Braves ditching The Ted for suburbs

http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/braves-plan-to-build-new-stadium-in-cobb/nbpNQ/

All I can say is WTF?

 

Attendance will skyrocket. The Braves' biggest problem in recent years hasn't been fan complacency, but that 80 percent of their fans live an hour or more from the ballpark.

 

Pretty much my exact reaction when I saw the same thing.

My first thought is that it brings the team closer to Cobb but takes it away from Gwinnett, but in actual fact, it's basically at 75 and 285, so the distance difference is negligible for anyone coming from Gwinnett. Just means going around the perimeter instead of through downtown. More than likely trading one traffic cluster for another, but oh well.

 

My thinking is they belong downtown where they've been for nearly 50 years. Turner Field is a great ballpark - I love the view of the skyline that wasn't there with Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Someone on the AJC site suggested maybe the Marietta Braves now? Or could we could just call them the Georgia Braves? I know this is naive, but how many MLB teams are in the suburbs? The really great ones all seem to be in the city.

 

Yeah, I can't think what's wrong with Turner Field to necessitate a move. It's a perfectly good ballpark. And what then becomes of that? Is Atlanta gonna knock down its Olympic stadium 20 years after the games?

 

It's less about traffic and more about demographics. Your average Atlanta baseball fan (i.e., white person with money in most cases) lives a 2-hour commute to/from Turner Field. That's a lot to ask on a work night.

 

It will have gotten more use than most Olympic stadia, post Olympics.

 

How far do they work from there? If you work in downtown Atlanta and have to deal with typical Atlanta traffic, are you going to be able to make a 7 p.m. game?

Is this just an effort to get some cash from the city?

Too bad if this happens, because I liked the ballpark. Suburban ballparks are meh. I'd be curious to see what gets built up around there.

 

I live on the west side of the city in the county adjacent to Cobb, and I think this is a horrible idea. I can get to Turner Field in 40 minutes using I-20. There's no way I'll do better trying to get to the new location in the snarl that is 75/285/Cobb Parkway. I can't imagine trying to get there for a 7:10 game from Gwinnett County or somewhere to the south.

 

Kansas City and Texas are two off the top of my head. I guess you can technically say the Mets are in the suburbs.

Tampa Bay's ballpark is in St. Petersburg proper but at the extreme south end.

 

The Mets are not in the suburbs. They're not "downtown", but they are in the city proper. Sort of like the Brewers.

The Rays are on the edge of downtown St. Pete. You can walk there from anywhere downtown. It's just that St. Pete has a small downtown. (And, they would have been better off building the stadium where the parking lot is. It would have put it a couple of blocks closer to the heart of downtown.)

 

The new Braves stadium will hold just 42,000. Turner Field holds about 51,000.

That's a significant drop, but not an issue since the current park is never full anyway.