The Atlanta Braves shocked everyone this morning with news that they are leaving Turner Field at the end of the 2016 season, and will begin 2017 in a new stadium to be built in Cobb County. Cobb County is a northern suburb of Atlanta.
The news was shocking because nothing had been leaked about discussions or that this was even a possibility. The Braves have moaned a few times over the years about one thing or another about the current stadium. (Is any sports team EVER satisfied?) But not many saw this coming. It was absolutely a closed backroom negotiation that took place.
So, why am I not happy? Because:
[ol]
[li]They say one reason for moving is traffic. Yes downtown traffic sucks, it’s fucking downtown after all!! But where they are moving to is at a traffic strangle point that is just as bad. Can’t convince me they improved this factor.[/li][li]Another reason for moving, according to the team, is to get closer to their season ticket base. Guess what? For some season ticket holders, you’ll be closer. For some, you’re now further away time -wise, if not distance-wise. I am now much less likely to go to a game.[/li][li]“Turner Field was not built for baseball, it was built for the Olympics” They are implying that somehow Turner Field was built for the Olympics, and that the Braves “settled” for leftovers. Bullshit. The stadium was built for a short term need (1996 Olympics) AND a plan to convert it to a baseball only facility for the Braves. It is a baseball park, it’s not a “multi-use” facility.[/li][li]It was going to cost too much to renovate. Also bullshit. The new stadium is going to cost far more to build than to renovate the existing, but part of the backdoor negotiations is that Cobb County is picking up all but $200 million of the tab.[/li][li]“Existing stadium doesn’t have easy access to rail or bus lines.” True. New one doesn’t either.[/li][/ol]
I hate that modern sports team’s don’t realize the importance of tradition and history. The Dodgers decided to stay at Dodger Stadium and spend lots of money to renovate/modernize, partly because they saw the value of the tradition. Fenway Park, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium, all examples of teams staying put and building a tradition. Baseball is a sport grounded in it’s traditions.
“And yet this week, the Cobb County School Board closed an $86 million deficit by cutting 182 teaching positions from its local schools and requiring five days of unpaid furlough for teachers and other employees, among other steps. Because you see, as prosperous as Cobb County might appear to be on the outside, it is simply too poor to keep those teachers in the classroom and on the payroll.”
As a non-Atlantan, I can’t speak to the other issues. But if a county has to lay off teachers, it has NO BUSINESS spending $300 million on a ballpark. If I were in Cobb County I’d consider staging a revolt. And I say that as a person who loves baseball.
You don’t understand. Turner Field is an ancient decrepit dump that’s nearly 20 years old. It has only67 luxury boxes! 67! Their only option is to build a new stadium with even more luxury boxes. Also, by moving to the suburbs of Cobb County, the Braves will be able to build a park where it will be surrounded by nothing but acres of parking. There’ll be no nearby watering holes or eateries where fans can stop before or after a game instead of buying overpriced concessions like they should.
I take it you’ve never been to Turner Field? There’s nothing down there now. It’s like somebody took a huge bite out of Atlanta and dropped in a baseball stadium. Amenities include being directly next to the main interstate.
I don’t know about the restaurant part of that. It’s right next to the Cobb Expressway, which has a ton of eateries for miles in both directions.
As far as traffic, the I-285/I-75 intersection in the north (as opposed to the one near the airport, which is in the south) is legendary for it’s bad traffic already. I mean, 12 lanes of parking whenever traffic is heavy level of bad. And the roads to Circle 75 parkway aren’t much better - unless they put an on/off ramp directly from the highway to the parking lot, it’s going to be murder getting there.
The “no rail access” is laughable too. Atlantans just turned down a 1% sales tax to improve public transit, mainly on the opposition of rich areas like Cobb county. Now they’re going from “one mile from the main subway hub, with shuttles running to the stadium” to “15 miles from the nearest subway hub”.
Personally, the Atlanta Boy Scout office is across the street from the proposed stadium, and since I volunteer with them a lot I’m not looking forward to the increased traffic during construction or during game nights. Not to mention property values will probably go through the roof, causing the same to happen to property taxes. So that will suck for me, whether or not I go to a single game.
Coming right after the much derided plan for the Falcons to build a new stadium, this is digging the hole deeper. Not to mention the urban blight that’s going to become the old Turner field… I can’t see that getting repurposed for anything anytime soon.
It does if it expects to make a net profit off the the $300 million in the short or medium term. I’m sure that it will be financed by bonds so that they won’t really be spending all of that even close to at once which makes it even easier to show a profit every year via whatever deal they have with the Braves and increased tax revenue. This is not to mention all of the jobs that will be created in the County. Not teacher jobs, to be sure, but lots of employment. It surely may end up being a huge boondoggle but it’s not anywhere close to as simplistic as you think it is.
Wow, that’s just crazy, scrapping a 20-year-old stadium. Closest equivalent I can think of was Seattle ditching the Kingdome, but the Kingdome was genuinely falling apart, IIRC. Wasn’t there a two-week period toward the end of its life when the Mariners had to play on the road because a chunk of concrete fell from some part of the structure?
Oh, I understand that (though my understanding is that much of the profit and some of the jobs supposedly created by these new constructions are rather more smoke and mirrors than they are often held up as being). I’m just saying that education should be a priority.
Don’t forget the ‘multiplier’ some consultant pulls out of their ass to justify spending millions of public money to build a new venue for a privately-owned sports team to go about their business. Stadium financing is perhaps one of the most corrupt uses of public money around in my opinion.
What a shame, and what a waste of money. Kauffman Stadium (KC Royals) underwent a $250 million renovation 4 years ago, and the place looks and feels brand new. That’s a big chunk of cash, but I bet the new Braves facility runs a cool billion when it’s over.
I still somehow stand by my vote for The Ballpark in Arlington. Rangers finally figured out how not to melt in July the season that poll was taken.
I saw a game a Turner Field once (and one game back in the old Fulton County)… my biggest impression of the place was the Cartoon Network mismash they had on the concourse behind the outfield bleachers.
I’m 44 years old, and of the opinion that an MLB team shouldn’t play in three different parks in the same metro area during my recent memory. I understand that the Turner Field neighborhood is anything but a neighborhood, but $210 million (plus tens of millions in upgrades since its original construction) seems like a lot of money for a facility that will have lasted 20 years.
A Grantland writer, originally from Atlanta, weighed in with a great column.
There’s a lot of skepticism in the economics literature that this actually happens with sports venues as public expenditures. There’s a huge incentive for the sports franchise/organisation to lie and to pass off costs to the taxpayer. For example, I haven’t read all of this paper, but even just the abstract is sobering:
It even mentions Atlanta’s bad experience with this problem:
The opportunity cost to the taxpayer of building the stadium vs. other uses for the funds may be sufficient to explain the lackluster economic benefits of these stadiums, but the negotiations stacked in favor of the team or franchise (because how can you be a civic booster if you don’t support our [soon-to-be] local team?) certainly lead to bad policy through tax breaks and incentives.
I feel bad for the taxpayers of Cobb county, they’ll probably get the shaft in this deal.
Rangers finally figured out how not to melt in July the season that poll was taken.