Avid tennis fans might know that the Miami Open has recently been held inside the home of the Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium. Is it the best place to see a tennis match? Not really. The seating can be weird at times.
The novelty of seeing a Masters 1000 event inside an NFL stadium certainly brings people to the area, though. The 2025 Miami Open had a record number of attendees in 2025, reported to be just north of 400,000. That is great for a tournament held in the United States in March.
How much Dolphins owner Stephen Ross had to do with the draw is unknown. Ross owns the Dolphins stadium and, therefore, makes some money on the tennis event. He reportedly wants a bigger piece of the pie, though.
Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross looks to buy a stake of the Miami Open
According to Pro Football Network, Ross is close to buying a 45 percent stake in the Miami Open. If he loves tennis, great. If he knows of an even better way of making the tournament a bigger draw, fantastic. But let's hope he doesn't help run the tournament like the Dolphins have been run this offseason.
Miami has made several questionable personnel moves, and one former Pro Bowl player for the team implied the organization did not care about their players. After cornerback Jalen Ramsey was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, running back Raheem Mostert, now of the Las Vegas Raiders, tweeted, "Hot take: Be a Pro-bowler on the Dolphins, get treated like s***. Happy for my guys though!"
Of course, one huge difference between the Dolphins and tennis is that the 85-year-old Ross will not be directly paying the tennis players on long-term deals. They get paid only as well as they do at the tournament.
There is still a concern that in running the Miami Open, Ross will do so in a way that benefits his bottom line the most, and the players are secondary. Again, it's great to go to a football stadium to see a high-end tennis tournament, but the right thing to do would be to give the Miami Open its own high-class venue.
Is that going to happen? Not likely. Ross is making too much money holding the tournament inside Hard Rock Stadium. Why waste an opportunity to double his money, right? That, for better or worse, is how business works. If tennis fans stop showing up as much, hopefully it's not because Ross somehow tanks the Miami Open as much as the Dolphins have done this offseason.