Braves Join Falcons in Abandoning Perfectly Good Facility

[neo_prankster]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

If Cobb County doesn't work out, where next, Montreal? Winnipeg? Brooklyn?

[WSU151]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

I don't think the Braves really want to get rid of Turner Field. It's a fine stadium. It's a money thing. They can't get money from Fulton County, so they're going to Cobb County. And they're using the "location of the fanbase" as an excuse to hide the money thing.

[neo_prankster]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

I don't think the Braves really want to get rid of Turner Field. It's a fine stadium. It's a money thing. They can't get money from Fulton County, so they're going to Cobb County. And they're using the "location of the fanbase" as an excuse to hide the money thing.

Is Cobb really a tea party hotbed or is that a gross misrepresentation?

[WSU151]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

I don't think the Braves really want to get rid of Turner Field. It's a fine stadium. It's a money thing. They can't get money from Fulton County, so they're going to Cobb County. And they're using the "location of the fanbase" as an excuse to hide the money thing.

Is Cobb really a tea party hotbed or is that a gross misrepresentation?

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/12/atlanta-tea-party-hates-new-braves-stadium-cobb-county/

Don't think that's what made the Braves move.

[NJTank]

Until shovels are in the ground, I am calling this deal Pie in the Sky.

[BlueSky]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

I don't think the Braves really want to get rid of Turner Field. It's a fine stadium. It's a money thing. They can't get money from Fulton County, so they're going to Cobb County. And they're using the "location of the fanbase" as an excuse to hide the money thing.

Is Cobb really a tea party hotbed or is that a gross misrepresentation?

No, it's not a Tea Party hotbed. I've lived in metro Atlanta since 2001 and am against this deal for two simple reasons: the traffic will be a nightmare and there's nothing wrong with Turner Field. They fed the TF neighborhood people the same line of crap the people around the Georgia Dome got (and around the new Falcons site are getting) when it was built: the stadium will bring development and rising property values, it will be an economic engine for decades, blah blah...then there was no followup, no real development, and the neighborhoods kept sliding right down the same path they had been before the stadiums.

I predict this: there will be development around the new Braves site but not so much around the new Falcons stadium. That's because people go to Cobb now for the current retail and restaurant businesses. Nobody wants to go to the TF area and the Georgia Dome isn't a real hotbed either. Whether development would change that, we'll never know. They built Atlantic Station and it's decent enough, we go there on occasion to shop or to see Cirque when they set up the tent there and so on but anywhere downtown is a "have a reason to go there" place for us because we live 60 miles away.

As for the traffic, getting from where we live to downtown or the airport will require going right by this new stadium site. Apart from the mayhem games will cause commuters, I (selfishly, just being honest) don't want to have to check the damn Braves schedule every time we want to go down that way. I know how that sounds but if you knew what normal Atlanta traffic was like, the thought of piling on 40,000 people going to a Braves game would make you sound that way too.

[OnWis97]

What's wrong with the Ted? Never been there myself, but I am shocked the Braves would want to get rid of it.

I don't think the Braves really want to get rid of Turner Field. It's a fine stadium. It's a money thing. They can't get money from Fulton County, so they're going to Cobb County. And they're using the "location of the fanbase" as an excuse to hide the money thing.

Is Cobb really a tea party hotbed or is that a gross misrepresentation?

No, it's not a Tea Party hotbed. I've lived in metro Atlanta since 2001 and am against this deal for two simple reasons: the traffic will be a nightmare and there's nothing wrong with Turner Field. They fed the TF neighborhood people the same line of crap the people around the Georgia Dome got (and around the new Falcons site are getting) when it was built: the stadium will bring development and rising property values, it will be an economic engine for decades, blah blah...then there was no followup, no real development, and the neighborhoods kept sliding right down the same path they had been before the stadiums.

I predict this: there will be development around the new Braves site but not so much around the new Falcons stadium. That's because people go to Cobb now for the current retail and restaurant businesses. Nobody wants to go to the TF area and the Georgia Dome isn't a real hotbed either. Whether development would change that, we'll never know. They built Atlantic Station and it's decent enough, we go there on occasion to shop or to see Cirque when they set up the tent there and so on but anywhere downtown is a "have a reason to go there" place for us because we live 60 miles away.

As for the traffic, getting from where we live to downtown or the airport will require going right by this new stadium site. Apart from the mayhem games will cause commuters, I (selfishly, just being honest) don't want to have to check the damn Braves schedule every time we want to go down that way. I know how that sounds but if you knew what normal Atlanta traffic was like, the thought of piling on 40,000 people going to a Braves game would make you sound that way too.

First bold: That ought to about sum it up for a lot of people I'd think. I sometimes marvel at the lack of frustration/outrage about public financing. I get why we fund 'em to keep teams in town (whether or not I agree), but abandoning serviceable stadiums, threatening to move from relatively new publicly-funded ballparks, and my favorite of NFL blackouts in publicly-funded stadiums really ought to draw more outrage. The Braves don't NEED a new ballpark and I am disappointed that Atlanta/Counties/State/etc. are not calling them out on that. As for the traffic, my ATL experience (in-laws in Power Springs) tells me that metro Atlanta has miserable traffic at almost all times and I suspect (semi-educated guess with no data, I admit) that mingling PM rush hour with the start of a ball game (or the end of a Thursday day game) is going to be a disaster. And I really hope this is not used to spur "paving out of congestion", which is not possible.

Second bold: Sure it's selfish, but you are among thousands upon thousands of people who will be inconvenienced 81 times a year. It's not going to be good PR once that starts to happen. And the people up there are the people that "matter" (which, again, makes me fear that road construction, and lots of it, will be the answer).

[BlueSky]

Wow...duh...I totally forgot that the financing was one of my three (not two) reasons (though it dovetails with the "nothing wrong with the current facilities" reason). It's astounding how many people have bought the city's BS for the Falcons stadium, namely that it's okay because "other people," not Atlantans, are paying for it (the money will come from the hotel and rental car tax). Well, regardless of where it comes from, it's still $200 million that could be spent on other needs. It's outrageous for organizations as profitable as the NFL or MLB to twist their cities' arms to get public money for new stadiums period, much less when they're doing it to leave an average to above-average facility.