One thing I want to say about Atlanta...EVERY market as big as ATL has been, at one point, well attended. And I'm not just talking about Year One excitement. DC and Chicago and New England suck NOW, but that's because ownership has driven them into the ground. Everyone knows DC was an ass-kicker in MLS' first decade. But only old timers and obsessives remember that New England was once one of the strongest markets in the league (maybe #2 behind LA.) Chicago, I think, was the first team to have really kick-ass attendance for the playoffs, and they were consistently strong until the move to Northern Illinois or whatever. Based on that line of thinking, ATL will have several years to get entrenched in the market, and then they just have to remain competent. If they can do that, they'll be fine.
At this point the thread needs to turn the corner and really start coming up with some good name possibilities for MLS team #22. There is one obvious choice: Atlanta Mensas FC
Any supporters group that uses Legion, Ultras, Army, etc are not creative enough for me to care about.
I don't know if this was posted already from someone. I was thinking they should go for the Freebirds name in paying homage to a pro wrestling group called the Fabulous Freebirds. The Atlanta Freebirds
That's nice, but largely irrelevant. Top flight soccer drew well in Tampa in the '70s, and it didn't mean much for the Mutiny. Meanwhile, the Sting and Aztecs drew flies in the NASL and it didn't seem to hold back the Fire and Galaxy. The bottom line -- and this is a point that some folks have been making over and over and over again and other folks have been missing over and over and over again -- is that you can tell almost zero about how a particular market will do in MLS from looking at NASL attendances and USL attendances and APSL attendances and WUSA attendances and whatever else.
Judging from all the people who have run like Usain Bolt from their "Move Kansas City" posts 5-10 years ago and pretended that they would never say such a thing, I wouldn't expect a lot of crow-eating if ATLiens FC is a hit.
And some people were predicting that the Sounders would be a failure in MLS, because... the APSL/A-League/USL Sounders didn't draw all that well.
Terminus is the name of the settlement that predates modern Atlanta. The Walking Dead producers were making the same hat tip as the founders of Terminus Legion. It's certainly not that the Terminus Legion was inspired by The Walking Dead, especially considering TL was formed before any reference to Terminus in The Walking Dead--Terminus occurs only in the tv show and not the comic series.
I fully agree with you. I was simply responding to the argument about Seattle as it was presented, pointing out that the basic premise was flawed. It has absolutely no relevance to Atlanta because Atlanta is not Seattle and Seattle is not Atlanta. They are different cities with different histories and different demographics. You cannot use one to predict the other.
Is this thread the Princeton Review? Anyways I think Atlanta was a really bad choice. They're gunning for the big TV markets and I'm not sure how ratings are going to get better if the league is moving from NBCSN to FOX Sports 2. I'm disappointed this will essentially kill the Atlanta Silverbacks and possibly make them a feeder team. They did this knowing quite well what they were doing. Secure the market and secure an NFL owner with deep pockets. If MLS is serious with this then they need to pump money into it, meaning USL Pro affiliates. Especially if we're going to have teams with more foreign players than Americans due to expansion. Has to be incentive to play in a pro environment rather than NCAA. The talent pool will be diluted for a bit, I don't hold back any punches with that. Anyone that says otherwise is spin. The field turf is disappointing. More concessions because of the market size, seems to be a trend with MLS 3.0 if we want to call it that. They think the positives outweigh the negatives.