HoustonChronicle.com – Phoenix on pace to become fifth-largest city
Supposedly, Atlanta is too small to support a big-money major league team. On the other hand…
Metropolitan Atlanta grew by 1.2 million people, or nearly 40 percent, in the 1990s, partly because several more counties were added to its metro area. However, such redefining reflects genuine suburban growth.
40 percent! I put it to you that if you’re winning every year and the population is growing by 40 percent in a decade, and you can’t even keep your attendance from declining, it maybe, just maybe, is something you’re doing wrong.
(Houston story via Off the Kuff.)
This would make a good AFLAC Trivia Question:
How many Major League Baseball teams own their stadium, have their own regional cable channel, play in a top ten media market, have a large fan base in neighboring states, and have their very own superstation to boot?
Mac, A good read on the Atlanta baseball market is in the Braves section of the Baseball Prospectus. I found it to be enlightening.
Johnny, you’re right, it was very good. Also, another problem the Braves have is MARTA’s horrific approach to getting people to the games. Absolutely, inexcusably, awful. And now they’re charging people for the bus ride back?!?!?
But, as your quote notes, most of the “increase” is just changing the way they count–including people who live further away from Atlanta as part of the metro area. Whether doing so makes sense for whatever reason they’re defining the term, it wouldn’t have anything to do with attendance at ball games.
Atlanta’s just not a good baseball town. There’s not much history, the team scuked until the last decade, and traffic is awful. Football is king for the most important part of the season. The games are on TV for free, without dealing with the heat, the crowds, and the traffic. And people have gotten spoiled, expecting the team to make the World Series, so don’t even get excited until maybe halfway through the NLCS.
It’s still part of the whole area. I think that the Braves could draw better if they made the effort.