Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sports

Worst sports city in America?

Is Atlanta still Loserville, USA?

...

Chris Wilkins/AFP/Getty Images
The Atlanta Braves celebrate their 1995 World Series victory over the Cleveland Indians—the only professional championship in the city’s sports history.

By Hunt Archbold

In 1977, barely a decade after the first big league professional sports team began playing in Atlanta, Sports Illustrated published a now-infamous story on the city and its sports environment branding the city as “Loserville.” More than three decades later, in the eyes of many, that title is still applicable. Nearly 42 years since the Braves and Falcons ushered big-time professional sports into the city, the question persists: Is Atlanta a good sports town, or a lousy one?

“I can understand the question,’’ says the Atlanta Sports Council’s Gary Stokan, whose organization hosted the third annual Atlanta Sports Awards last week. It was an uplifting evening, as befits a group whose stated mission is “to lead, organize and support sports development with the goal of building Atlanta’s reputation as the Sports Capital of the World.’’

Wait a minute—sports capital of the world? Are we talking about the same Atlanta routinely considered by others to be among the worst sports cities in America? The ATL topped that list barely six months ago in a piece on sportsillustrated.cnn.com. And in 2006, the site sportsbook.com labeled Atlanta the worst sports city in the country.

THE RECORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

“I think competitively, it goes in cycles,” says Billy Payne, the former CEO of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and current chairman of Augusta National Golf Club. “And we’re in a difficult time now relative to the competition of other cities.”
 
One could make the case that in terms on-field success, that difficult time is now four-plus decades long. Only the Braves (.508) sport an all-time winning record in regular season play, followed by the Hawks (.483), the hockey combo of the Thrashers and their predecessors, the Flames (.465), and the Falcons (.404). Between them, those five franchises have played 140 seasons, resulting in only 54 playoff appearances, 24 division championships, six conference/league titles and one mere overall championship.

Currently, both the Hawks and Thrashers are muddling through roller-coaster seasons that may—or, more likely, may  not—result in postseason appearances. The Hawks have failed to make the playoffs for eight consecutive seasons; not once in their 41-year existence in Atlanta have they won two playoff series in a season. The Thrashers made the playoffs for the first time in their seven-year existence last spring, but were quickly swept out in four games by the New York Rangers. Counting the Flames’ tenure (1972-80), Atlanta has gone 15 NHL seasons without winning a single Stanley Cup playoff series.

Stars from both teams understand why fans could be apathetic.

“Atlanta is waiting for one of the teams to burst out on the scene,” says Hawks forward Josh Smith, who was raised in the metro area and has witnessed firsthand the hometown fan’s long distrust of the city’s big league teams. “I understand their frustration because they want to talk trash to their friends about their team. But unfortunately, we have been an up-and-down team.’’

The Hawks aren’t the only ones. “Support is very important to us, there’s no question,” says Thrashers all-star Ilya Kovalchuk. “You can tell the fans understand the game more now. But we have been very inconsistent and the fans know that.”

Still, he says, “I think this is a good sports city.”

COMPLACENCY AMONG THE FAN BASE

That may be, but it’s nonetheless a city that hasn’t consistently supported its teams by filling stadiums and arenas. Cities such as Philadelphia and Cleveland have also fielded teams that have struggled to win consistently, but those cities have accumulated fan bases that go generations deep, so their fans remain loyal almost to a fault. The same cannot be said of Atlanta, a city that between 2000 and 2006 saw its metropolitan area grow by more than 20 percent, making it the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the nation.

“I think Atlanta is becoming a much better sports town as the people who came here 10, 15 years ago are the guys who are having families now,’’ says Andrew Saltzman, co-president of Big League Broadcasting, owner of local sports-talk station 790 the Zone. “Their kids are being raised as Atlanta sports fans. The kids are going to grow up going to Turner Field, Philips Arena and the Georgia Dome, and they will have that as part of their culture.’’

Of course, even when an Atlanta team has won, such as the Braves’ 14 straight division titles (1991-2005), complacency has set in among the fan base. Partly because the Braves won just one world title (1995) in that time, and partly because they would agonizingly bow out too early in the playoffs after each division crown, the Braves routinely played before thousands of empty seats at home playoff games during the final seasons of that stretch.

“That was very frustrating to not sell out those games,” says Atlanta resident Erin Andrews, who prior to working for ESPN worked on Braves telecasts for TBS. “If the Braves make the playoffs this year, there is no excuse for the stands not to be full.”

It’s not unfathomable that those stands would fill up, considering the Braves have missed out on the postseason the past two campaigns. Braves fans grew both spoiled with the division titles and frustrated with too-soon postseason endings. Falcon fans should be so lucky. Forty-two years in, Atlanta’s professional football franchise still has yet to achieve back-to-back winning seasons. And following an enormously tumultuous 2007 season that featured its franchise player landing in federal prison, its first-year coach quitting with three games remaining and a dome full of sub-standard play, it won’t achieve that goal this year, either.

LEADERSHIP, CONSISTENCY LACKING

“Everybody hopes it turns around,’’ says Tommy Nobis, the Falcons’ first-ever draft choice and a man also known as “Mr. Falcon.” “More than anything, with all of Atlanta’s teams, you want them to be competitive. We may have lost a little bit of that.’’

As with all business operations, that lack of competitive spirit starts at the top. A fair judgment cannot be made of Liberty Media, which has owned the Braves for less than a year. And while Arthur Blank has made some hiring mistakes, it’s hard to discredit his desire and determination for his Falcons to bring the Lombardi Trophy to Atlanta.

Then there’s the dysfunctional Atlanta Spirit, owner of the Hawks and Thrashers, embroiled in a nasty internal lawsuit over who controls the organization. A year and a half ago, a judge ruled that Boston businessman Steve Belkin could buy out the remaining eight owners, who quickly appealed the ruling. While the case continues to play out in the courts, the teams continue their erratic play, with no real chance at a world championship in sight.

“I look at all pro sports teams as belonging to the people,’’ says Payne. “And the people deserve the best management talent and best support possible. If you put a good product out there, the people are going to be receptive.’’

It’s not as if Atlanta lacks for chances to shine. Beyond the Falcons, Hawks, Thrashers and Braves, the city is home to several other franchises, from the Georgia Force (arena football) to the Silverbacks (soccer) to the Gladiators (hockey) to the Vision and Krunk (minor-basketball). And there’s more on the way, with the Triple-A baseball Braves coming to Gwinnett in 2009 and the WNBA Dream launching this May. Blank has even remarked that he’d like to bring a Major League Soccer expansion team to the city.