Tom Garfinkel On Managing The Miami Grand Prix, Dolphins, World Cup And More

With a new 10-year extension announced for the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, events hosted in and around Hard Rock Stadium are nearly non-stop. Managing it all is a testament to the Miami Dolphins organization.

Formula 1 and South Florida Motorsports, a subsidiary of the Miami Dolphins, announced the extension of the Miami Grand Prix that will see the race on the calendar until at least 2041. It’s a significant achievement and speaks to how well the event has been hosted. Last year South Florida Motorsports was named 2024 Formula 1 Promoter of the Year.

The Miami Grand Prix is just one of many events hosted at Hard Rock Stadium. But the level of detail put into the F1 race and others speaks to a high level of coordination.

Tom Garfinkel, who is Managing Partner of the Miami Grand Prix, as well as Vice Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium, has had a full plate, not only with the F1 event, but also with other aspects of the Miami Dolphins and events at the Hard Rock Stadium. The Miami Grand Prix is still very young, so the event’s progression each year has been significant. The Miami race was added to the F1 calendar starting in 2022.

“In year one, we were just trying to pull it off in 11 months in a post-pandemic world to get it launched,” said Garfinkel in an exclusive interview for Forbes. “Year two was really focused on improvements, with the new Paddock Club building, putting the team hospitality paddock on the field, repaving the racetrack, investing in wider pedestrian bridges, etc. Year three was what I call refinement. And I would say now, in year four, we continue to not redefine, but refine how we do things. We’re very customer-centric, and try to listen to the customers, adjust, and try to get better every year.”

The Miami Grand Prix F1 circuit runs around Hard Rock Stadium, which gets heavily utilized for the event. The facility hosts the NFL Miami Dolphins, as well as the NCAA’s Miami Hurricanes regularly, and as Forbes profiled in 2024, the Orange Bowl was Jan. 9, one of the College Football Playoff’s semifinals, the 265-acre site will transform as the regular home to one of the largest tennis tournaments on the sport’s calendar, hosting the ATP and WTA Miami Open each spring since 2019. To add, the World Cup arrives in 2026. Garfinkel said doing it all is a “big lift” with a sizable staff.

We just had the college football semi. We have our Miami Open Tennis. Then we transition into this year’s F1 Miami Grand Prix,” Garfinkel said. “We’ve got eight or nine concerts this summer. We’ve got the Club World Cup. We then go back into Miami Hurricanes football and Dolphins football. Then we have the national championship game, tennis, the Formula One race, and the FIFA World Cup next summer. So, a lot is happening here, and many transitions are happening. It takes a lot of people and a lot of planning.”

With the F1 Miami Grand Prix extension now announced, how the event continues to evolve will be what Garfinkel and the team that supports Hard Rock Stadium will add to their list.

“We take our responsibility to help Formula One grow the sport in the United States seriously,” Garfinkel said. “I think having the extension secures that this event can be part of that for a long time, and it enables us to continue to invest in the event in ways that hopefully are innovative and additive to the fan experience and to the sport itself. We have kind of an ethos here to try to do things a little differently, to try to innovate, to try to create. Hopefully, we’ve done that, and now we can invest in trying to continue to do that moving forward.”