OT:What is Atlanta United FC doing different that the Thrashers did not do?
- Thread starter cutchemist42
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Canadiens1958
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Compare youth soccer in Georgia:
http://www.georgiasoccer.org/
With youth hockey in Georgia:
http://www.sedistrict.org/
Georgia being part of a six state district.
Compare youth soccer in Georgia:
http://www.georgiasoccer.org/
With youth hockey in Georgia:
http://www.sedistrict.org/
Georgia being part of a six state district.
One year does not make a trend. Revisit this in five years if one of the better owners in sport, Arthur Blank, has nothing to do with this team. The scale of fail was initiated and accelerated once Time-Warner no longer owned the Thrashers.
Gardner McKay
RIP, Jimmy.
Agreed on all points.
As someone who lives in Atlanta, I think the novelty of the Atlanta United FC is starting to wear off.
zetajerk
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- Jan 1, 2015
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Unless the soccer team winds up in the hands of someone who doesn't want them, but does want their building, there's no comparison.
superdeluxe
NAFO
Yup, apples and oranges, or in this case peaches...but having said that, they have a *really* nice building now, though...
DaleCooper
NEVER 4GET
Has he suggested he's going to sell the team?
Obviously I don't live in Atlanta, but 5 days ago they had the largest MLS attendance in history (not to mention the 5th highest attendance in all of world soccer that week), so it doesn't really seem like it's wearing off yet.
Once upon a time the Thrashers set the NHL attendance record for a first year expansion team.
I'm sure if the soccer team is well managed they will do perfectly fine over the long term in Atlanta. If, on the other hand, they're managed like the Thrashers...
I'm sure if the soccer team is well managed they will do perfectly fine over the long term in Atlanta. If, on the other hand, they're managed like the Thrashers...
the thrashers have never put a competitve team on the ice. all modern expansion teams in the mls usually do great in their first year and beyond because famous people sign there and they build off of a good expansion year
Rob
Registered User
I think it's safe to say that soccer is more popular in the US than hockey.
To be fair there are more youths playing soccer in Montreal than hockey.
ASG was controlled by basketball snobs that had ZERO interest in hockey and then were horrified that affluent white fans were buying hockey tickets and not basketball and Hawks games were attracting more black fans to their liking. The Thrashers were long gone before the leaked emails from Hawks ownership showed how racist they were.
I have no doubt that Atlanta would work in the NHL with the right ownership. The Flames left Atlanta mainly because Calgary oil barons were horrified that Edmonton's WHA team joined the NHL and they overpaid to buy the Flames.
ASG's fatal mistake was not looking at the Thrashers as an asset and not a liability. The best formula for this is New York where MSG ownership leaves the Rangers alone while constantly meddling with the Knicks.
Atlanta is for lack of a better term an unique market. The Braves fled to the suburbs but the new soccer team enticed those same suburban fans to go downtown. Maybe somebody in Atlanta reading this can explain why MARTA never built a subway stop near Turner Field, Olympic Stadium or Fulton Stadium????
Most cities that have hosted the Olympics take great pains to preserve the legacy. Go to Atlanta today and you will be hard pressed to see any legacy from the 1996 games.
Licentia
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- Jun 29, 2004
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Flood Atlanta with Canadians and what would you get? You'd get a hockey fan base.
Flood Atlanta with immigrants from countries where soccer is the #1 game, and the result will inevitably be the same.
Flood Atlanta with immigrants from countries where soccer is the #1 game, and the result will inevitably be the same.
Licentia
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- Jun 29, 2004
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Hockey costs a lot more to play than soccer. That doesn't mean that people who grow up playing soccer, must inevitably become fans who buy tickets. I played soccer when I was young, and have no interest in going to a game, or watching one on TV. Conversely, I never played hockey when I was young, but it's my favourite TV sport.
Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
GuelphStormer
Registered User
tony d
Registered User
Good to see this. Be interesting to see if they can keep it up in the long term though.
nhlfan79
Registered User
That's a simple answer, actually. The Braves explicitly opposed a light rail stop in order to maximize their parking revenue. It was good for their bottom line, even though it made all the practical sense in the world to add a MARTA rail stop there.
As for the main question, I think most comments above nailed it. I'm a former Thrashers STH who now has season tickets to United. The difference in fan treatment and general respect from the organizations is night and day. The Thrashers were ineptly run from day one, even pre-ASG. Corporate AOL/Time-Warner's detached indifference to their line-item hockey team during the company's dissolution was only taken into hyperdrive when ASG then (1) took over a product it never even wanted, (2) spent years in court suing each other, and (3) intentionally sabotaged the hockey team to force its relocation out of their basketball arena.
MARTA has a train stop a few blocks from Turner Field. They also run shuttles from the stations to the ballpark. The new baseball stadium came about as a back room deal between local politicians and developers. It came to pass so that those individuals could get their grimy hands on a pile of money. There was virtually no transparency. Even Braves season ticket holders knew nothing about the move until it was announced a week after the Mayoral election. This in spite of the fact that it was a done deal 4 months earlier in July. The soccer team has proven that the "downtown location" argument given for the Thrasher's failure was nothing more than mythology.
Cobb County, which hosts the new ballpark, voted not to become part of the MARTA expansion because of racism.
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I'd also like to point out that this is Atlanta's 4th or 5th time around with Professional Soccer, starting in 1968. You can get up and drive all over town on Saturday mornings and see more kids playing soccer than baseball. I feel this team may have a real chance not due to it's initial crowds but because Arthur Blank has proven to be a good, responsibly owner.
Finlandia WOAT
js7.4x8fnmcf5070124
- May 23, 2010
- 24,154
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Didn't the Flames' Atlanta owner (side note: Atlanta 3.0 should cut out the middleman and go with the "Atlanta Shermans", their logo can be a tank) business go belly up, and he needed a quick infusion of cash?
Didn't he also stumble onto that illegal pension scam?
KevFu
Registered User
The Flames of Atlanta weren't some massive failure financially.
They WERE struggling. But it was less about the market and attendance; and more about the old arena being antiquated at a time when expenses for the NHL were rising higher than was expected.
Barring some cataclysmic event, salaries always go up from year to year. Atlanta's projections when they entered the NHL were 12-teams, normal annual growth of salaries.
But the WHA bidding wars drove salaries up way higher than normal growth, and their antiquated building couldn't make up for that gap.
So when they got offered $16 million, they accepted.
As for MLS, it's pretty simple:
NHL payrolls are are half the average revenue of the league.
For the Thrashers, their revenues were lower, and so their payroll was like 65% of their revenue. Meaning they had to slash marketing budgets and could not create demand.
MLS payrolls are about a quarter of revenues. Foreign talent is capped. There's no bidding wars for players. The MLS players union is weak.
It's a major league with minor league player expenses. And that's why dozens of people are trying to get MLS expansion teams.
They WERE struggling. But it was less about the market and attendance; and more about the old arena being antiquated at a time when expenses for the NHL were rising higher than was expected.
Barring some cataclysmic event, salaries always go up from year to year. Atlanta's projections when they entered the NHL were 12-teams, normal annual growth of salaries.
But the WHA bidding wars drove salaries up way higher than normal growth, and their antiquated building couldn't make up for that gap.
So when they got offered $16 million, they accepted.
As for MLS, it's pretty simple:
NHL payrolls are are half the average revenue of the league.
For the Thrashers, their revenues were lower, and so their payroll was like 65% of their revenue. Meaning they had to slash marketing budgets and could not create demand.
MLS payrolls are about a quarter of revenues. Foreign talent is capped. There's no bidding wars for players. The MLS players union is weak.
It's a major league with minor league player expenses. And that's why dozens of people are trying to get MLS expansion teams.
nhlfan79
Registered User
Point of clarification that the Omni Coliseum opened in 1972, the year the Flames arrived. Tom Cousins, a local real estate developer, took a huge hit in the 1980 recession and was offered a very competitive $8 million by a local interest, but Nelson Skalbania in Calgary offered him double that, which was the biggest price ever paid for a team at that time. It was an offer Cousins couldn't refuse under the circumstances. The relocation occurred notwithstanding a season ticket drive that led to 13,000 season tickets out of 15,000 total seats available. The Flames did not leave for lack of local support.
https://www.nhl.com/news/former-flames-recall-hot-times-in-atlanta/c-370370
FWIW, the Omni hosted the IHL's Atlanta Knights in the early 1990's, and attendance was always outstanding. It was a cool place to see a game (and Atlanta's first professional championship!).
By the mid-1990's, it was severely outdated (only 10 modest suites in total) and couldn't keep up with modern sports amenities. Thus, after the Olympics (where it hosted boxing and volleyball), it was imploded to make way for Philips Arena, which today sits on the same spot.
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The 79-80 Flames averaged 10,024 a game but other franchises were hurting then as well including Pittsburgh and Chicago.
http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph_season.php?lid=NHL1927&sid=1980
http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph_season.php?lid=NHL1927&sid=1980
