Minus NHL, did Atlanta just drop to Triple A of sports towns?
There's a banner we did not see very often in Philips Arena for Thrashers' games: playoffs.
Good morning. Did Atlanta just drop out of the majors?
This probably would carry a little more weight if Los Angeles still had an NFL team (which remains the funniest thing in sports, only because it drives Roger Goodell nuts). But when Atlanta was officially mugged by Atlanta Spirit, LLC and the NHL on Tuesday and the Thrashers were sold and moved to Winnipeg, the city dropped out of an elite group. There are only 12 remaining metropolitan areas that still have teams in all four pro sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL). Those 12: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco (San Jose), Boston, Washington, Detroit, Phoenix (until the Coyotes move), Minneapolis, Denver and Miami.
Atlanta is now the second-biggest market (behind only Los Angeles) that doesn’t have teams in all four leagues. The second tier group of seven cities with teams in three leagues: L.A. (no NFL), Atlanta (no NHL), Houston (no NHL), Tampa (no NBA), Cleveland (no NHL), St. Louis (no NBA) and Pittsburgh (no NBA).
What I’ve done below is list every U.S. city with at least one pro sports team. This was kind of a tedious exercise, so if I missed a team let me know and I’ll recommend you for an editor’s opening.
I’ve ranked the cities by what Nielsen refers to as “designated market area,” which factors in some secret combination of population, media outlets and I think number of Wendy’s. Atlanta is the No. 8 media market in the country. The only others in the top 15 without teams in the four sports are No. 2 L.A., No. 10 Houston, No. 13 Seattle (which has only two teams after the Sonics were highjacked) and No. 14 Tampa-St. Petersburg.
Here’s the list. And here’s my question for you: Did Atlanta just become less of a major sports city without the Thrashers?
Let me know what you think.
(Market rank, metropolitan area (sports): MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL.)
1. New York-New Jersey (4): Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Devils.
2. Los Angeles (3): Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Ducks.
3. Chicago (4): Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks.
4. Philadelphia (4): Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, Flyers.
5. Dallas/Ft. Worth (4): Rangers, Cowboys, Mavericks, Stars.
6. SanFran/SJ/Oak (4): Giants, A’s, 49ers, Raiders, Warriors, Sharks.
7. Boston (4): Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins.
8. Atlanta (3): Braves, Falcons, Hawks.
9. Washington (4): Nationals, Redskins, Wizards, Capitals.
10. Houston (3): Astros, Texans, Rockets.
11. Detroit (4): Tigers, Lions, Pistons, Red Wings.
12. Phoenix (4): Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Suns, Coyotes.
13. Seattle (2): Mariners, Seahawks.
14. Tampa-St. Pete. (3): Rays, Buccaneers, Lightning.
15. Minneapolis-St. Paul (4): Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Wild.
16. Denver (4): Rockies, Broncos, Nuggets, Avalanche.
17. Miami (4): Dolphins, Marlins, Heat, Panthers.
18. Cleveland (3): Indians, Browns, Cavaliers.
19. Orlando (1): Magic.
20. Sacramento (1): Kings.
21. St. Louis (3): Cardinals, Rams, Blues.
22. Portland (1): Trailblazers.
23. Pittsburgh (3): Pirates, Steelers, Penguins.
24. Charlotte (2): Panthers, Bobcats.
25. Indianapolis (2): Pacers, Colts.
26. Raleigh-Durham (1): Hurricanes.
27. Baltimore (2):Orioles, Ravens.
28. San Diego (2): Padres, Chargers.
29. Nashville (2): Predators, Titans.
31. Salt Lake City (1): Jazz.
32. Kansas City (2): Chiefs, Royals.
33. Cincinnati (2): Bengals, Reds.
34. Columbus (1): Blue Jackets.
35. Milwaukee (2): Bucks, Brewers.
37. San Antonio (1): Spurs.
45. Oklahoma City (1): Thunder.
47. Jacksonville (1): Jaguars.
50. Memphis (1): Grizzlies.
51. New Orleans (2): Saints, Hornets.
52. Buffalo (2): Bills, Sabres.
70. Green Bay-Appleton (1): Packers.
(Canadian cities with teams not included: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg.)
By Jeff Schultz
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279 comments Add your comment
Simple Jack
June 1st, 2011
11:12 am
Get a clue. Second time ATL crashed and burned on hockey. Is not going to happen—ever.
Hockey = Worst. Sport. Ever.
ATL still ranks as a major sporting town. Braves have won it all before (and been consistent winner in recent past). Football has been to the big show and could be going back REALLY soon. Basketball is two players (maybe one if Teague steps up) away from the next level—and they are not “bad” now…
GT Dude
June 1st, 2011
11:16 am
Last time I looked, the USA was a free market country (or at least until Obama gets his way) and the Atlanta market has simply not supported professional hockey. It is basic economics, there are not enough hockey fans in the metropolitian area willing to buy tickets to the games, buy the merchandize, or even watch the telecasts. Quit blaming anyone, the sports fans in Atlanta have spoken twice, no hockey
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
11:17 am
Chris — Double A, actually. Still hoping to work my way up to The Show one day.
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
11:21 am
Mid Town Joe — Trust me, I know. Wifey is from Pittsburgh.
Rick
June 1st, 2011
11:22 am
ChippersLoveChild:
“Believe it or not outside of the south most people do not care about college football”
May want to recheck your stats, not to mention look at the ratings, and finally look at the $ networks are throwing at conferences from around the country.
Dr. Phil
June 1st, 2011
11:22 am
In many ways, Ted Turner was not a nice man, but I really wish he would come back. I am coming to the gradual realization that the Braves are a mediocre baseball team at best.
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
11:23 am
Time — Tear Atlanta down? Is that what you got out of this blog?
Bruce Mac
June 1st, 2011
11:24 am
Yea, like NHL is a major sport. NASCAR, PGA, and College football are major sports and Atlanta area has all of them Arguing that hockey is major sport in the South is more than rediculous. Get real with your articles.
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
11:24 am
Sleeze — Sorry, no. I’m staying. So I guess you’ll have to move.
w.k. kortas
June 1st, 2011
11:25 am
Essentially, SEC/ACC football is a major league; the players aren’t paid (well, not openly, anyway), but it terms of TV ratings and fan interest, it’s clearly a major player, so I think you have to factor that into the equation, whereas in a lot of markets (Boston and New York, for example) BCS football is a non-factor, so the SEC/ACC really constitutes a major-league sport here. If the NHL ever comes back to Atlanta, it would be a niche sport, but niche sport in a 4.5 million population market; if the city had a deep-pocketed owner with a passion for the game, such as the folks with True North or Terry Pegula in Buffalo, hockey would work. If you have a dysfunctional ownership group that offers you an orphan hockey team that would be a tenant in its own building…well, that’s the kind of disaster that leads to relocation.
Horsehockey
June 1st, 2011
11:25 am
“As to the “hockey is broadcast on Versus” argument…who just bought Versus and negotiated that hefty, long-term hockey tv contract? Yup, NBC.”
Look, I don’t hate hockey and I’m certainly not happy the team left, but just checked the Vs TV ratings. Last available ratings were from 2008, so they may be a bit outdated, but it was < 250,000 viewers a game. Wonder how that compares to an average nationally televised NFL, MLB, or NBA game? Hint: in the millions, not the thousands.
As for the gomers saying they're glad the team left, or that they hate hockey, I'm guessing its mostly wounded pride. It's like not being invited to a party and saying, "I didn't want to go to that damned party anyway."
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
11:26 am
Pure Evil — We’re sending Vivlamore to Winnipeg for a desk guy and three dozen Tim Horton’s doughnuts.
Yurtle_the_turtle
June 1st, 2011
11:26 am
I still think Winnipeg sucks and the commisioner is an idiot. He stole a very good franchise and put it in a back-water town because his friend wanted to. He also had strong anti-Atlanta Spirit Group (could you blame him for feeling like that?) and thus he couldn’t wait one more year to pressure the idiots at ASG to sell to a decent Atlanta owner. Atlanta has more money than Winnipeg could ever dream. We could have kept the franchise here if the NHL wanted to. I can’t wait until year 3 at Loseipeg and see the numbers of “fans” drop to 9, 000 a night.
stevie zero
June 1st, 2011
11:27 am
jeff, pardon the digression, but will you be blogging from the ted tonight? and if so , how many cocktails will you need to sit through another 3-2 loss? yeeesh
Douglas
June 1st, 2011
11:27 am
I would prefer to see more Steeplechase events where you can wine and dine, catch some sun, and look at the beautiful women from Atlanta.
Bruce Mac
June 1st, 2011
11:29 am
Hockey is not a major sport in the South. The entire article is dumb.
Whopper Dawg
June 1st, 2011
11:30 am
When you put a NE/Canadian regional sport in a southern town, you had better be at least competitive. The reason the Thrashers didn’t work was not Atlanta, but how they performed.
Put a winner in here, and they will come.
Mitchell
June 1st, 2011
11:30 am
Now that the Thrashers are gone we can focus on the second biggest embarrassment to this city, the Braves.
Frank Wren, please fire Larry Parrish, then Fredi Gonzalez and then yourself.
Thanks.
Bluelander
June 1st, 2011
11:33 am
No, we are not a AAA town town at all. Jeff, you are right. We got hosed. Yesterday’s events have more to say about the NHL than Atlanta. Hockey is a great sport, especially live. High Def TV has made it more palatable to watch on TV, but it suffers when compared to the other 3 as a lot of its appeal is lost in the translation to TV. I would not go so far as to call it a nitch sport because the league has successfully penetrated markets in California and the South, but it is a distant 4th as a major sport and will remain there in my opinion. There are probably 7 or 8 franchises now that are in big trouble financially. It will be very interesting to see what happens in places like Phoenix, Miami and Long Island in the next couple of years. Things are not trending well for the league. I read yesterday that the Washington Capitals lost a ton of money this past season. That is unbelievable. They have the most exiting player in the game, a solid team and played to packed houses every night. That speaks volumes about the NHL. Without big money from TV, the league will always remain unstable and each summer they will always have a couple of franchises on the bubble, so to speak.
Chris
June 1st, 2011
11:35 am
Jeff:
If you are a AA writer does that make John Kincade an A ball radio host? He was full of misinformation about the Thrashers for the last several years. Of course in this town all the radio hosts are A ball, except 790 which is a softball league team.
FalconRob
June 1st, 2011
11:37 am
If a sport has important playoff and finals games on the Versus network, then I find it hard to take it seriously as a “Big Four” sport.
Brock
June 1st, 2011
11:38 am
I’ll miss the Thrasher girls in between periods. That’s about it. Ooh, I did like the fire breathing Thrasher at the top of the arena.
drajax
June 1st, 2011
11:39 am
This is a good sports town but the product the absentee/committee owners have put out has been boring and bad. A.S. was simply snake bit by bad advice, lack of money, and poor luck. Liberty Media choses to compete for a wild card rather than first. We need sportsmen as owners not committees or corporations. When the owners appear to take an interest because they are fans rather than its an investment the product will improve and fans will come. The city’s media should also bear some of the blame. In the last several years the Thrasher’s were never a topic on sports talk radio except when they were moving or Kovalchuk was leaving. Radio is important because it can create a buzz and for the Thrashers no one over the airwaves gave the team any time. Any publicity would have helped but instead we get the same tired content. They will say listeners didn’t want to hear about hockey. Maybe; but no one over the radio was interested in the game enough to sell it as the most exciting arena sport out there.
Atlanta has lost a major team but for all the reasons above no one cares. But next fall when Phillips is closed for 41 nights and all those businesses that relied on fans to come eat, sleep, dine and drink lay off employees, the city will realize that an important piece of the economic engine that is downtown is gone.
A sad state of affairs.
BehindEnemyLines
June 1st, 2011
11:42 am
The question depends upon your choice of (unspoken) phrase. If it’s about pro sports specifically, then yes . If it includes college sports then no. If you’re leaving the interpretation to the reader, then I’d say yes.
bart
June 1st, 2011
11:46 am
When speaking of relevance, there’s pro football, college football then pro baseball. All the rest are but window dressing. Any city with the two major pro sports has all it needs. (my apologies to all those employed by the Thrashers who are now out of a job).
krux
June 1st, 2011
11:46 am
Atlanta is not a minor league city. Its more of a college football sports city. The facts are that you dont and havent supported the Hawks at the level of most other NBA teams. You have not supported the Braves in a way equal to what they have provided you on the field. Football always does well in most places. Atlanta IS NOT a good pro sports market. You have a very good NBA team and you dont sell out. You dont sell out play off games for the Braves.
Having said that, its tough in an area like Atlanta and Phx to have established the deep rooted fans. It will be another generation before that happens. So many people that live in our areas are from somewhere else. The move from a place and then complain that we are not like the place they just came from. It will be awhile before our kids over take that group of residents.
Beleafer
June 1st, 2011
11:48 am
No, Atlanta is not a “Triple A” sports town. The fact is, the NHL needs to get it through their thick heads that they are not meant to compete for entertainment dollars in markets dominated so heavily by college and pro football, basketball or baseball. You can’t push a string, and hopefully Bettman figures this out sooner than later. The reason that the 8th largest media market in the U.S. just lost its NHL franchise to a city of 750,000 and a province with a total population of just over a million simply comes down to passion for the game. Sports fans in Atlanta repeatedly demonstrated that they had no such passion – P.S. nobody is surprised by this. Kids in Canada and some Northern States (Chicago, Boston, Detroit) are raised to understand and appreciate the game from an early age. There is no grass-roots hockey movement in Phoenix, Atlanta and Nashville for obvious climatic reasons. – they don’t get snow and ice for months on end. How could fans there be expected to pay to see a game they have never played as a kid and can’t easily relate to or understand. Fans in Winnipeg, have a deep connection to pro hockey and rue the day they lost their team sixteen years ago. Save for a few ardent supporters, nobody in the southern markets cares about how their team might be doing, if they are aware they have one at all. NHL fans know that with the exception of a statistical outlier (Dallas) or the mainly-snowbird-supported teams of Tampa Bay and Florida, hockey doesn’t work in southern markets, and so be it.The NHL needs to give up on the pipe dream of Southern expansion and locate teams where they have a fighting chance. The league will be stronger for it.
Stuart
June 1st, 2011
11:49 am
Jeff: THE ATL is definitely a minor league sports town–ATL has the dubious distinction of being the only town to lose TWO hockey franchises, and won a total of 0 playoff GAMES in 11 years yet Don Waddell–who didn’t understand the importance of defense in hockey–managed to hang on for 11 yrs.! In Detroit or Montreal, he wouldn’t have been hired let alone lasted 4 years with that anemic record. The Hawks are going nowhere past the 2nd round and are saddled with the Johnson contract, and even the Braves whiffed on Uggla when they could have gone after Lee and/or Adrian Gonzalez. The Braves may be the gold standard, but they still only won 1 title and lost 4 with the best starting pitching in MLB history and some great bats (Chipper, Justice, Pendleton, et al). In fact, they lost 2 WS when they were the superior team (’92 Blue Jays; ‘96 Yankees). 4 Teams, 1 Title, countless chokes, bad management, and poor attendance all all add up to mediocrity.
Mitchell
June 1st, 2011
11:49 am
Look, we lost the Civil War; they burned down our city; we have no real culture or history.
We’re a bunch of phoneys. Even most peoples accents here are affected.
We’re just one cliche after another.
We’re losers. Ain’t nothin’ can be done ’bout it.
Seriously, one championship in 45 years and Seattle gets the title of most miserable sports town?
We can’t even win that! I blame Bobby Cox.
P. Bull Terrier
June 1st, 2011
11:52 am
Moving the Thrashers to Canada hurts the NHL more than it hurts Atlanta. The NHL has mismanaged itself into a position where it is arguable that it is no longer one of the four major sports in the United States. The various pro soccer leagues are more popular internationally than the NHL and there are more amateur soccer players than hockey players in the U.S. NASCAR makes more money than the NHL and is probably more popular over a wider market across the country. It is arguable that both soccer and NASCAR should rank ahead of the NHL for the fourth spot on the list of major sports. My best guess is that the major sports, ranked in order of revenue and popularity in the U.S. is: football, baseball, basketball, NASCAR, soccer, hockey.
If you get bored Jeff, it would be interesting to see your list updated with the addition of pro soccer teams and NASCAR races in each city. I can’t keep track of whether or not Atlanta has a pro soccer team at the moment, but at least we still have a NASCAR race.
puppydawg
June 1st, 2011
11:53 am
Won’t miss the Thrashers one bit. Let’s drop on down to Double-A and get rid of the Hawks & Dream too.
George
June 1st, 2011
11:55 am
So what if there is not enough interest in a particular market for hockey? Sports fans are a function of local culture. Hockey is popular where winters are long and cold enough to freeze local ponds. What else is there to do? Every kid has skates. Can a stick and puck be far behind?
In warmer climates, playing on grass is more popular and so it should be.
Hockey in warm climates will be successful only in cities where there is a critical mass of ex-pats nostalgic for the sports of their youth.
Atlanta doesn’t need hockey. Just be great at that which you enjoy!
A Canadian perspective.
PureEvil
June 1st, 2011
11:58 am
Atlanta has had a bunch of losing teams so the perception is the fans don’t support the teams. In other cities the same thing happens it’s just not focused on as much as it is in Atlanta. New York Yankees had a hard time drawing a crowd in the 80’s. The Mets can’t draw a crowd right now.
The braves have one of the largest stadiums in baseball which is why they rarely sell out. But at the end of the year they typically are in the top half of all teams in attendance. Atlanta fans will support an organization that proves to us that they are as committed to the team as we are. Arthur Blank and Ted Turner fired fans up by spending money on players and hiring the right FO people to make the organization a winner. Since AOL and now Liberty have taken over the Braves the fans still support because they still win but, how many more people do you think would go to games if we had an owner who was front and center wanting to win just as badly as the fans and willing to spend money to do it. I know fans don’t come to see the owner but they’ll feel confident that if things aren’t going the right way at least we have an owner who isn’t afraid to do what’s needed to resolve the issue. Unfortunately the Hawks and Thrashers have never in their existence had an owner who LOVED either one of them enough to do whatever it took to win. Ted Turner loved baseball and just owned the Hawks and Thrashers. The ASG showed from the beginning that they were clueless numbtard douchebags that couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to succeed. They were why the Thrashers failed and will be the reason the Hawks fail unless they find someone who wants to buy them and give the team what it needs a owner who is a fan first.
GTT
June 1st, 2011
12:02 pm
Why doesn’t Cleveland have an NHL team?
and?
June 1st, 2011
12:05 pm
how quick can we “lose’ the hawks now… not fast enough……… fact is. hockey is not a universal sport and only appeals to certain folks.. now, Atlanta could get behind a hockey team if they were winners or at least had a regular chance at winning…….. FTR Atlanta’s image is not tarnished, aftewrall they survived the 60s-70s-80s of the losingnest pro teams around
Joseph
June 1st, 2011
12:09 pm
It always was a 2nd tier sports city. I believe a top tear city (or franchise, even) needs to support their team even when they suck The Mets, Cubs and Dodgers all have better attendance than the Braves this year, and they all suck (the first two have sucked for several years no less). Even the beloved [sic] dawgs had lots of empty seats last fall when they were struggling.
Nonfan
June 1st, 2011
12:12 pm
Really – how many people still care about the Thrashers? They were and are a bad team run by a totally inept bunch. I had to laugh when Mike Gerron (excuse any spelling error)got all choked up during his TV interview. They put a lousy product on the ice for 11 years and they expected people to continue to shell out hard earned money to watch ineptitude. In all these years they never got rid of that doofus, Don Waddell. They can take the team to Winnipeg – a jerk water town that has already lost one NHL team – and good riddance. I wouldn’t care if they won the Stanley Cup next year. I just feel bad for those folks who will be losing their jobs because of the ASG screwups.
John Galt
June 1st, 2011
12:14 pm
The NHL would have to be a major league for this to harm our standing.
Will
June 1st, 2011
12:14 pm
Those who argue that losing a NHL Franchise is no big deal do not understand the economics of professional sports.
Put aside for a moment the literal loss of the franchise. Atlanta, which loves to bill itself as a cosmopolitan, international city, could not find anyone willing to buy the franchise. I know that the former ownership and the NHL tried to paint this as a long-time exhausting effort when in fact the search for ownership could not have begun in earnest until six months ago when the ownership litigation (brought on with nobody to blame other than the ownership) was settled. Still, in six months, no one stepped forward.
Attendance remains a puzzle if you believe that Atlanta is full of transplanted citizens from the north. This is even more puzzling if you ever attended a Thrashers game when they played teams from New York, Philly, Chicago, etc. where thousands of their fans, now residing in Atlanta, turned the Arena into a neutral site at best. These transplanted northerners apparently never bought into the Thrashers as they apparently did not come back unless their former home town team was playing.
LMAO
June 1st, 2011
12:15 pm
There is a reason ESPN regularly refers to Atlanta as the worst sports town in America. Atlanta simply isn’t “world class” and people laugh when locals try to claim they are. The US has NY, LA, Chicago, SF and Dallas is slowly rising into that level of “World Class.” This town is the South’s Detroit.
DawginLex
June 1st, 2011
12:16 pm
Atlanta is a college football town that happens to have three pro franchises.
AngryFalcon
June 1st, 2011
12:16 pm
We have 3 sports teams. 100% of those teams made it to the play-offs. We have potential in all 3 teams. Just win and Atlanta will be viewed as a great sports town. We DO show up when we are winning. Quit mentioning the Braves teams of 15 years ago. Falcons games were all rockin last year. Hawks games were exciting when the team showed up to play.
We will never get Hockey again and MLS is looking unlikely with HB87 passing.
w.k. kortas
June 1st, 2011
12:17 pm
GTT– the answers to that are Columbus, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. Doesn’t leave much of a market for Cleveland (who lost the Barons in the late 70’s.)
TorontoGuy
June 1st, 2011
12:20 pm
The Bills play games in Toronto and it is just a matter of time before Toronto has it’s own NFL team. The problem is we have a CFL team, the Argos, and it would hurt the CFL if the Toronto team were to fold. Also, the NFL makes much of their revenue on TV coverage and it wouldn’t sit well with the US networks to have a team outside of the US. I notice you didn’t count soccer in your list.
Bourne
June 1st, 2011
12:25 pm
The NHL now ranks behind MLS.
Jeff Schultz
June 1st, 2011
12:25 pm
Stevie Zero — Yes, I will be blogging from Braves tonight. Cocktails: no. Coffee: yes.
Stuart
June 1st, 2011
12:25 pm
Simple Jack:
I agree with your comments about hockey and the Hawks, with 1 caveat. Regarding hockey, that sport won’t come back here in my lifetime and I’m in my mid-30’s. That ship has sailed. As for the Hawks, they ARE 2 players away–unfortunately, those 2 players are Jordan and Shaq circa 1995! :>)
As for all of the comments that Georgia is a great college sports town and that makes a great sports town, I just have to laugh–the beloved Dawgs haven’t won a Nat’l Championship since 1980, over 30 years ago, and they are basically a mid-level SEC team behind the likes of Alabama, FLA and LSU, and MAYBE…MAYBE..on par with the next grouping of Auburn and TN, though those 2 schools have won titles more recently (and hey, I like UGA and am an unbiased BIG TEN guy). It just kills me with laughter that GA folks LOVE to tout UGA when so many true college powers (USC, Texas, Nebraska, OSU, and the aforementioned Big 3 of the SEC) have all won much much more. Any way you slice it, other than Seattle (the Sonics in ‘79 and some good Mariners teams in the ’90’s) and SD (no titles), the ATL is THE worst pro sports town–1966 is a long, long time ago, so the ATL has had lots of teams and years to bank more than 1 title, and that title should have been coupled with at least 1 more–this may be sacrilege, but Cox blew ‘91 and ‘96, and any true and knowledgeable sports fan knows that. Liebrandt v. Puckett was bad, but Game 4 of the ‘96 WS will live in ATL sports infamy along with Pearl Harbor (a nod to Roosevelt). Up 2-1 and 6-0 with Bielecki cruising, he changed course. That was mistake #1. Then, he inexplicably put Wohlers in to pitch the 8th when he had pitched the 9th all season long. Wohlers, attempting to preserve himself for 2 not 1 innings, hung the Leyritz slider and the rest is history. Tied 2-2, Smoltz couldn’t get the shell shocked ATL crowd into Game 5 despite a very good pitching performance. These are facts–that 1 extra title would have sealed the Braves legacy. That’s how close the margin of error is, and Cox blew it. Yes, he was solid, and for 162 games and the concept of steadiness, he was “Schottenheimer-esque”. But when the pressure tightened and the games mattered most, Cox made crucial and legacy mistakes.
Dan
June 1st, 2011
12:25 pm
The NHL had poor ratings partially because ESPN treated the league terribly. The ratings are better now on Versus than they ever were on ESPN, despite the jokes that nobody can find Versus.
Yes, I think this drops Atlanta to a AAA city, not because of the ordinary people in Atlanta, but because of the people with money in Atlanta. The NHL tried to stay here, but Atlanta Spirit ruined the Thrashers and ruined any chance they had of survival. They created this mess and made the Thrashers something nobody wanted to buy. Then nobody else stepped up, and the result is Winnipeg.
Could the NHL have worked in Atlanta? Maybe, but now we will never know, and the reason why is Atlanta Spirit. It’s not the NHL’s fault, it’s not the Atlanta fans’ fault. It’s Atlanta Spirit’s fault, and theirs alone.
Jeff Randall
June 1st, 2011
12:27 pm
Atlanta had a hockey team????
Edawg
June 1st, 2011
12:28 pm
Atlanta has serious traffic/public transportation/stadium locations issues that affect attendance tremendously, especially weeknight games.
Anybody who refuses to admit this is a problem has their head in the sand. Are there other issues affecting attendance? Yes…but this is the big one.