Harry Wayne Huizenga Sr. (; December 29, 1937 – March 22, 2018) was an American businessman. He founded AutoNation and Waste Management, Inc., and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, Republic Services, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL), the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Miami Marlins (formerly Florida Marlins) of Major League Baseball (MLB).
Early life and education
Harry Wayne Huizenga was of Dutch descent. His grandfather, Harm Huizenga, grew up in the Dutch community in Chicago and were strict members of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Huizenga was born at Little Company of Mary Hospital, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on December 29, 1937, the first child in a family of garbage haulers. In 1940 when Wayne was two, the Huizenga family were listed as living in an apartment building in Berwyn, Illinois. He had one sister, Bonnie, who was five years younger. His father became a building contractor.
The remainder of Huizenga's high school years were spent at Pine Crest School, where he was a member of the football team and senior class treasurer, graduating in 1955.
Career
In Fort Lauderdale, Huizenga started a waste management business, as his grandfather had done in Chicago in 1894. with the company becoming the leading movie-rental chain in the United States by 1994.
In December 1992, Huizenga became a member of the Non-Group (a civically influential group of Miami-Dade business elites).
In 1995, Huizenga invested $64 million of his own money and raised an additional $168 million to acquire Republic Industries and became its chairman; it completed the corporate spin-off of Republic Services in 1998 and was renamed AutoNation, which became the nation's largest automotive dealer.
In October 2004, he sold Boca Resorts, owner of hotels including The Hyatt Pier 66 Hotel and the Radisson Bahia Mar Hotel & Marinain Fort Lauderdale, The Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton, Florida, and several others in Naples, Florida, and Arizona, to The Blackstone Group for $1 billion; Huizenga netted $192 million from the deal.
In 2010, Huizenga along with Steve Berrard, former CEO of Blockbuster Video and AutoNation, took a majority stake in Swisher Hygiene, after paying $8.1 million to founder Patrick Swisher and his wife, Laura. The company became a public company but did not do well and was acquired by Ecolab.
Sports team ownership
Huizenga was notable for introducing baseball and ice hockey to the South Florida area as the creator and initial owner of the Florida Marlins and Florida Panthers. Also, he bought the cable television channel SportsChannel Florida (now Bally Sports Florida) in 1996 to air his teams' games in the region.
He was criticized for naming the two teams for the state of Florida rather than the city of Miami. As an advocate for the city of Fort Lauderdale, he explained that his goal was to include Broward County and Palm Beach County in his teams' fan base.
American football
In 1990, during a period of financial hardship for the franchise, Huizenga purchased 15% of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and its stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Founding owner Joe Robbie had recently died, and his surviving family found it difficult to keep the team afloat. In turn, Huizenga bought the remaining shares of the team for $115 million to obtain full ownership in 1994. He sold the naming rights of Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) to Fruit of the Loom brand Pro Player for $2 million per year for 10 years.
In February 2008, Huizenga sold 50% of the team and 50% of the stadium for $550 million to Stephen M. Ross, chairman of The Related Companies. Huizenga remained the managing general partner of the franchise until January 2009, when he sold another 45% of the team and as much of the stadium to Ross. Thus, Ross became managing general partner with 95% ownership of the Dolphins and the stadium, and Huizenga retained a 5% share of both club and stadium. Huizenga remained the proprietor of 50% of the land.
In the early 1990s, Huizenga served a two-year probationary period with the National Football League as an owner, with the stipulation that he not buy another team. The Marlins strengthened their pitching staff by luring Alex Fernandez to Miami and brought over third baseman Bobby Bonilla, outfielder Moisés Alou, reliever Dennis Cook and outfielders John Cangelosi and Jim Eisenreich.
In the next off season, Huizenga, claiming a financial loss of about $34 million running the team that year, a claim subsequently disputed by Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist in an essay, ordered the $54 million team payroll to be cut and immediately dismantled the championship team.
In 2009, Huizenga expressed regret over dismantling the team to save money; the dismantling of the team was listed as "one of the worst moves in the franchise's history" in a 2012 article in Bleacher Report. Economist Andrew Zimbalist commented: "Huizenga made a killing when he sold the team for $150 million [in 1998] and had the lease for this stadium that enabled him to keep just about all the stadium revenue."
In June 2001, he sold the Panthers to pharmaceutical businessman and friend Alan Cohen and Cohen's partner, former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar, for approximately $100 million. In December 2017, 25 years after he created the club, the Panthers retired the no. 37 shirt in honor of Huizenga. His family chose the number because it was his "birth year and lucky number."
Proposed Blockbuster Park project
In the early 1990s, Huizenga proposed developing of land along Interstate 75 near Miami in Broward County (on the county line between Broward and Dade County) into a complex dubbed "Blockbuster Park". The project would have been developed by Blockbuster Entertainment, and was cancelled after its acquisition by Viacom. Before the project's cancellation, a special tax district had been created by the state government for the project.
Honors
In 1991, Huizenga received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
In 1992, he was named a "Distinguished American" by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. He was named its 2008 Norman Vincent Peale Award recipient.
He was named the 2005 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year.
In 2012, the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, renamed Southeast 9th Street in the Rio Vista neighborhood Wayne Huizenga Blvd.
Personal life and death
On September 10, 1960, he married Joyce Vander Wagen, whom he met while in high school. He had known Joyce since his early school years in Evergreen Park. Wayne and Joyce had two children, Wayne Jr. and Scott. The marriage ended in divorce in 1966. She was a secretary, and had done billing and clerical work in one of his businesses. The couple remained married until her death on January 3, 2017, following a fourteen-year battle with cancer.
In May 2004, Huizenga purchased a private luxury yacht from Australian professional golfer Greg Norman. The yacht cost $77 million and was further modified by Huizenga to feature a helipad for a 12-seat helicopter.
In 1996, he donated $1 million to Pine Crest School, his alma mater, which named its science building the Huizenga Science Building.
In 2009, his Huizenga Family Foundation donated the chapel at the South Florida Council's Scout camp in Davie, Florida.
In the 1980s, he began acquiring 2,000 acres about 30 miles north of West Palm Beach. In 1996, he based the Floridian Golf & Yacht Club there, an exclusive golf club "with enough estate homes on the property to cover his costs," and a course designed by Gary Player where he extended free privileges to some two hundred "friends, relatives, and business associates," including actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones and retired GE Chairman Jack Welch.
Huizenga died aged 80 of an undisclosed cancer at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on the night of March 22, 2018.