Atlanta as the most miserable sports city? Guilty as charged
Been there, done that. Been there a lot, done it way too often. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
Take a bow, A-T-L. After an agonizing near-miss last year — we finished second to Seattle — we made it this time. We’re now No. 1 in Forbes magazine’s listing of America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities. Time for another ticker-tape parade down Peachtree!
Here’s the rationale of Tom Van Riper, who compiled the rankings:
Since last spring, the NHL Thrashers left town for Winnipeg, baseball’s Braves blew a near-lock playoff spot on the final day of the season and the NBA Hawks and NFL Falcons got bounced out of the postseason early yet again. That was enough to push Atlanta, always among the top finishers in Forbes’ annual ranking of America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities, back to the top spot for the first time since 2008.
And what can we say in rebuttal? All of the above is, alas, true.
The Forbes “methodology,” to invoke Van Riper’s word, concerns “misery as defined by heartbreak — teams good enough to win a lot of games and advance through the postseason, only to disappoint fans in the end by falling short of a championship.” That’s not the same as being, say, the Cubs over the past century or the Cavaliers after LeBron. But it does describe Atlanta.
The Hawks were a hot ticket in the late ’80s, same as the Falcons were in the late ’70s, just as the Braves became in the early ’90s. But disappointment broke the Hawks’ and Falcons’ waves — our NBA club couldn’t close out Boston in 1988 and flopped in Round 1 against Milwaukee in ‘89; our NFL franchise couldn’t get past Dallas — and the players’ strike of 1994 cooled our baseball ardor more than any postseason defeat every did.
That’s the part outsiders don’t get. From September 1991 through the summer of ‘94, this city was as crazy for a team as any city has ever been. (Remember the rush to buy foam tomahawks?) The Braves could have sold two million tickets to the 1992 postseason, but after the strike and the washed-out World Series, demand wasn’t the same. In October 1995, even as the Braves were en route to winning it all, you could walk up to the box office and buy tickets to single games for both the NLCS and the World Series.
Attendance at the old stadium dropped from 3.88 million in 1993, the year before the strike, to 2.9 million in 1996, the year after the World Series was won. Even the bump that came with the 1997 opening of Turner Field waned by 2001. Not since 2003 have the Braves finished higher than 14th in home attendance. It’s not that we stopped caring altogether; it’s that we don’t care quite enough to pack the stadium on a nightly basis.
I know, I know. Every other baseball city suffered from the strike, too. But Georgia is a right-to-work state, and the distrust of unions is higher here. Besides, the Braves simply won too often to hold us through every game of the 14-year run of division titles. We came to bide our time until the playoffs, and the playoffs came to yield Round 1 exits.
And those, I submit, hardened our predisposition to wait and see. We’d gotten excited about the Falcons and then the Hawks only to have hopes dashed. Then the Braves, who were the best Atlanta pro team ever, started doing it, too. Leeriness became our default civic stance. Thus was the Braves’ epic September collapse met with the same cry that had greeted the Falcons’ blowout playoff loss to Green Bay: “See? Told you so!”
Loading ...We’ve had major-league sports teams since 1966, and only once has an Atlanta major-league team hoisted the big trophy, and that came a year after some among us swore we’d never watch that particular sport again. Our teams have since been undone by Jim Leyritz swinging and Aaron Rodgers flinging and Eugene Robinson getting arrested, and we have become fatalistic. We’re kind of like Red Sox Nation before Dave Roberts stole second in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS: We expect the absolute worst, and we’re seldom disappointed.
But here’s the difference. Even if the Red Sox went 85 years between World Series titles, folks in Boston still had the Celtics, who won 11 NBA titles in 13 years, and the Bruins, who won two Stanley Cups in three years, and the Patriots, who’d started on their run of Super Bowl victories. We’ve had only the Braves in 1995, and we’ve come to see that as the exception — the clincher was the function of a 1-0 one-hitter — that proves the rule.
America’s most miserable sports city? By Forbes’ definition, we absolutely are. But I would offer one quibble: We’re not the worst sports city. Our pro teams aren’t nearly awful, and our fervor for college football is unparalleled. So there’s that.
If/when another Atlanta pro team takes a title, our joyful deliverance will be unconfined. Until then, we’ll remain skeptical. We’re Atlanta, and it’s what we do.
By Mark Bradley
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247 comments Add your comment
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
3:03 pm
303 – GT is a small, national university that lost much FB tradition (rivalries) with their departure from the SEC. Not many schools with enrollments of 18,000 draw 48,000 a game.
Hillbilly D
February 29th, 2012
3:03 pm
Didn’t we have this same basic column a while back? Who cares what anybody else thinks of us (and I don’t even live in Atlanta)?
ChopAttack
February 29th, 2012
3:04 pm
Section 303,
Because of UGA?
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
3:11 pm
MB – where does the Atl media stand in this?
Back in the 70s, 80s, 90s the AC or AJ would put the Braves and Falcons on the front page for any game or personnel move that was of any significance. Jim Viondi used to get six or seven minutes of a 30 minute newscast on Channel 2 for local sports. Every big radio station used to do live remotes from the Omni for big Hawks games or from the Stadium during the Braves pennant races.
Check out the walls of the older bars and pubs around town where the framed front page special editions feature two inch headlines for the Braves.
What happened? Is there something different with the teams’ PR efforts? Nationalization of media?
Frank Lane
February 29th, 2012
3:11 pm
George, that was sold tickets, not attendance.
GTBob
February 29th, 2012
3:12 pm
blazerdawg, I love the Braves and the Falcons, but you have to admit that they have been pretty disappointing lately. This year being the worst. I agree with you that they can turn it around though. It’s not a lost cause, we are just in a bad time right now.
GTBob
February 29th, 2012
3:14 pm
If the town is so crazy about college football, how can that happen?
Because the town is not quite as crazy about college football as people make it out to be.
CB
February 29th, 2012
3:15 pm
ATL 4 LIFE, there is one team in GA that win a NT every year and that great team is UGA. Oh I forgot I’m dreaming, just like the UGA fans has been for the last 30 years. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
3:16 pm
GTBob – I absolutey agree with you that ALL of the teams have been a disappointment, especially lately. I feel good about the Braves, and you make sure you get the fall season off to a good start for us up in Blacksburg. Gonna be great year!
George Stein
February 29th, 2012
3:17 pm
Right, Frank. What’s your point?
yellow britches
February 29th, 2012
3:18 pm
Mark, I know this is a rifle shot when your article was a shotgun blast at all Atlanta sports teams but the Atlanta Braves under Bobby Cox have played a boring brand of baseball for years. Solid starting pitching and station to station offense hoping for a big bop. We didn’t put pressure on other team’s defense and we seldom if ever drafted or retained speed. Maybe the idea of the Braves Brass was to put such a mind numbing team on the field that the fans had to buy beer just to make it past the seventh inning.
jj
February 29th, 2012
3:20 pm
Yeah, we get it. We suck as a sports town. How many times is this theme gonna be rehashed?
If the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers all left (1 down, two to go) I’d survive. Falcon’s I would miss
a lot. As long as there is UGA football and SEC football, my sports needs are nicely met.
Dallas Tx, Dawg
February 29th, 2012
3:21 pm
While I am a Georgia native, I was raised and grew up in Dallas, Tx. I am a Bulldawg through and through, but put my professional loyalties with the Cowboys, Mavricks. It may have been a while since the Cowboys won a Super Bowl, but we have 5 titles. My wife loves the Falcons, but while not as bad as they used to be, they will never, and I mean NEVER, win with the regularity of an organization such as the Cowboys. The fans are luke warm at best and turn off at a heartbeat. The people of Dallas, cherish their sports teams, and live and die with them every season. Unlike here, where the Hawks are BORING, hockey moves ot of the country, and the Falcons fold every postseason. Just sayin……. Article was right on the money.
Frank Lane
February 29th, 2012
3:26 pm
George, real fans go to the games to support the team. GT alumni buy tickets, don’t go, and leave seats empty because they cannot find someone who wants to buy the tickets from them.
My point is that GT football is a shadow of what it was under Bobby Dodd when I was growing up.
Duh
February 29th, 2012
3:27 pm
ATL is like a train wreck that you cant turn away from. We watch them almost daily just to see how they will self implode.
Hollywould
February 29th, 2012
3:27 pm
Dallas, That regularity has been how long now without a playoff?
Troy Aikmannn
February 29th, 2012
3:29 pm
Cowboys fans are bandwagon jumpers.
George Stein
February 29th, 2012
3:35 pm
I suppose it’s difficult to argue that, Frank. The world has changed in 50 years.
All I know is I go to the games every week and the comments about the stadium being half full are nonsense unless they’re intended as hyperbole. The available metrics say we sell 87% of our seats and I’ll roll with those.
PMC
February 29th, 2012
3:35 pm
Same level of payroll? These Braves have an effective payroll of 84 million this year.
It’s not about payroll. It’s about interesting.
The Braves (and Atlanta sports teams in general) have a hard time employing talent that people in this area feel they need to plunk down thier money and put forth the time and effort to go see.
Atlanta sports teams don’t sell themselves well because they don’t win, and many times they aren’t interesting. This is a star driven town with no stars.
Miss Priss's Feline Emporium
February 29th, 2012
3:36 pm
There’s a reason ATL is known as loserville, USA.
glsjunior
February 29th, 2012
3:36 pm
Bradley, the Atlanta Sports scene has been going downhill ever since you shaved off your stache.
Time
February 29th, 2012
3:36 pm
I think what happened is this year Forbes took into account the local sports columnists, which easily pushed ATL to the top spot. Great job AJC.
Atlanta Spirit Sucks
February 29th, 2012
3:44 pm
Gearon and Levenson, also known as the Spirit Clowns, deserve half the blame. Those two donkeys make the Smith family, in retrospect, look like model owners.
Charlie Leibrandt
February 29th, 2012
3:51 pm
That meatball I threw still has not landed yet.
Ekim
February 29th, 2012
3:51 pm
Tip to Forbes’ editors: Go investigate Wall Street or something; why this counts as journalism is beyond me. Guess it’s all about page views.
Ekim
February 29th, 2012
3:53 pm
I went to five Braves games last year; they won four of them, two in walk-off fashion. I had a GREAT time. Put me down as not miserable.
10 Bears
February 29th, 2012
3:55 pm
After following the Braves and Falcons (sometimes Hawks-can only take so much) for 30 years, I’ve concluded that championships are for other cities. Winning is a zero-sum proposition and our teams are the reason that other fan bases can enjoy multiple championships. No matter the season, the stars or the sport, the symbol of losing has forever been etched on our lodge.
Stinger2
February 29th, 2012
4:01 pm
Clusters has done it again as he has in most recent blogs.He is blaming the Braves as being the team soley responible for Atlanta being the most miserable sports town. Obviously, he has become obsessed with his dislike for the Braves (particularly Chipper and Freddi). This fellow is losing his ability to think reasonably before he posts. Hopefully, he will soon realize that everyone including the writers have gotten his message. Maybe he will find another team to write his negative stuff about.
jerry
February 29th, 2012
4:13 pm
Look no further than the people responsible for winning. We had the Spirit, the Smiths, UGA and their refusal to hire top flight coaches, and Liberty Media. Our only hope is Arthur Blank.
Heath
February 29th, 2012
4:22 pm
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Maybe the Falcons will learn to throw (and complete) a vertical pass.
Maybe the Braves will stop having 36 relivers combine to pitch the last four innings.
Maybe the Hawks will be bought by someone who cares.
The Knights were good. Maybe they’ll come back.
doggoneit
February 29th, 2012
4:24 pm
If I was in charge of the AJC I would fire the lot of ya.. SOunds like Falconssorry got the best of ya. Go be a teacher or something Bradley
KBB
February 29th, 2012
4:31 pm
Most of these BillyBobs that live outside the city (no Newnan is NOT Atlanta), wont support anything but a team that is 70 miles away (the Dawgs). They have a distaste for basketball because it features too many flashy, empowered, arrogant negroes (but support college football, i know….stupid). They can only tolerate baseball until Dawgs football comes back around. Its almost like they are incapable of enjoying more than one sport at one time. The problem is that unlike Chicago, Boston, New York, Philly etc etc…..most of metro Atlanta contains about 23 yokel towns full of country hicks that only like one sport. Most actual ATLANTANS enjoy all sports
Wet Willie...keep on smiling
February 29th, 2012
4:38 pm
The Braves much like the UGA bulldogs talk great during the spring but don’t play so well when the games start to be counted. Ga Tech ,Bobby Dodd, and the Atlanta media thought they would teach Coach Bryant a lesson in the 60’s and boy did they. Bryant beat his soft azz like a rented mule each year with 62 the exception. The day Tech left the SEC they sheet the bed and they’re still stumbling thru life today. Blank tried the Black QB to draw more the fans and what did he get in return. Really to be ranked below Cleveland,Detroit (Oh my Lord), and Cincy is amazing. 75% of the stadiums aren’t full in the NFL each week and getting worse each year and that with stadiums that hold less than 75k. Heck we have more at the spring game at Bama than tech has for the 1st three home games. Maybe the owner of the Falcons,Hawks, and Braves should passout more of the applications for free housing. Just saying.
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
4:40 pm
KBB-most folks OTP support the college teams because they know and relate to the players, or their coaches, or their families. I know MANY Braves fans OTP and die hard Hawks fans in the North Georgia hills – but the college teams are easier to identify with for most folks out here in the sticks. Your assertion that most folks outside of the city are racist is a joke – I work for a Chicago based company and my northern colleagues never stop with the race talk and “jokes”.
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
4:42 pm
KBB – my apologies to you. Wet Willie has made your point. A shame, a great band.
Arno
February 29th, 2012
4:42 pm
We are not a miserable sports city. What keeps us fans is that we have plenty of players on our teams with great heart.
Josh
February 29th, 2012
4:47 pm
How much does ATL traffic have to do with it? I have no interest in going to Braves game during weekday and fight traffic…. Unlike Boston, which has much larger in city population and easy subway access, Marta is just as inefficient/slow as the highway.
Josh
February 29th, 2012
4:52 pm
I am not old enough to drive
Sonny Clusters
February 29th, 2012
4:53 pm
Stinger2 if you was trying to run us off the blog with your personal attacks on this Clusters you need to know that we just ignore your stuff and we invite you to ignore us. We are not a cheerleader like you and we almost never say golly or gee whiz when talking about Chipper Jones or Fredi Gonzalez. In fact, we know that the Braves organization is getting away with hype telling us how good they are and ignoring failures on the field. Was you here for the EPIC Collapse or was you busy that month?
KBB
February 29th, 2012
5:01 pm
@Blazer,
Ive been in this city for many years. I have “wet willies” in my own families. They use sports as a outlet to vent some of their racial frustrations. The thing that always shuts them up when they go on their “NBA is full of thugs……” rant is when i ask them succinctly “your a diehard UGA football fan, how many arrests have they had in the last 5 years? Isn’t being arrested, doing drugs, beating up your girlfriend, and fighting the definition of a thug? How many Hawks have been arrested in the last 5 years?”
KBB
February 29th, 2012
5:01 pm
*families = family
DEAinATL
February 29th, 2012
5:02 pm
I happened to see this headline on Google News (who reads the AJC?).
I was born in Atlanta 60 years ago. I haven’t read a sports page in 40 years. The one b’ball I went to (Hawks) I fell asleep. I can’t afford to go to an NFL game.
If professional sports were cancelled tomorrow, I wouldn’t know or care.
Bread and circuses (’cept I like bread – spongy white bread, none of that dark whole grain stuff. Good with ribs).
When are sports fans going to wake up to the fact that most of the population doesn’t care about sports?
Lester Green
February 29th, 2012
5:07 pm
Dude if you havent read a sports page in 40 years and saw this on google news you should just throw in the towel (if you know what that means) and go give your partner a hug.
Transplant
February 29th, 2012
5:11 pm
It’s strange. I moved from Cincinnati which by all measures should be “worse”. However, the fans there have a sort of pride in having stuck with them through it all. Attendance is horrible but there is a feeling that the city still has pride in its teams, possibly because as a smaller city it doesn’t have the other entertainment and national notoriety that we get here. Atlanta, on the other hand, seems to be a city largely comprised of fair-weather fans who would let something like traffic prevent them from wanting to see their “favorite” team. I often hear it blamed on transplants like me but I think deeper there is a lack of commitment to these franchises that is just kind of sad. Maybe its well deserved but it’s lame. There is no reason Atlanta can’t be better, it just isn’t.
Stinger2
February 29th, 2012
5:12 pm
If Atlanta is the most miserable sports city, everyone who is a fan, a player, a coach,manager,GM,owner and the media should share the blame. IMHO the term “miserable” is not a good adjective to describe most Atlanta sports fans, etc. More accurate terma would be flustrated or disgusted
blazerdawg
February 29th, 2012
5:13 pm
KBB – know what you mean – cannot stand willful ignorance – Go Hawks! (and find a center)
Tumbledown
February 29th, 2012
5:14 pm
DEAinATL . . . Why are you posting in a sports blog? I would never post such a comment in any blog discussing something in which I have no interest. Go away.
Hillbilly D
February 29th, 2012
5:18 pm
Sports teams are businesses and nobody owes them anything. They have to give people a reason to want to buy tickets. Winning is usually the thing that makes most folks want to buy tickets but there are numerous other things that play into it. For me, it just costs too much. I go to minor league baseball games. Same game; true, the level of play isn’t quite up to MLB but it’s close enough and the tickets are reasonable. Heck, the Southern League doesn’t even raise their prices for playoff games.
Stinger2
February 29th, 2012
5:20 pm
Clusters: Nobody is trying to run you off this blog. I am just stating that you have made your point about you dislike of the Braves so many times that everyone knows it. And yes, I am aware of the Braves collapse but it was not EPIC. There can be only one epic in the same category and thatt was provided by the Boston Red Sox. Check the numbers. Come up with some other tean to dislike I all that I am saying.
Sonny Clusters
February 29th, 2012
5:41 pm
Oh, Stinger2, you are something else. If the only opinion a true Braves fan can express is golly gee aren’t they special then we must not be a true fan or a real fan – we must be a fan that expects better baseball and less Bark in the Park. Now, telling us to get another team just because we have higher standards than you is not going to run us off. We invite you to just jump over our posts like people do with yours. Have a nice day.