I know Atlanta might not be high on MLS's list right now, but hopefully we can get a team in the not so distant future. We have one of the largest markets in the U.S. and have been able to support MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL, so I think that Atlanta is capable of fielding an MLS team. There is a growing Hispanic population here as well that could contribute to a high attendance rate.
NO!!!!!!!!! No atlanta, while atlanta is a larger market, it's also one of the worst sports towns in the country. Next to no one shows up for the Hawks, the braves don't even sell out in the playoffs.
The ATL. (as it's called down here) is THE worst sports town in the U.S. I don't care how big the market is... unless it's UGa. football, forget it... An MLS franchise would shut down in three years.
The Hawks stink--to paraphrase Bill Simmons, "How do you become the token fan (a la Jack Nicholson for the Lakers) for the Hawks? Show up to consecutive games." The Braves play postseason ball all year long, fading when they need to shine the most. The Falcons had one amazing run in them, losing in the Super Bowl, and we haven't heard from them since--or even before, really. They lost the Flames to Calgary, and recently picked up the Thrashers, who are still going through expansion team growing pains. Anyone here ever seen Futurama? Atlanta is basically an airport with a Coke factory, and not much more.
robchap, i know you meant well, but in the future please look to see if a thread already exists regarding a certain topic before starting a new one. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122758 this topic has been beaten to death. and all of you atlanta haters are ********ing idiots. read the above thread and receive your bitchslaps. as for you shaydee, "the hawks can't attract fans so atlanta obviously can't support an mls team" arguement is irrelevent. los angeles is always the attendance juggernaught of mls and the nba; however, they can't seem to hold down a nfl team to save their lives. my point? cross sport comparisons are useless and so are market stereotypes. MODS: please close this thread.
i saw the episode and it is my favorite, but i wouldn't talk too much ********. you live in utah. which is basically a temple and some white folks. at least we have strong beer.
I'd love to see a team in Atlanta. It's a market with more than 4 million people & the cultural and media center for the southeast. The area is large enough to support all these teams.
Aw. Someone's a little sensitive about Atlanta. I would generally agree that cross-sports comparisons are dangerous, but when you have a grand total of one championship among five pro teams (two hockey teams, remember) well, ever, I'd say that yes, Atlanta isn't the greatest sports town around. The Braves fail to finish the deal year after year. The Hawks? Thrashers? Falcons? Come on, now. And besides, did we say our locales were better? Did I say Salt Lake is a better sports town than Atlanta? Well, I don't like the Jazz, but they're the state's only pro franchise, the city loves them, and they ain't too shabby. That's more than can be said about the Hawks. Did kwdawson say that Florida is better with sports than Atlanta? Actually...it's funny you should mock the state, as it has three super bowl rings, the only undefeated team of the NFL in the super bowl era, two world series victories since the Braves' solitary champsionship, and now they have Shaq. I appreciate the attempt to defend Atlanta, but let's be realistic--there's not much to defend.
Name 1 successful franchise that went to Florida to die? TB-Lightning, Devil Rays (expansion teams), don't remember how Bucs got here but they're a sellout with a large waiting list and won the 2003 Super Bowl Miami-Heat, Marlins, Panthers all expansion teams. Dolphins I don't know Jacksonville-Jaguars - expansion team Orlando-Magic - expansion team Just clarifying this isn't why Florida markets may suck. (update - Miami joined the American Football League (AFL) when an expansion team franchise was awarded to lawyer Joseph Robbie and actor Danny Thomas in 1965. The Dolphins began play in 1966, and after four consecutive losing seasons, Don Shula replaced George Wilson as head coach. Miami joined the NFL in 1970 when the NFL and AFL completed their merger.; The Buccaneers joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team. )
i was merely pointing out the irony of a florida fan telling everyone that georgia sports fans are the worst in the country. i didn't mean that literally successful teams move there and then die. i meant that florida has some of the worst fairweather fans in the country and a real penchant for inconsistency. florida teams find success and everyone goes crazy. then next year they suck and no one shows up. the devil rays, both folded mls franchises, heat, marlins, jaguars, bucs, lightning, and panthers have this problem. the only strong pro franchise in the history of the state of florida is the dolphins. people will go see the dolphins if they field a team of monkeys.
Step 1. Find an owner willing to commit to building/getting built a team controlled 20,000 seat SSS. Step 2. Welcome to Major League Soccer.
ok, your original comment didn't really communicate this. "go" - ? I agree the Florida has a higher proportionality of fairweather fans (cause so many here recently relocated and already have favorite teams) but the degree to which many of these teams suck has to be considered. The Bucs I think are now set to have a popular, stable, large fan base for a long time to come. The team used to be really, really bad. Hockey is a tough sell in Florida since very few here ever get to play. Jacksonville and Orlando are relatively weak markets. The biggest failure in Florida is baseball but the lack of owner commitment is a huge problem. I grew up with the Braves on TBS as the team for the southeast. I think Atlanta has had some of the same problems as Florida. I think both could work for Florida though the humidity is tough in the summer. Unfortunately, the southeast is far off the MLS radar right now for the next round of expansion and after adding 4 teams in the next 2-3 years I think MLS might take a break for a while.
exactly. why else would places like utah and rochester be options? some people just don't get the fact that no one deserves a franchise. no matter how well-supported your basketball team is. no matter how wild your football fans are.
footfetish: Okay. That's really a spot-on assessment of Floridian sports fans, outside of (like you said) the Dolphins and, I would argue, the Jaguars. But then I wasn't arguing that Atlanta fans are fair weather--just that the teams themselves aren't really worth watching, and it's those teams that make it a bad professional sports town. Collegiately, the Bulldogs football team is deservedly well loved, and the Lady Bulldogs gymnastics team is cute. But I wouldn't even take money for season tickets for the Hawks. Or Thrashers. Or Falcons. Or even the Braves--when you just know they're going to lose in the end, what's the point?
Dang. I don't want to disagree with you this much, honestly, but here goes... If other pro sports in a city are well supported, then that indicates that, at the very least, there's enough sports fans in an area to support one kind of team. Now, of course, you can't rely on having all those people liking soccer as much as, say, basketball, but at least you know there are enough people out there that care about sports. Enough to support a soccer franchise? In Miami, apparently not. In D.C., apparently so. A city that has the ability to support a basketball or football or whatever team has at least the potential of supporting just sports in general, even with a smaller population. Can Salt Lake support a soccer club? Well, they seem to love the Jazz, so we at least know they'll leave their houses for sports. Can Rochester support a soccer club? Well, they seem to love those Rhinos, so at least we know they'll leave their houses for soccer. Also, it's a bit of hyperbole to say all you need is money to land a club...do you think the MLS would move into Coeur D'Alene, Idaho if a wealthy eccentric businessman wanted to buy a team? No, because Idaho, especially northern Idaho, hasn't shown that it can field any large team of any sort.
no. i'm just tired of hearing passionate hate-filled rants and snide remarks about atlanta from people who have no intention of actually backing them up with facts. here's a good question, why is atlanta the worst sports town in america? think about it for a second and come back to me with your point by point arguement why we are worse than phoenix, charlotte, pittsburgh, miamia, tampa bay, milwaukee, new orleans, cincinatti, etc. great. we agree on something. uh-oh. what in the hell does the lack of on-field success of atlanta sports franchises have to do with the viability of the town as an mls city? if anything, this explains the mediocre attendences that the hawks and thrashers have had. no you didn't say your locales were better sports towns. you only talked about mine in a condecending fashion. once again, they have had MUCH better teams and their fans are still as fickle or more fickle than ours. you aren't helping your arguement with statements like this.
all i can do is tell you to read the atlanta and seattle thread. there is nothing new that i can say and i just don't feel like going through this again. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122758 summarized: nationwide, the atlanta metro area is not a great sports town. not the worst in the country, just mediocre. however, as far as southern sports towns go, they are above-average to great.
I love Hotlanta as a town and visit there often, but I think its population makeup is what makes it a poor pro sports town. When I grew up in the seventies and eighties, Atlanta was the big city and all, but the half million folks who lived there then are the only ones with deep roots there. Roots in a town are a huge key to consistent fan support. Think about it; if you moved to Milwaukee, would you suddenly be a Bucks and Brewers fan? YOu might take in the occasional game, but how long would it take for you to jump in feet first as a fan? FLA has this same problem. UGA is well supported by Atlantans and the whole state because the roots support is there. SOme guy who moves from Philly to Atlanta to work for Coke isn't likely to become a Dawg fan unless he goes to school there or sends his kids there or something, but they don't really need to develop that particular person as a fan, and the pro sports do. I think for pro sports to become consistently successful in a given market, they have to transcend product status and become a part of the way of life. Multiple pro sports make that difficult. If the Braves and Falcons were the only game in town and since they've been there 35 years or so, I think they'd be better supported. If the Silverbacks were a new MLS club and the only thing in town, ala the Crew , they'd do as well as most MLS clubs because Atlanta has what I think is a pretty strong soccer culture. But given the glut of pro sports within a largely indifferent professional sport fanbase, I'd put Atlanta WAY down on my list of MLS hopefuls even though it would be about the only legitimate chance I'd personally get to see MLS in person.
I never said Florida was a good sport state. Miami and Atlanta have the worst fans. Go watch your division leading Braves before you start bitching about an MLS team.
Go Silverbacks! oh I'm sorry, we were talking about Atlanta having a MLS team...right? Did you know there is a A-League team in town? They are building a nice soccer stadium for next year.
I actually have read those threads. And in a previous post I explained why I don't think Atlanta is a good sports town, and the basic facts to back it up concerning the (lack of) success the teams have had. It doesn't seem to matter how much the fans love the teams--the teams fail regardless. I never said 'worst'--that was the other guy. There are certainly worse choices than Atlanta. Just, in my opinion, a great number of choices in other parts of the country that are better than Atlanta. As for the southeast...Florida already spat soccer back out. I don't like the idea of Atlanta. The next closest viable (in my opinion) city is Charlotte. At least when they lost the Hornets it was due to shoddy management, not a poor fanbase--that's why we'll be seeing the Bobcats next season. Honestly, though, nothing in the southeast looks too good to me. Seriously, footfetish, I've just been a Braves fan for too long (since about '90; I can't really remember anything about baseball before then) to have anything but basic disdain for Atlanta. It's like they're the eternal bridesmaid of MLB. It's torturous to watch.
i do and i will. why don't you go watch your defending world champion marlins and quit harping on atlanta sports? or maybe some old mls videos of the mutiny and fusion... ah, memories... ok, that was low. i'm sorry.