Is Atlanta a bad sports town?

[A Love Supreme]

The perception created by the national media is that Atlanta is a bad sports town. What makes Atlanta a bad sports town? Is it because the 95 Braves are the only champions? Is it because the hockey team left?

 

[OldJacketFan]

The perception created by the national media is that Atlanta is a bad sports town. What makes Atlanta a bad sports town? Is it because the 95 Braves are the only champions? Is it because the hockey team left?

IMO it stems from the perception that Atlanta is a band wagon town and the absolute futility of the most high profile franchise, the foulcons under the original ownership.

 

[smathis30]

atlanta population has doubled in 25 years. Not a whole lotta cities can claim they did that, bar Houston. That just means not a whole lot of homegrown fans and a ton of fans from other places moving in. Philly has grown 600k in the same time frame, and both have the same population now. but Philly had almost twice the population of Atlanta in 1990. Melting pots (Atlanta due to weather, Olympics, and Hurricane Katrina relocation) imported a lot of fans from other states.

 

[RonJohn]

• When the Braves were making the playoffs every year, they could not sell out the divisional series. I believe they even had some league champion ship series games that weren't sold out. Atlanta fans weren't excited or maybe even interested until the team was in the World Series.
• Atlanta has not historically sold out Falcon's games, except for during and immediately after great seasons or when they move into a new stadium.
• The Hawks don't sell out despite having some of the lowest ticket prices in the NBA.
• Previous soccer and hockey teams have left town because of a lack of support.

The only professional team that has rabid fan support is United. This is only their second year, so it is still to be determined if the success will continue.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

• When the Braves were making the playoffs every year, they could not sell out the divisional series. I believe they even had some league champion ship series games that weren't sold out. Atlanta fans weren't excited or maybe even interested until the team was in the World Series.
• Atlanta has not historically sold out Falcon's games, except for during and immediately after great seasons or when they move into a new stadium.
• The Hawks don't sell out despite having some of the lowest ticket prices in the NBA.
• Previous soccer and hockey teams have left town because of a lack of support.

The only professional team that has rabid fan support is United. This is only their second year, so it is still to be determined if the success will continue.

Pretty much this. When the Braves came to Atlanta they were instantly popular their first season. It did not last. Some of us remember attending games in later years in which we had fewer than 8000 fans in the stadium. The first soccer championship in the U.S. was won by the Atlanta Chiefs but no one in Atlanta, it felt like, even knew that happened.

Lots of reasons have been given over the years for the lack of fan enthusiasm and I suspect the answer is complicated. If you have ever visited a great sports town for a sporting event you instantly see the difference. The energy level is just different. It feels like an event. I used to have tickets to the Braves every season but when they started getting good I suddenly found the stadium filled with "beautiful people" for whom the game was just a backdrop for their night out of partying and being seen. They rarely actually watched the field and they were way too cool to yell at the field. They would not even know what a score card was. When the Braves are not winning and not the place to see and be seen, attendance tanks again. And so it goes with every other sports team in this town.

 

[MikeJackets1967]

Atlanta tends to be a big time bandwagon town

 

[Jophish17]

Some of us remember attending games in later years in which we had fewer than 8000 fans in the stadium.

8,000 would have been generous in the late 80s.

I used to have tickets to the Braves every season but when they started getting good I suddenly found the stadium filled with "beautiful people" for whom the game was just a backdrop for their night out of partying and being seen. They rarely actually watched the field and they were way too cool to yell at the field.

I love Atlanta United - Soccer was my favorite sport to play growing up, and United is the first professional club I’ve really become a fan of - but I think a lot of this applies to United too. I do believe United has a large “fan of the game” base (certainly more than the Braves pre-1991) but there’s a lot of casual fans there who seem to view it as a social event too. It remains to be seen if that support lasts or if some of the casual fans can be converted to more serious fans.

My favorite analogy re: Atlanta united attendance is “Even the Florida Marlins sold more than 3 million tickets in 1993...”

 

[Buzzbomb]

Some of you old enough can remember the Atlanta Chiefs soccer team in 1970? They won a championship for us, although the fan support was nothing like it is for the United.

Ga. Swarm won a lacrosse one, two years ago.

Did you realize the Braves in 1995 didn’t play the 162 game schedule? The season started late, because of the strike. I had to laugh at the reference of 8k fans in the late ‘80’s. That would have been a mob scene compared to the putrid attendance in the ‘70’s. I worked the upper deck after Ted Turner bought the team and sometimes, it was only me, with a few ushers for the sections above home plate.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Some of you old enough can remember the Atlanta Chiefs soccer team in 1970? They won a championship for us, although the fan support was nothing like it is for the United.

Ga. Swarm won a lacrosse one, two years ago.

Did you realize the Braves in 1995 didn’t play the 162 game schedule? The season started late, because of the strike. I had to laugh at the reference of 8k fans in the late ‘80’s. That would have been a mob scene compared to the putrid attendance in the ‘70’s. I worked the upper deck after Ted Turner bought the team and sometimes, it was only me, with a few ushers for the sections above home plate.

I remember. As I said, Chiefs were Atlanta's first champion but nobody seemed to know they existed. I remember player coach Phil Woosman and star striker Boy Boy Montag.

Also saw Braves in the 70s with 500 of my closest friends. Only time I got to sit behind home plate, which is the best way to experience big league ball. A fast ball sizzles as it comes in. And you can hear it when there aren't a lot of fans around making noise.

 

[DCSS]

Atlanta is a city of mostly transplants. When I went to a Falcons vs Steelers game a few years ago, it seemed like Pittsburgh was the home team.

 

[Milwaukee]

Atlanta is a city of mostly transplants. When I went to a Falcons vs Steelers game a few years ago, it seemed like Pittsburgh was the home team.

Pitt and GB do that to every stadium they travel to.

 

[wvGT11]

The notion that Atlanta is a bad sports town stems from the collapse of teams either at the end of the season or in the playoffs / championships. I grew up with the Braves of the 90's and the 14 consecutive postseason seasons, and attended the 95 world series win.
Since then I've seen just about every collapse a team has had in the playoffs / championships

I spent some time in Boston back in 2011 for an internship and had a chance to go to a Redsox / Yankees game, the energy and passion at that game is something I still remember and honestly Atlanta United is the closest I've come to that .

We are not a bad sports town in terms of fans, the fact that we are the home of college football speaks volumes.

 

[Old South Stands]

The perception created by the national media is that Atlanta is a bad sports town. What makes Atlanta a bad sports town? Is it because the 95 Braves are the only champions? Is it because the hockey team left?

The hockey teams left. (Flames, then the Thrashers)

I don't know if this is it or not, but life was always pretty good in Atlanta -- at least it used to be. Back in the early '80s it was voted "the most livable" city in America. Such a place can breed a lot of fair-weather fans compared with tougher places to live like Chicago or Detroit or even St. Louis, where sports is a great diversion from the stresses of everyday life. Another reason could be that pro sports came late to Atlanta... When the Braves and Falcons arrived, Atlanta was no bigger than Durham, NC is today. At one time, all you had were the Yellow Jackets and the Atlanta Crackers. Then within the space of a few years, you get the Braves, the Falcons, the Hawks and the Flames. And there was also the Chiefs. The market suddenly gets divided among many different teams. Now add to the mix a bunch of new transplants to Atlanta over the following decades, many of them bringing their old loyalties with them, and the home team never really gets a clear home field advantage.

For years there was also a lot of negative bias against Atlanta-based teams from the sports press, partly because Atlanta was an up-and-coming city and wasn't supposed to compete against the New Yorks or the Bostons or the Chicagos of the sports world. These cities were supposed to produce champions, not an upstart city like Atlanta. I think that inferiority complex may have filtered down to the players on some level. Combine that with fair-weather fandom, and that's a possible recipe for mediocrity and post-season collapses.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

The hockey teams left. (Flames, then the Thrashers)

I don't know if this is it or not, but life was always pretty good in Atlanta -- at least it used to be. Back in the early '80s it was voted "the most livable" city in America. Such a place can breed a lot of fair-weather fans compared with tougher places to live like Chicago or Detroit or even St. Louis, where sports is a great diversion from the stresses of everyday life. Another reason could be that pro sports came late to Atlanta... When the Braves and Falcons arrived, Atlanta was no bigger than Durham, NC is today. At one time, all you had were the Yellow Jackets and the Atlanta Crackers. Then within the space of a few years, you get the Braves, the Falcons, the Hawks and the Flames. And there was also the Chiefs. The market suddenly gets divided among many different teams. Now add to the mix a bunch of new transplants to Atlanta over the following decades, many of them bringing their old loyalties with them, and the home team never really gets a clear home field advantage.

For years there was also a lot of negative bias against Atlanta-based teams from the sports press, partly because Atlanta was an up-and-coming city and wasn't supposed to compete against the New Yorks or the Bostons or the Chicagos of the sports world. These cities were supposed to produce champions, not an upstart city like Atlanta. I think that inferiority complex may have filtered down to the players on some level. Combine that with fair-weather fandom, and that's a possible recipe for mediocrity and post-season collapses.

I remember when this topic was discussed several decades ago in Atlanta one reason/excuse that was given was that Atlanta had good weather and that families would rather go to parks, grill in the backyard or go to the lake rather than sit in a bleacher somewhere. It was also noted that Atlanta was very supportive of NASCAR which at one time was the number one draw in terms of crowd size of all spectator sports.

In recent years the counter claim to both these arguments would be Atlanta's low fitness ranking of citizens compared to other cities (implying more of a couch potato citizenry rather than one that gets out all the time) and half empty stands at racing events.

It is a peculiar phenomenon about Atlanta and one that I have never seen answered to my satisfaction. It is true that when Tech and the Crackers were the only game in town it seemed like sports were more important.

 

[Old South Stands]

Some of you old enough can remember the Atlanta Chiefs soccer team in 1970? They won a championship for us, although the fan support was nothing like it is for the United.

Ga. Swarm won a lacrosse one, two years ago.

Did you realize the Braves in 1995 didn’t play the 162 game schedule? The season started late, because of the strike. I had to laugh at the reference of 8k fans in the late ‘80’s. That would have been a mob scene compared to the putrid attendance in the ‘70’s. I worked the upper deck after Ted Turner bought the team and sometimes, it was only me, with a few ushers for the sections above home plate.

I didn't know much about the Chiefs as a kid, except one of their players (Nick Papadakis) lived down in the neighborhood adjacent to us. He started the soccer store "Soccer Kick" in Sandy Springs with his brother, Alec, who lived a few houses down on our street. I cut both their lawns as a boy. Great people. I'm not into soccer at all and hated having to play it at recess in school, but it was still really neat having them move to our neighborhood.

 

[Milwaukee]

The whole Bad sports town thing is 100% based off the Braves run when we couldn't fill the stadium. It has nothing to do with hoops, hockey, Falcons, etc.

Facts.

 

[MikeJacket1967]

The whole Bad sports town thing is 100% based off the Braves run when we couldn't fill the stadium. It has nothing to do with hoops, hockey, Falcons, etc.

Facts.

Atlanta fans only tend to show up when the various teams are winning it seems like to me

 

[RonJohn]

The whole Bad sports town thing is 100% based off the Braves run when we couldn't fill the stadium. It has nothing to do with hoops, hockey, Falcons, etc.

Facts.

So what are the facts?

Do the Hawks have good attendance? No. In 2014, the attendance was 77%. It went up in 2015 to 93%. It leveled out in 2016 to 89%. It dropped to 85% in 2017. That is despite having ticket prices in the very bottom of the NBA.

Does Atlanta have enough support to sustain a hockey team? Well, the Thrashers left Atlanta for a more supporting Winnipeg.

Do the Falcons have great support? They do have a high percentage of attendance, but they rank almost exactly middle of the NFL teams in percent attendance. They have great support in the town when they make it deep in the playoffs, but not much attention other than that.

I would say for that support for basketball, and hockey Atlanta is in the very bottom. In football Atlanta is in the middle.

 

[Milwaukee]

The stigma about ATL comes from the Braves run. This was the stigma way before anything you're talking about. These are well known facts in the sports world.

 

[RonJohn]

The stigma about ATL comes from the Braves run. This was the stigma way before anything you're talking about. These are well known facts in the sports world.

So the Falcons and the Hawks had good attendance before the Braves run? The Atlanta Chiefs were a successful soccer team? The Atlanta Flames were successful?

The success of Atlanta sports franchises was even worse before the Braves run. The Falcons were considered a joke. The Smith ownership was basically a joke of the NFL. The Chiefs had almost no attendance or fan support. The Flames made the playoffs six out of eight years, but could not get people to attend. There are absolutely no success stories in Atlanta professional sports from the 60s thru the 80s. The stigma about Atlanta sports wasn't caused by the lack of support for a dominant baseball team in the 90s. That lack of support confirmed a stigma about Atlanta's support for professional sports.