Yes. Very thinly veiled. "The element." Funny thing is no MARTA hasn't stopped gangs from infiltrating the suburbs. Traffic still sucks like hell going into Atlanta in the morning and leaving in the afternoon. Had the Brain Train, a route using upgraded rail tracks between Atlanta and Athens, been put into place, I could've probably saved billions in gas costs right now. But no, I get to drive about 500 miles per week while I'm working and taking classes at UGA. We even had a transportation tax voted down in 2012 that would've built a ton of new roads and expanded others. The whole anti-government thing took over that and so, I mean, traffic is still there. Just thankful that I don't have to fight inside 285 at all.
I agree. Well, when you're a billionaire, you can make the call. See above I don't watch unless they are playing Chicago. Then again, I don't watch any team unless they're playing Chicago. You complain a lot. No, silly. It's that soccer still isn't ridonkulously profitable, therefore, it isn't important I think you just like to whine. Soccer in Europe & the NFL are very profitable, MLS is not. When it becomes so, you can get your wish for Desso
There;s close to zero chance because of the cost of putting a 2 acre soccer field on train bogeys to make Internet Soccer Fan, happy
Plus, they need space. Are they ever going to take away parking for a more popular (attendance) event so they can keep the grass in pristine condition. Although, it may hurt the acoustics if they switched grass.
Garber does not make these type of decisions. Garber finds parties that are interested, works with them and then they present their bids to MLS ownership who then vote.
And he doesn't know it will be shared with an NFL team with possible fieldtuf? I'm not buying it. I'm not saying cancel, keep Atlanta out. Just prefer grass.
Are you dense? Of course he knows. But again, try and take a moment to understand that Garber does not make the decision as to whether they come into the league or not.
Regaurdless of what is better, when some of your most popular teams play on turf. It would be hard to tell Blank no with the stadium design (Blank said the other day on the radio), which the owners really loved and voted for. When the Sounders and others start to build their own stadiums with grass then things might start to change.
How does Atlanta get a team over Minnesota (Minneapolis, St. Paul), St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Nashville...etc....
It's interesting to see that the last four teams on this list with the poorest attendances are those teams with stadium issues. Chivas is an organization in flux, no true presence in Los Angeles and a home stadium that belongs to another more popular local team. San Jose is interesting because their attendance is only limited due to the maximum capacity of the stadium they currently call home...but their attendance should greatly improve when they move into their new bigger stadium. DC/New England, both play in cavernous NFL stadium's without the intimate feel of a modern soccer stadium. The intimacy help makes for better fan experience while creating a more electric atmosphere and DC/New England are both lacking this in their big NFL stadiums. Both DC United and New England Revolution have been seeking a better stadium situation for years, but currently there is no real progress on the stadium front.
Because Old Trafford, Camp Nou & Allianz are small intimate, neighborhood grounds. You know what helps the atmosphere? Teams that don't suck for the better part of a decade help more than the stadium design, as well as a FO that doesn't antagonize and alienate fans
Honestly I don't see this working out too well in the long run. I really hope I'm wrong but as a "lifelong" Thrashers fan I feel confident in saying Atlanta is a just a terrible sports town in general. I don't know if it's because every game I went to felt like an away game with the amount of transplants around but they better pray this team comes out winning because that city definitely does not support a loser - they'll barely support a winner. Hell, the Braves couldn't sell out play-off games and iirc even had trouble selling out games when they were unstoppable in the 90's.
A few issues I have with the Thrashers comparison. The transplant arguments only works when people grew up huge Rangers, Bruins, Blackhawks fans. Don't see to many people moving to Atlanta with such entrenched MLS alliances. The Atlanta Spirit was by far the most inept ownership group who had no business owning an NHL team. Arthur Blank is as far opposite of ASG as could be. There are about 3 Ice rinks around Atlanta, they did not try to build a presence and promote the sport. When the Stars moved to Dallas they built and opened about 12 rinks around the city to grow the sport and build a fan base. Dallas and Atlanta are very similar culture and transplants. Youth soccer in Atlanta is huge, Josh Wolf, Clint Mathis, Jack Mac, Sean Johnson, Ricardo Clark, Mark Bloom and others are all came out of the Atlanta area. The Braves comparison is another terrible comparison, but I don't feel like going into that one.
Money, stadium situation, media market size, ownership group, demographics, and recent large soccer attendance all seem like pretty good reasons to me. MLS hasn't been around long enough from the northeastern transplants to be lifelong fans of those teams so when DC or NY come to town it won't be mostly away fans like it is sometimes at Braves games when those teams come to town. The Braves also have too big of a stadium for their needs and many teams wouldn't sell out a stadium that big regularly.