A few years back, I drove by Casino Miami, an old-school, slots-heavy joint frequented by working-class Hispanics, and decided that today would be the day I’d check out the long forgotten and most Miami of sports, jai alai. I made a U-turn and pulled into the casino parking lot, which was surprisingly packed for a midday afternoon in the middle of the week. I’d been hearing for years that jai alai was dying a slow death after peaking in the late 70s and early 80s, but as I walked into the renovated casino, past gleaming slot machines and finely dressed Cuban retirees giddy over the prospect of losing their remaining Social Security cents, I was hopeful that I’d discover some forgotten Shangri-La. I asked a clerk where the jai alai was played, and he pointed at a deserted hallway that clearly hadn’t been renovated.
I made it to the door at the end of the hallway and looked behind me. No one was joining me. I’m about to enter a portal into that magical Miami that’s becoming increasingly difficult to access, I thought. I pushed the door open and caught a glimpse of the fraying protective netting that kept the pelota inside the fronton. I considered running down the hall and trying my luck at the slots, but the decrepitude and the decay dragged me in. This was a portal after all — but there was no magic to be found. I hadn’t made it to a forgotten Shangri-La but to a place that had been simply forgotten. The fronton, which resembles a racquetball court, was flanked by three or four rows of stadium seating, where a handful of Miami’s most disheveled and beat dozed off, occasionally looking up to take in the “action.” I took a seat in the back row, which I had all to myself. My appearance was met with the unadulterated apathy of men who had stopped caring long ago.
There might’ve been a time when jai alai attracted top-tier athletic talent, but the men I’d come to see were clearly long past their primes and merely going through the motions. The pelota, even, was deadened, lacking the requisite bounce. I got the sense that whoever was in charge had simply forgotten to shut the operation down, that jai alai was less a sport than a purgatorial state. I bolted almost immediately, fearing that I’d be confined to that musty room with those ghostly men forever. Jai alai, I was convinced, was dead.
The Casino at Dania Beach in Broward County ended its 70-year jai alai run last year, and Casino Miami has mercifully shut down the fronton I visited, but there’s one holdout aiming to keep jai alai alive and perhaps even restore the sport to its former glory — Magic City Casino. Magic City, as locals call it, is the last place in America where one can watch professional jai alai. In order to give the sport a fighting chance at survival, Magic City, which just completed its fifth season of professional jai alai, debuted a tournament earlier this year called Battle Court. Per a press release hyping up the new tournament, Magic City Chief Operating Officer Scott Savin said that “we are ready to take jai alai to a new level. We have made significant updates to the game while keeping the most important elements to present a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat experience.” The Battle Court tournament, which concluded April 17 and culminated with the Cesta Cyclones crowned as inaugural champions, signals a possible return to relevancy for jai alai — the sport is no longer on the verge of death, but its resuscitated state still doesn’t guarantee long-term viability.
It’s too early to think of profitability and cultural cache, but with the introduction of the Battle Court tournament format and other changes Magic City has made to the sport, it can be said that jai alai has a future. It isn’t bright, at least not yet, but the fact that there’s a future at all is miraculous to anyone who sat through a game a decade ago.
The biggest change is that the fronton has been reduced in size by 60 feet, which will guarantee a fast-paced game. The typically rock-hard pelota has been replaced with a softer, springier ball that will slam against a plexiglass wall. The green back wall usually associated with jai alai is gone. Purists might have problems with this sleeker version of the game, but if those zonked-out geriatrics I encountered at Casino Miami represent the sport’s traditional fan base, it’s a good thing that they’ll be annoyed with the changes. Magic City surely isn’t purposefully alienating jai alai’s old-guard fan base, but the sport’s survival is contingent on attracting new blood, which is to say, new money.
The level and caliber of the athletes have also changed. During my lone visit to the fronton at Casino Miami, I was struck by how unathletic the players were. They were clearly journeymen who’d hung around the game because they had nothing else to do and could simply call themselves “professional athletes” because the fan base was too asleep to disagree. Magic City doesn’t have the over-the-hill journeymen problem because its league’s 28-man roster consists of mostly youngish former college athletes who are new to jai alai — a handful of 30-somethings who played college and semipro football have taken to jai alai. The purists, once again, might not like this development, but someone like me with a slight interest in jai alai would be much more likely to tune in if the athletes, well, look like athletes.
I recently checked out the Jai Alai Channel on YouTube and watched a few games of “Magic City Pelota.” I’m not a jai alai connoisseur, so I can’t say if the players were competing at an elite level reminiscent of the sport’s heyday, but they were going at it with the verve and competitive spirit of engaged athletes. The games had a life to them, unlike the snoozer I’d encountered years ago at Casino Miami. I’d check this out in person, I thought. I wouldn’t go as far as calling myself a fan — yet — but Magic City’s product impressed me and left me wanting more.
Financial viability is the goal, of course, and Magic City is making moves on that front as well — this season’s games were licensed for online betting in seven states. The ubiquity and growth of online gambling will only help Magic City, but gamblers must first know that the sport exists. As I perused the Jai Alai Channel on YouTube, I noticed only a handful of comments per video. The fan base just isn’t there yet, and it feels like Magic City needs a little luck to turn the corner. Is it possible that with Miami’s recent ascendance in cultural relevancy jai alai will receive a much-needed boost as well? All it would take is for a bored tech bro or some foreign investor looking to recreate the Miami Vice days to blow some cash on a team and transform jai alai into what it should be — a glitzy Miami spectacle. The teams, by the way, go for as low as $100,000, or so I’ve heard.
This is all a pipe dream, but what’s a reality is that the Casino at Dania Beach, after pulling the plug last year, brought jai alai back for a two-week tournament in April. Is this the beginning of a jai alai resurgence? Maybe. Maybe not. You just don’t know which way the pelota is going to bounce.
Alex Perez is a fiction writer and cultural critic from Miami. Follow him on Twitter: @Perez_Writes.
