Braves ditching The Ted for suburbs

Agree on crowd behavior. As much as my son and I love watching football, I have no interest in taking him to an NFL or major college game. Too much of a culture of drinking for five hours before kickoff, people yelling F-bombs from the top row and just a general nastiness in the stands.

Contrast this with an NBA game. I love them. Generally polite and affluent fan base and - especially on a weeknight - not much of a culture of sloppy drinking.

Baseball can be hit or miss depending on the fan base. A Cubs day game on a hot summer afternoon has the feel of an NFL game but, for the most part, MLB is mellow.

I have no issue with the Braves leaving the downtown core to be closer to their more reliable ticket buyers/customers. A Panera Bread doesn't set up shop next to a payday loan shop -- it goes where the Honda minivans are.

Yet, for the overall financial health of baseball, I would be concerned. It's no different than a packed restaurant but most of the people eating are over 65. Or Buick trying to get people under 40 to buy one of their cars.

Good for now but has baseball cultivated enough younger people to fill those seats in 20 years? Looking at the age demo information, I doubt it.

 

How many people do they need? There may be fewer people interested in baseball. But as long as there are enough to fill the new park -- which is going to seat 8,000 fewer than Turner anyway -- what the other people do is of no concern. Sure, there are fewer kids playing and watching baseball these days, but there are still millions of them.

Also: Particular to this situation, the kids/baseball dynamics are completely different than what you're addressing. East Cobb is ground zero of the travel ball phenomenon, and the youth scene there remains in explosive growth. There are almost as many players being drafted from Georgia as there are from Florida, Texas or California.

 

The pendulum is swinging back toward cities and away from suburbia. Twenty years from now, this move could very possibly look like an unmitigated disaster. Richfield Coliseumesque.

 

Echoing what LTL said, East Cobb has produced the following MLB players, among others:

Kris Benson
Domonic Brown
Marlon Byrd
Matt Capps
Stephen Drew
Adam Everett
Kyle Farnsworth
Jeff Francoeur
Jeremy Hermida
Jason Heyward
Jeff Keppinger
Brian McCann
Brandon Moss
Matt Murton
Micah Owings
Buster Posey
Zack Wheeler

http://www.eastcobbbaseball.com/pro-player-by-last-name/

 

That is incredible. I had no idea the area was that much a hotbed.

 

But that's because that is the population trend too. It doesn't sound like Atlanta is that way, though.

 

Wait a second. Some of those guys are black. I didn't think they were allowed in Cobb County.

 

As long as their parents drive them in it's OK. They just can't take public transportation.

 

Yup. As long as the economic outlook has people renting apartments and not buying homes, this is a very accurate depiction.

 

Have you been to a game recently? I'm willing to concede that my experience is not representative of any actual trends, but I went to six MLB games this season and have been to two NFL games and the crowd at the MLB games was younger. At least it seemed younger.

Lots of 40- and 50-somethings at the NFL games. Many more 20-somethings at the MLB games. Yes, you'll get more older people at the baseball games, but I think the affordability attracts the younger people, too.

 

I think a lot of that demographic is based on ticket price. You can get cheap tickets to most MLB games in the $10-15 range. Cheapest NFL tickets to the worst teams are still in the $40s.

EDIT: And of course older people with money can afford NFL tickets, while young poor people cannot, but can swing a $15 MLB ticket.

 

I'll agree on the family-friendly MLB games versus any type of football. Price of tickets is a big part of that, but so is the crowd. Football tends toward a hard-drinking, all-day party vibe, and while that's fun for adults, it's not for parents with school-aged children.

That's definitely true in the nearest big-league city (Seattle) where I live. Elementary school-aged kids at a Mariners game? It's a great time, and you can find family-friendly deals (tickets/food/drinks).

Take 8 or 10-year-olds to a Seahawks game? No chance.