If they have their way, the Atlanta Braves won’t be playing in Atlanta come 2017. Even if you’ve been jaded by the comings and goings of teams – the Braves themselves arrived as a “relo,” as realtors say – this nonetheless is momentous news. Atlanta’s first big-league sports franchise plans to move to Cobb County.
As much as we’d like to think that the Braves belong to all of us, they don’t. They’re a business. Businesses exist to make money. The Braves believe they can make more money at the junction of I-75 and I-285, and if we check the heat map on the just-launched website homeofthebraves.com, we see why.
According to the map, the vast majority of tickets sold to Braves games in 2012 were bought by folks who live in the Northern Arc. Can we blame a team for moving closer to its paying customers? Can we blame the Braves for leaving the city of Atlanta, where Mayor Kasim Reed expended much political capital keep the Falcons downtown but proved less receptive to the Braves’ entreaties?
I’m no economist, but Mayor Reed might have championed the wrong franchise. (Yes, I know the Georgia Dome has held and the new stadium will hold other big events.) Counting exhibitions, the Falcons play 10 home games a year. The Braves play 81. The Falcons play the majority of their games on Sunday afternoons, which don’t necessarily give rise to pre- and postgame urges to shop or dine out. The majority of the Braves’ games are staged at night, which is more suited to such discretionary activities.
(Neither am I a mathematician, but the most the Falcons can draw to home games in their new stadium – assuming it seats 70,000 — would be 700,000. The maximum the Braves can draw in their new ballpark, which is slated to seat 42,000, would be 3.4 million.)
As much as anything, this proposed move is a bow to local reality: We Atlantans love our cars but hate our traffic. It’s hard to get from the Northern Arc to Turner Field for a 7:10 p.m. game. Mass transit really isn’t a solution: There has never been a a MARTA station at the Braves’ ballpark. (In the history of Atlanta infrastructure, this remains the most inexplicable absence.) The Braves say that only six percent of their patrons use MARTA, which is a stunning stat.
As a Cobb Countian of nearly 30 years, I can attest that navigating the Cumberland Mall area by either Interstate or surface roads is no pleasure cruise. But many of those who live in the northern suburbs won’t have as far to go to reach the new ballpark as the existing one, and the Braves insist there’ll be more parking at the Cobb site. There will certainly be more diversions.
As a Cobb Countian, I’m not crazy about the prospect of my tax money – it’s believed Cobb will fund $450 million of the stadium’s $672 million price tag — being funneled to a team that sank $62 million into Dan Uggla. Still, I understand that landing the Braves could have a transforming effect on a county where politicians and developers have long fought the notion that Cobb is home only to a string of bedroom communities. When a big-league team sets up shop in your backyard, don’t you by definition become big-league?
“It’s absolutely a large step in that direction,” said Dan Papp, the president of Cobb-based Kennesaw State University. “An incredible organization is moving to Cobb County, and I think over time it will change a lot of people’s perception of Cobb … There aren’t that many major-league franchises and – despite my beloved Cleveland Browns leaving for Baltimore – very rarely do they move.”
Said Taz Anderson, the entrepreneur who lives in Fulton County but whose office is in Cobb: “This is a real positive thing. It says a lot about Cobb arriving and being significant. And it helps that entire (Cumberland Mall) area. All those restaurants and stores – this is a big, big payday for them.”
The Braves, who apparently weren’t a priority for Atlanta and Fulton County, will become the biggest thing going in Cobb. It was suggested to Papp that Kennesaw State can soon advertise itself as sharing a county with the world-famous Braves. “And we will,” he said.
At such times, there’s a feeling of loss – a team that has been a centerpiece of downtown Atlanta for nearly a half-century is ready to up sticks – but also a sense of resignation. In their SuperStation heyday, the Braves billed themselves as America’s team. The cold truth is that, in terms of ticket-buying, they’ve become the Northern Arc’s Team. For better or worse, that’s where they’re bound.
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