When it came to ticket sales in Atlanta, Jack Tyson was the man in the 1990s.
He was the Braves’ senior director of ticket sales for their worst-to-first run in 1991 and two years later would go on to lead the ticket charge for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games in 1996.
In ’91 when the Braves turned this city upside down, Tyson saw a team go in one season from approximately 7,000 season ticket equivalents to 27,000 going into the 1992 season. But the most amazing statistic, Tyson said, was the group sales record they broke in ’92 when they sold 860,000 group tickets, breaking the Dodgers’ previous mark of 600,000.
Under Tyson, the Braves would go from 980,129 tickets sold in 1990, 2,140,217 in ’91, 3,077,400 in ’92 and a franchise record 3,884,720 in ’93 or 47,960 a game the year he left for the Olympics. Paul Adams replaced Tyson during that record-breaking attendance season and made the transition in ’97 to Turner Field when the Braves drew an average of 42,771 a game.
But while Tyson wasn’t working for the Braves when they won world title in 1995, he was in the stadium for Game 6 and has remained close with many of the Braves’ front-office employees still working of the club. He also worked the PGA Tour Championship for 11 years in Atlanta at East Lake and today is the vice president of sales for Stark RFID, an enterprise-level integrator of customized software and hardware.
Q: What do you remember about the title-clinching game in 1995?
A: I remember it being really tense and a really good baseball game. If you are a big baseball fan, this is what you loved. It was the same with Game 7 in 1991 when we lost 1-0 to the Twins. It was a tough lost but an incredible game. (In '95) I remember (Tom) Glavine dominating and David Justice, after all the headlines that morning about him getting on the fans, turning on that pitch and hitting it out.
Q: You worked for the Braves in the turnaround season in 1982 and then again in ’91. How were they different?
A: I was a sales rep in 1982 and smiling and dialing and telling people we would win more games than the Falcons. That year we won 13 straight and everything was crazy and people were coming out to the stadium right away. In 1991, it was more gradual and then smacked us at the end.
Q: Just how crazy was 1991?
A: It was nuts and especially as we got to October. We had to have three postseason sales that year because back then other teams received tickets and 72 hours before the game we were getting a lot of tickets back.
Q: How did the group sales record in ’92 happen?
A: It was the same people that always came, but instead of 30 people coming from a small-town church in Alabama it was 300.
