 with backing from Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and savored the season’s playoff rounds. But they never believed that both teams would start the following season as the eighth seed, crushing higher-ranked clubs into upset after upset and battle for the championships.
“I was so pessimistic when the playoffs started,” said Schwartz, who was a batter for the Florida Marlins in the ’90s and wore a Panthers jersey for the Heat on Wednesday when they fell to the Denver Nuggets. “But we realized it was all about the playoffs. You gotta enjoy it. You only get one chance.”
This is the Tenth that the two teams From one market they played in the Stanley Cup and the NBA Finals in the same year. The last time this happened was in 2016, when the Golden State Warriors (winners) and San Jose Sharks (losers) battled for the titles. The Bruins and Celtics have done it three times, stretching back to 1957 and the Knicks and Rangers twice. But the area’s hockey and basketball teams have never won in the same year.
The championship chase turned into an overnight affair in South Florida this week as the Heat and Panthers play four straight nights at home. Their arenas are about 40 miles apart, and each team has its core cheerleaders, although some like Schwartz and Mandel have participated in both sports. The two teams are trailing 1-2 in their series prior to the Friday Heat game.
“It almost never happens, so we wanted to give it a try,” said Raul Arias, a Miami native who attended Heat and Panthers games on back-to-back nights with his brother, father, and friend.
This is the first time that two Southern market teams have been chasing titles at the same time, but it was bound to happen. The nation’s biggest sports leagues have been flocking to Florida for years, and for good reason: It’s businesses looking for new fans, new sponsors and more TV viewers, and America’s demographics have been leaning south and west for decades.
The Rangers and Bruins have been on the ice since Calvin Coolidge was president. But history is replaceable and in sports it is ephemeral. The Heat arrived in Miami in 1988, when Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was a hit. The Panthers entered the National Hockey League in 1993. Since then, six teams have joined – Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights.
Perhaps the finale between the Panthers and the Las Vegas Golden Knights is, to the chagrin of traditional fans in Canada and the northern states, the final distillation of NHL Commissioner Gary Pittman’s “Southern Strategy.” Pittman advocated the switch despite the teams’ financial troubles in Arizona and other new markets. However teams in northern markets, including the Devils and Islanders, ran into financial problems. And while losing teams in southern markets — Atlanta comes to mind — teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars are both on solid ground.
Speaking to reporters before the first game of the final, Pittman vice president Bill Daley noted that Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith had also expressed interest in bringing a hockey team to Salt Lake City.
Fans of older teams might groan if another team in a “funky” hockey market is relegated. They’re not really thinking of the South Florida fans, who are accused of showing up late in fashion and leaving early to beat the traffic. They are often depicted as transplants still rooting for old bands in their hometowns. Or final burn: They only appear when it’s good and disappear when their teams are in the tank.
All of this is true to some extent. But fans like this are everywhere, including New York and Los Angeles. And while Florida was growing by leaps and bounds, Add millions of new residents In the past decade, some of the implants here have embraced their newfound athletic bounty. Playoff games have sold out with some tickets on the resale market bringing in four figures. Since May 1, sales of Heat and Panthers gear are up 460 percent over the same period last year, according to fanatics. The sports radio announcers have been playing hockey and barking, with some soccer going on after Lionel Messi said Thursday he would join Inter Miami.
“The more they make, the busier we get,” said Norma Shiloh, who for more than 30 years has owned Mike’s at the Venetia, a short walk from Kaseya Center. She said business goes up 40 to 50 percent during the playoffs, when fans start filling the restaurant two hours before game time.
Shiloh said she has a lot of regulars, including NBA referees who stop by after games. But it also welcomes many newcomers, who usually ask for reservations even though the bar is first-come, first-served.
“I’ve lived here all these years and I’ve never seen this,” said Abel Sanchez, 50, an amateur sports historian. “If either of them win a title, that’s a moment. If they both win, who has the movie rights? And if you want to jump on the bandwagon, there’s room.”
It’s not unusual for transplants to adopt a new home team, or to part ways with their loyalties. My dad rooted for Giants baseball growing up in New York, then switched his allegiance to the Mets when our family moved to Long Island in the ’60s. (He still liked Willie Mays and he took me to see the San Francisco Giants when they came to town.) When he moved to West Palm Beach in the 1990s, he adopted the Marlins, who rewarded his loyalty with two World Series titles.
Florida has added four million new residents in the past decade or so, including many flocking to Miami from Latin and South America. Some of these newcomers have adopted the Heat and Panthers as their home teams even if they don’t play basketball or hockey. why not? Rooting for a sports team may be the most collegiate activity in American life.
“I’m a Jimmy Butler subscriber,” said Adam Trulls, the Brit who splits his time between Miami and London, watching Heat games into the wee hours. “I would marry him if I could.”
On Wednesday, Trolls searched for tickets to Game 3 against the Denver Nuggets. The cost was too high, so he and his girlfriend, Jessica Jane, watched the game at Duffy’s Tavern in Coral Gables.
Despite all the hype, football remains the undisputed king of sports in Florida. The Dolphins and Miami Hurricane are still the toast of the town — when they win. Tampa went wild in 2021 when the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl and the Lightning won the Stanley Cup.
But basketball and hockey have their place. Transplants from Canada, the Northeast, and the upper Midwest have stuck to their loyalties. But over time, new fans are born, even for the Panthers, whose home ice is at FLA Live Arena, in Sunrise, Florida, between a shopping mall and the Everglades Wildlife Management Area. For the locals, it was a show of riches.
At Quarterdeck, a sports bar 10 minutes from the arena, Tyler Craig watched the Panthers defeat the Knights in overtime on Thursday.
“How many matches we were watching were almost exhausting,” he said.