Martin Schwartz and Matthew Mandel are having a moment. Actually two. The friends for life hit the sports jackpot this month as the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers both ran the playoff gauntlet and reached the Finals, where they now compete for NBA and NHL titles simultaneously.
Schwartz and Mandel, lifelong South Florida residents and friends since college, have shared season tickets for both teams for years. They’ve had lean years – the Heat won just 15 games in the 2007–08 season – and home games filled with rowdy fans supporting the visiting teams.
They celebrated the Heat’s title runs in 2012 and 2013, powered by Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, and enjoyed the Panthers’ sporadic playoff runs. But they never imagined that either team would enter the postseason as No. 8 seeds, toppling the top clubs that were upset and vying for championships.
“I was very pessimistic when the playoffs started,” said Schwartz, who was a batboy for the Florida Marlins in the 1990s and wore a Panthers jersey during Wednesday’s Heat game when they fell to the Denver Nuggets. “But we have come to realize that it is all about the play-offs. You have to enjoy it. You only get one chance.”
This is the 10th time two teams from one market have played in the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals in the same year. The last time it happened was in 2016, when the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks (both losers) battled for titles. The Bruins and Celtics have done it three times, since 1957 and the Knicks and Rangers twice. But never have a region’s hockey and basketball teams won in the same year.
The championship hunt has become an all-night affair in South Florida this week as the Heat and Panthers play four consecutive nights at home. Their arenas are about 40 miles apart and each team has its regular fans, although some like Schwartz and Mandel have gone all in on both sports. The teams are both down 1-2 in their series heading into Friday’s Heat game.
“It almost never happens, so we wanted to try it,” said Raul Arias, a Miami resident who attended the Heat and Panthers’ games on back-to-back nights with his brother, father and friend.
This is the first time two teams have been chasing titles in a southern market at the same time, but it was coming. The nation’s major sports leagues have been encroaching on Florida for years, and with good reason: they’re businesses looking for new fans, new sponsors, and more television viewers, and America’s demographics have been moving south and west for decades.
The Rangers and Bruins have been on the ice since Calvin Coolidge was president. But history is expendable and, in sport, fleeting. The Heat arrived in Miami in 1988, when Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was a hit. The Panthers joined the NHL in 1993. Since then, six teams – the Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Minnesota Wild, Seattle Kraken and Las Vegas Golden Knights – have joined the league.
Perhaps to the dismay of more traditional fans in Canada and the northern states, the final between the Panthers and Las Vegas Golden Knights is the ultimate distillation of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s “Southern Strategy.” Bettman has defended this shift despite the financial problems facing teams in Arizona and other emerging markets. But teams in northern markets, including the Devils and Islanders, have struggled financially. And while teams in southern markets – Atlanta comes to mind – have lost teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars are both on solid ground.
Speaking to reporters before the first game of the Finals, Bettman’s deputy, Bill Daly, noted that Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith has also expressed interest in bringing a hockey team to Salt Lake City.
Fans of older teams might groan if another team lands on a “non-traditional” hockey market. They already don’t like South Florida fans, who are accused of fashionably showing up late to games and leaving early to beat traffic. They are often characterized as transplants still taking root for old hometown teams. Or the ultimate burnout: they just show up when things are going well and disappear when their teams are in the tank.
That’s all true to some degree. But fans are like that everywhere, including in New York and Los Angeles. And as Florida has grown in leaps and bounds, adding millions of new residents over the past decade, some of the transplants here are embracing their new sports bounty. The playoff games are sold out and some tickets on the resale market fetched four figures. Since May 1, Heat and Panthers gear sales are up 460 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Fanatics. Sports radio presenters yip hoops and hockey, with some football thrown in after Lionel Messi said on Thursday he was going to Inter Miami.
“The more they win, the busier we get,” says Norma Shelow, who has co-owned Mike’s at the Venetia for more than 30 years, a short walk from the Kaseya Center. She said sales are up 40 to 50 percent during the playoffs, when fans start filling the restaurant a few hours before the game starts.
Shelow said she had many regular customers, including NBA referees who came by after games. But she also welcomes many newcomers, who usually call for reservations, even though the bar is first come, first served.
“I’ve lived here all these years and never seen this,” said Abel Sanchez, 50, an amateur sports historian. “If one of them wins a title, it’s a moment. If both win, who will have the movie rights? And if you want to jump on the bandwagon, there’s room.
It’s not uncommon for transplants to adopt a new home team or split their allegiances. My dad rooted for the baseball giants growing up in New York, then transitioned to the Mets when our family moved to Long Island in the 1960s. (He still loved Willie Mays and 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, including many who flocked to Miami from Latin and South America. Some of these newcomers have adopted the Heat and Panthers as their home teams, even though they’ve never played basketball or hockey. And why not? Rooting for a sports team is perhaps the most common activity in American life.
“I’m all about Jimmy Butler,” says Adam Trowles, a Brit who splits his time between Miami and London, where he watches Heat games in the wee hours. “I would marry him if I could.”
On Wednesday, Trowles searched for tickets to attend game three against the Denver Nuggets. The cost was too high, so he and his girlfriend, Gessica Jean, watched the game at Duffy’s Tavern in Coral Gables.
Despite all the hoopla, football remains the undisputed king of the sport in Florida. The Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes are still the toast of the city – if they win. Tampa went wild in 2021 as the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl and the Lightning won the Stanley Cup.
But basketball and hockey have their place. Transplants from Canada and the Northeast and Upper Midwest have maintained their loyalty. But over time, new fans are born, even for the Panthers, whose home ice at the FLA Live Arena, in Sunrise, Florida, is sandwiched between a mall and the Everglades Wildlife Management Area. For the locals it was a parade of wealth.
At Quarterdeck, a sports bar 10 minutes from the arena, Tyler Craig watched the Panthers beat the Knights in overtime on Thursday.
“It’s almost exhausting how many games we’ve seen,” he said.
