Here at InsiderAdvantage HQ we have a front row ticket to the construction of the new Braves’ stadium. What was once a patch of forest is now an enormous dirt pit, with the foundations of the state of the art Suntrust Park already making themselves evident. More interestingly, we have a bird’s eye view of the tangle of highways and exit ramps that flank the construction zone. Amidst the roads and bridges is another set of construction, preparing the roads for the influx of traffic that the Braves will bring with them. New entrance and exit ramps, a bridge or two, repairs and signs, all the infrastructure work that comes with building a new stadium.
Now, I’ve been critical of the county’s handling of the stadium move in the past. A complete lack of transparency while perpetrating a backroom deal that will demand voters to pay millions in taxes for something they knew nothing about is not a mark of good governing. But that ongoing story is not what this article is about. This is a look at how what happens on the diamond itself will factor into the politics of the new ballpark.
After a wildly disappointing 2014 season, the Braves fired GM Frank Wren and pledged to reshape a roster that flamed out in the late summer. Baseball minds may tell you that the season was foreseeable, something about how when you have a quarter of your payroll wrapped up into two significantly below average players, (Dan Uggla and BJ Upton) it’s going to be difficult to put a good squad together. But this is the Braves we’re talking about here. A team that won 14 straight division titles during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. A fan base that has grown up watching Hall of Famers and expecting playoff appearances and is now faced with a team that appears painfully mediocre.
The young stars of the minor leagues have come up and joined the team, and many of them, (Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward, Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran) are doing as well as expected. Unfortunately, the moves to bolster that young core backfired terribly, leading to the firing of Wren and a hole that will be difficult to climb out of. Unlike football, where rebuilds are quick and commonplace, in baseball it is not uncommon to see a ‘3 to 4 years ’til contention’ label put on a team. This Braves squad has talent, but with a depleted farm system, a middling payroll figure that is already about capped out, and a below average TV deal, it’s not hard to see the 2014 season repeat itself for a couple more seasons.
Now, the biggest reason for the Braves’ big move northward was to increase attendance. The Braves have always struggled to fill seats, especially for a team so consistently good. The club was 18th in the league in selling seats in 2014, and only 13th in a 2013 season in which they were one of the league’s premier teams. Turner Field’s downtown location, far from the core of the fan base in Cobb and Gwinnett Counties was the biggest scapegoat. Suntrust Park, while 20 minutes north of Turner, (without traffic that is) will have its own set of traffic problems, a distinct lack of parking, and no public transportation whatsoever to make up for not having MARTA. The location is already being called one of the “least urban parks in the league” by observers, and the problems getting to and parking at the stadium are already causing headaches. There is still a long time to work out some of those problems, but from here it doesn’t appear that the game day experience in 2017 will be much easier to deal with than it is currently at Turner.
The second part of the equation is the ‘Baseball Village’ surrounding the stadium. Between the hotels, restaurants, retail stores, and bars, the mixed use development outside of Suntrust Park is one of the main attractions of the move. It’s risky though to build what amounts to a strip mall, in an area already flush with shopping, (Cumberland Mall is a stone’s throw away) and that will only really bring in crowds some 82 times a year. If the team is bad in 2017 and attendance is down, how can retail stores outside the baseball stadium expect to do enough business to thrive? How will the hotels and apartments attract guests? How will the restaurants and bars keep their doors open when fewer and fewer fans show up to support a struggling team?
The state of the team has the potential to snowball public perception of the new park very quickly. If the team is a contender in 2017, the Cobb residents who were on the fence about the move will have less trouble dealing with raised taxes or more traffic. Praise will be heaped on the Cobb Commissioners, (and Chair Tim Lee in particular) for engineering a deal that worked out for the county financially. The media who criticized the deal for four years will be silenced, and the infrastructure costs to the county will be seen as much needed improvements as opposed to wasteful spending. The mixed use development around the park will be thriving, a shining example to teams looking at building their own parks perhaps away from the urban environments that have been such popular stadium sites in the past decade.
If the team continues to struggle though, the situation could roll downhill in a hurry. Everything positive with a winning team becomes a negative with a losing one. The area around the stadium quickly becomes a ghost town. The millions spent on bridges and off-ramps become a monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. The entire Cobb Commission kisses their reelection bids goodbye, losing to challengers who have the easiest campaign strategies imaginable.
So as I sit in my office, watching construction inch forward day by day, it’s hard not to think of what this area will look like in two years. If I need to though, I can go look at concept drawings to get an idea. More important is what the area will look like in five years, when the dust has settled and the shine of a new stadium has dulled. Will a dynamic Braves squad capture the hearts of the city like their 1990’s era brethren did? Or will this new core march into Suntrust Park and plunge the franchise back into the darkness of the 80’s?
