Bobby Dodd sold out.

Milwaukee

Banned
Messages
7,277
Location
Milwaukee, WI
Few reasons;
1. Most soccer fans I know get preachy instantly about how soccer is "the game of the future" and "the world's most popular sport." So? I don't care about the rest of the world. The rest of the world has lots of things that are stupid and useless. Should we start doing them here because the rest of the world likes it?

2. The MLS is trash. Like being excited over AA baseball.

3. Soccer is for communists. There, I said it. I like to call it "communist lawn hockey." Someone else may have said it in this thread already, but I don't want to go too far back in this thread because then I'd have to read about soccer, which would make me physically ill.

If you like soccer, that's great. I mean, I'm sorry your dad left your family when you were at an early age, or you weren't good enough to play any real sports, but that's great for you. I'm glad Atlanta has a "safe space" for you now.

Are you 14...or 40 and divorced?
 

potatohead

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
602
Few reasons;
1. Most soccer fans I know get preachy instantly about how soccer is "the game of the future" and "the world's most popular sport." So? I don't care about the rest of the world. The rest of the world has lots of things that are stupid and useless. Should we start doing them here because the rest of the world likes it?

2. The MLS is trash. Like being excited over AA baseball.

3. Soccer is for communists. There, I said it. I like to call it "communist lawn hockey." Someone else may have said it in this thread already, but I don't want to go too far back in this thread because then I'd have to read about soccer, which would make me physically ill.

If you like soccer, that's great. I mean, I'm sorry your dad left your family when you were at an early age, or you weren't good enough to play any real sports, but that's great for you. I'm glad Atlanta has a "safe space" for you now.

ironic. based on this, the only person looking for a "safe space" is you.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,235
Football is king, and will be king in America for some time. Interesting thing is, you can make the argument that soccer is already the 3rd most "popular" professional sports league if you look at average attendance.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/207458/per-game-attendance-of-major-us-sports-leagues/

In my opinion, any sport doing well is good for sports as a whole. So you don't like soccer/baseball/basketball/football/lacrosse/whatever. Good for you. If soccer does well, it just means more opportunities for young men and women. Same with any other sport out there. Not every kid out there is going to be a 6'5 freak who can jump out of a gym and run 4.3 forty, not every kid has the skills to slalom through 5 guys trying to defend him to score a goal, and not every kid is a 6'8 absolute freak of a human that can shoot and pass a basketball.

IMO, there's beauty in every sport. If you're vehemently against one sport, it says more about you than the sport.
 

thebull35

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
220
Location
Stone Mountain
For GT to have consistent sellouts in football GT will need to;

4. Build a better reputation within the ATL community.

6. Better link with Black Atlanta. In what ways does GT interact with the AUC? radio? TV? in the public schools.


GT has partnered with Atlanta Public Schools to provide a full scholarship to any valedictorian, and I believe salutatorian, from any of the high schools in the district....gotta start somewhere
 

JDjacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
634
I know some people are very anti soccer and that's fine. I'm a huge soccer fan. But as someone who goes to the games and someone who will cut off an arm to attend every GT home game (haven't missed one in 10 years) I think we need to point to atl united to show how intimidating Bobby Dodd is when full. We've seen it in the past. Various homecoming games vs # 5 Clemson # 9 FSU # 4 VT Miami 2014. GT basketball is gaining sidewalk momentum. Fans who don't know GT are experiencing the game via atl united games. We need to take that and run with it and fill this stadium during football season. The home field advantage potential we have is top notch. Let's get out fanbase out of their apathetic ways and do work.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,235


Probably would have been a LOT more had they opened up the North Stands for sale last game. Man, BDS is INCREDIBLE when the chants start echoing around the stadium. @JDjacket is spot on. 50K+ fans can easily make BDS an intimidating place if everyone is one the same page. Also, I don't think I saw many people sit down during live play. Far cry from GT games when people are getting yelled at for standing up.
 

Deleted member 2897

Guest
I grew up playing soccer. You don't get to know and love soccer if all you care about is points. Basketball is your sport if you want to see tons and tons of scores/points. Soccer's allure is in the athleticism (try being fit enough to run around for 45 minutes without subbing out like hockey, or having breaks in the action longer than like 5 seconds to throw the ball in) and the in game plays. Speed, seeing and creating passing lanes, moving without the ball - those are what make the sport great. I totally get how stupid it is that a game can end 0-0 or 1-0 and how that can turn fans off. But until you stop caring about that as much I don't think you'll get the true beauty of soccer. And I also get how stupid all the flops are and writhing on the field because someone said something about your mama. I think the men need to take a page out of the women's soccer handbook - play tough as nails and through the blood, don't be a 3 year old. I wish refs would call more penalties for flops or at least yellow cards to make the point.
 

MWBATL

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,530
Impressive. Now if we can just get those soccer fans to attend GT football games....I mean, they already know how exciting sports at Bobby Dodd can be!
 

JDjacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
634
Impressive. Now if we can just get those soccer fans to attend GT football games....I mean, they already know how exciting sports at Bobby Dodd can be!

It would be interesting to try and get them behind GT. The overlap in season ticket holders between falcons and atl united is like 8% or something (read the number somewhere and will have to find it). This indicates a combination of tapping into an entirely different fan base present in Atlanta or bringing a sport at a cheaper price to football. You want to take your kid to a sporting event but don't want to fork out $100 for nosebleeds at the dome, well you can get a decent seat for half that (don't quote me on that just saying its cheaper) and most likely your kid at some point played youth soccer since its one of the largest youth sports.

Part of that means you may have soccer fans who need to be given a college football team to cheer for outside their alma mater if they have one. How do you do this? Well 30K+ people bought Atl united season tickets. GT is receiving rent per game, a small % of ticket sales, locker room renovation money, redoing the field before football season, and a % of concessions (which could be a lot of money since they're selling beer). Maybe use some of the profit to offer a deal that lets the 30K season ticket holders a single game ticket. Obviously not to the same game, maybe open up a system that allows so many fans at each game and priority is based on how much they paid for their season tickets (people paying for atl united club seats get first choice). When 1 game hits their allotted amount that game is closed off. UGA and homecoming games would probably need to be excluded due to high attendance numbers for those games anyway. That comes out to about 6000-7500 max extra people (depending on if you're including UT game or not in this promotion) just from the season ticket holders. When you consider homecoming and UGA aren't being included its games like VT, UNC, Pitt, and opening cupcake (and UT at the dome if that's able to be included). With the exception of VT those away fans aren't known for traveling so north endzone should have plenty of seats.




I would be 100% down to start unified chants like that at home games. A lot of the Atl united fan base is younger which is why the last 2 games everyone stood the whole game as you don't have lots of older fans who can't do that. Unified chants like this require people to know whats going on (soccer has supporter groups, GT would need the Swarm, Band, Greeks, alumni organizations and other student organizations to spread the word about what chants to use and how they go). Then you would need the band or members of the Swarm to lead the chants. Outside of band I don't know how the GTAA would take to the large stands that the people leading cheers use. Also in soccer games they allow people to bring in megaphones and drums which normal fans may be prohibited from doing via the NCAA.
 

ClydeBrick

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
961
Kinda sad to see all that red & black at Grant Field.

Now (by August anyway),
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