Contrary To Outsiders, Atlanta Is A TRUE Sports Town
I am not a true Atlanta guy. Let's be clear on that.
I was born in Detroit, a town that has emotionally invested in their four major sports teams over the years in terms. My first memories of my sports life was seeing the Bless You Boys Tigers of 1984 thump everybody and my heart was to them and the city rallied behind it.. I would ultimately see the Bad Boys Pistons drive teams insane with their over-physical play and pretty much give the bird to the rest of the NBA and the fans. Again, the city rallied behind them. I still lived in Detroit when the blueprints of Hockeytown really went crazy as over time whenever I visited back to see my family, the town was painted red. The Lions? Whenever they weren't sucking wind in the NFL and had good years, fans really came out for them.
But I moved to Alabama in 1992 (hence, my love for the Crimson Tide) and then Atlanta in 1994. After a few years, it took me to rally behind the home teams.
My season tickets in Atlanta from 2009-11 (NFC Divisional Playoff game vs. Green Bay).
But the thing is, I am not much different than the majority of the fans in Atlanta. Most Atlanta fans are displaced from elsewhere. Now, my true loyalties in baseball and basketball remain with the Tigers and Pistons to this day. However, I ultimately ended up with season tickets for the Atlanta Falcons from 2009-2011. No, I wasn't really pushing to get season tickets. For getting a car at Kia, one of the "rewards" was getting season tickets to the Falcons for an entire season. Of course, it coincided with the start of what many consider Atlanta's golden years. I loved my experiences at the Falcons games that first year that I went in with a buddy of mine and we shared season tickets for the next two seasons.
I gave up my tickets after the 2011 season in part because of the hikes of prices, my buddy wanting to upgrade, and just needing to save a bit of money. I don't regret it, but given my salary at my job, I could not afford it anymore. But not only for a couple of seasons I was financially invested in the team, I was emotionally invested in the team. The Falcons had become MY team, even over the Lions. I remained following them after I dropped my tickets. I watched every game, cheered, groaned, etc. when the Falcons played. I still watched those games in 2013 when the Falcons fell apart and again in 2014 when they imploded time after time in the 4th quarter. So when the Falcons dismantled Green Bay last week in the NFC Championship, I was elated.
So I am driving to work and listen to the local sports radio station, 92.9 and they mentioned of an article of Dan Shaughnessy, which blasted the fans of Atlanta. And the personalities, John Fricke & Hugh Douglas (yes, the same Hugh Douglas who played for the Jets, Eagles, and Jaguars). To quote some of the excerpts from Shaughnessy:
Shaughnessy's article irked an entire city while putting the discussion of Atlanta as a sports town back on the scene.
"But Atlanta? Seriously? This will be like the Larry Bird Celtics winning two of their championships by beating the Houston Rockets instead of the Lakers. It’ll be like the Bruins beating the expansion St. Louis Blues to win the Stanley Cup. It’ll be like the Red Sox beating the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series.....I know this makes us greedy, but it’s real. A Super Bowl vs. the Dallas Cowboys or New York Football Giants or Green Bay Packers would have had so many more layers of story lines and history. Even a rematch with Pete the Poodle Carroll and the Seahawks would have drummed up some extra interest."
To the LONE part I agree with the sentiment is that the storyline would be a tad bit better if it was Dallas, New York, or Green Bay, because of the storied tradition those teams have while Atlanta hasn't really carved it out. So I get that part of his assessment.
But this is where the feathers got ruffled:
"But it is also a town with absolutely zero enthusiasm for professional sports. And the non-fans know it. They’ve been hearing it for a long time. The Falcons, Braves, and Hawks don’t win championships so they don’t get much love. Atlanta is a place where people play sports rather than watch them. Atlanta grows professional athletes. We produce Ordways and Massarottis."
Before I comment on this part, on a side note, days leading up to the NFC Championship Game, I got into a heated debate with a Facebook "friend" who is from Wisconsin and was a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan and he had taken NUMEROUS digs on the Atlanta fan base and even threw the nonsense of "well I GUARANTEE you Packers fans will be in full force as the Georgia Dome will show a lot of green Sunday!" And he kept on shoveling more drivel saying how fans of Atlanta were not TRUE fans. But I ultimately found out that he had sour grapes from when the Braves left Milwaukee and even said as much and believed Atlanta didn't deserve a team for any sport. And of course, he pretty much touted Green Bay Packer fans as God's chosen people. So I had already had dealt with THAT venom and sent some back his way. And of course, he didn't like what I said and unfriended me. To that I went "whatever." Anyway................
My visit to Wrigley Field in 2014, Cubs vs. Mets. A lot of empty seats. But Chicago fans get a pass.
The first argument he said I want to hit is the whole "zero enthusiasm" bit. If he is using it just on numbers of attendance figures, well, he's wrong. In that sense, every city who holds professional sports goes through slumps with bringing in the fans large in part because the teams were losing. Even the sports cities who are considered "great" such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, and Cleveland go through phases where their teams struggle on the field and at the gates. We just saw the Cubs win it all in 2016 and have a cult following everywhere now as they are the current America's Team of baseball. But just 2 years ago when I visited Wrigley Field, the Cubs were still not good and fans didn't show up. They even asked my family if they wanted to move up from our seats. And I consider Chicago a GREAT sports town. But the same people who rip Atlanta for their "bandwagon" issues are okay with it. The irony is 15 years ago, the Thrashers outdrew Chicago's Blackhawks at the gates and even the Bruins at times when both were bad. But nobody talks about that. Or how about the Indians this year? They still weren't drawing well until the playoffs and then they packed it. But nobody said a word on that.
But yes, if the Atlanta teams are losing, the venues are pretty empty. The Braves experienced it the last few years and the Hawks (which I think they are just starting to regain the fans after a long absence thanks in part to the whole Dominique Wilkins/Danny Manning trade where some fans were furious over) had experienced it especially when Philips Arena opened). The Falcons? Different ball. Even when the Falcons crashed in 2013 and 2014, they still practically sold out every game. Yes, some of those games you had the opposing fan bases come out in droves, but the fans still arrived. And go ahead and listen to the radio. Fans were still into it. Fans around town in 2013 and 2014 still wore Matt Ryan jerseys and Julio Jones jerseys. Decals remained of the Falcon logo. Go to the local bars on Sundays in the Atlanta area and they are packed with fans cheering on the Falcons, even in the last few years where the team was "off." Go to work and fans talked about the team and how they are doing and what they need to do to get better. So it really comes down to this for Atlanta and the teams.
Ownership.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank has invested A LOT in this team and made sure the fans could invest in them as well since 2001.
Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
The Atlanta area is filled with working class citizens. They go out and bust their rear ends to make their money. If they are going to spend that hard earned money, they are wanting to make sure that it is worthwhile. But here's the thing: they are not going to spend that money if they know it isn't going to give them a bang for their buck. And if the team owners are not showing any signs of making the team a championship contender and not listening to what the fans wanted to make the experience better, they are not going to spend it. That is why the Falcons have sold out nearly all their games since 2002 (2007 being an exception with Michael Vick in prison while the Falcons had Bobby Petrino as coach) because Blank wants his Falcons to win and he is also making sure the fans are also treated well at the games. It keeps fans talking.
It wasn't that way before Blank. The Smith family, who ran the Falcons, would spend money on players, but that is all they thought they needed to do. Even in 1998, when the Falcons made the Super Bowl, only had 2 sellouts, and both were late in the season when it was obvious they were a threat. But it never seemed like they listened to what the fans wanted so it never had that following to stick.
The Hawks are also getting a re-birth at Philips Arena as fans are starting to fill in.
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Those in Atlanta are also seeing a bit of a re-birth of the Hawks since new ownership, led by Tony Ressler took over. The Hawks have made a strong commitment to winning also while listening to fans about what they wanted to see improve about the Philips Arena experience. And what you're seeing is a far cry of when the horrid Atlanta Spirit Group (who didn't want to invest in a dime to see them win) ran things and buried the Hawks and Thrashers. And also, you're starting to see more decals on cars of the Hawks logo, more jerseys of Hawks players being worn around town by kids and more and more talk about the Hawks is on the radio, the players are becoming more and more of household names in town, such as Dennis Schroder, Paul Millsap, and Ken Bazemore.
But we are also getting the Braves with questionable ownership and while the desire from front office is there to win, they've somewhat gone about it in a wrong way with the fans as they did not bother coming out to the final season in Turner Field and how they are trying to bleed Cobb County out of more money, which has infuriated a lot of the fan base. Time will tell on that one, but before Liberty Media took them and Ted Turner owned them, he made sure that the fans would come out and see the Braves.
Obviously this was not a bright moment for Atlanta as they had more than a few empty seats for an NLDS game in 2004.
Of course, the argument that many fans have taken has been with the Braves and their inability to sell out in the playoffs and the two failed attempts of NHL in Atlanta has been really thrown in the headlines. When the Braves had that run in the 90's through the mid-2000's, Turner Field had a difficulty of selling out playoff games. Many view it as "spoiled," but others who had followed the Braves felt like the teams were not as good as some of these other teams in the playoffs, such as the Cubs in 03 and then Houston in 04. But Atlanta had struggles winning in the playoffs after 1996, getting bounced out in the NLCS in 1997, 1998, and 2001 while the other years were NLDS games. For me, I went to Game 5 of the NLDS against San Francisco in 2002 and the place, albeit not 100% filled (I'd say about 95%), were into the game. However, Atlanta lost 3-1 and when the final out was made, the Atlanta fan base did a a small Philadelphia impression, dumping tomahawks and Coke bottles onto the field in disgust as it was probably the Braves last best chance of a world championship. After the game, I listened to the radio as fans were very disgusted with the outcome of the game and frustrated with how the front office was so content with winning division titles and nothing more. Whether it was true or not isn't the point, but when the fans believed the higher ups were happy with just a division title, it rubbed them off the wrong way. Adding on, piece by piece of the Braves started to leave and the years after fans felt like the outcome was already made. And fans stopped going to October games.
There were plenty of empty seats at the end of the Thrashers run in 2011.
As for the hockey issue in Atlanta, I will use the Thrashers as that was the team I followed. When the Thrashers first started, there was abuzz in Atlanta for the hockey team. The team stunk, and rightfully so in their first few years. However, players like Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley were drafted, giving hope for the future. When the Atlanta Spirit Group bought them, they had no interest in wanting them. So was there any major effort by them to help the Thrashers and bring in fans? No. In fact, they had tried to sell it almost as fast as they bought it with the Hawks. The owners kept the same people who created a giant mess, notably Don Waddell around for its entirety of the Thrashers run as fans were furious that he was still around (and yet he was promoted on top of it). The ownership created no advertising for the Thrashers, the local media wasn't talking about them at all, and no push was there for them. Fans were tired of the constant losing and keeping the same personnel that continued the Thrashers struggles and stopped going altogether.
To Shaughnessy's comment of how Atlanta is a place where "people play sports rather than watch," well yes and no. They play the sports, but what does he think the players did or do when they are not playing? Watching sports. You are also starting to see local players who are making it to the pros, especially in the NFL say "oh yeah, I was a Falcons fan growing up and that is my team!" They were into it partly because they watched the Falcons for all those years.
Every summer I visit a major city, namely one with an MLB team (I like to chase ballparks, Majors & Minors), and after seeing a lot of these places, I feel like Atlanta is no different from a lot of these others and in some cases, BETTER for sports than others. With the Falcons, there has been a constant buzz for the last 15 years here. The city has been DYING for a championship team in some sport, notably football. But to those fans who think the city is a superficial, bandwagon town, come visit. You'll see it holds its own with the sports. And if the Falcons win next week................you will definitely see what kind of sports town Atlanta is.
-Fan in the Obstructed Seat
