Business, sports magnate H. Wayne Huizenga dies at 80

H. Wayne Huizenga, who turned a trash-hauling company into one of the country’s largest and most impressive business empires, died March 22 at his home in Ft. Lauderdale. He was 80.

According to a company spokesman, Huizenga had been treated for cancer for several years.

As the owner of the Miami Dolphins, the Florida Panthers and the Florida Marlins, Huizenga was a high-profile sports magnate and something of a South Florida folk hero, although he’d worked long and hard by the time he bought the teams.

In 1968, the Chicago native founded Waste Management, Inc., considered the first trash-hauling service to go national. He stepped away in 1984, several billion dollars richer.

Huizenga founded Blockbuster Video three years later, and sold it to Viacom in 1994 for $8.4 billion, just before the bottom fell out of the video-rental business.

Next, he purchased numerous auto dealerships and car rental concerns. After a few years of struggling, they were consolidated as AutoNation, which became the largest automotive dealer in the country. He retired as the company’s chairman in the early 2000s.

Waste Management, Inc., Blockbuster Video and AutoNation were Fortune 500 companies, making Huizenga the first person to oversee three such companies at the same time.

As the founder of the Marlins and the Panthers, and the eventual owner of the Dolphins, Huizenga became the first person to own teams in three major sports leagues.

In 2017, Forbes estimated his worth at $2.7 billion.

A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday, March 29 during the Florida Marlins’ season-opener against the Chicago Cubs.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred expressed his condolences to Huizenga’s family in a statement. “Wayne played a pivotal role in bringing the Marlins to South Florida more than a quarter-century ago,” he said, “and his leadership brought a World Championship season in 1997, the franchise’s fifth year of existence.

“More important than Wayne’s great success in business was his extraordinary philanthropy, which impacted many people and improved communities.”