georgiacubfan

The driving force behind this move is much the same as the Wrigley renovation project: enhancing revenue streams so they can continue to be competitive. On weeknights the Braves with a 90+ win team were drawing 13 or 14000 per night in a stadium they have no ownership interest in and in which they don't get all the proceeds from the overpriced concessions. They were competitive primarily because other than their poor Uggla and BJ signings they had a talented, mostly young and salary controlled team. They have limited options as far as enhancing revenue. They have the same issues with their TV contract that the Cubs do and for longer. They've chosen to move where the bulk of the ticket buyers are AND where they will have an ownership interest in the stadium and I would imagine in the mixed use development as well. Liberty Media, the ownership group is known for its frugality so they aren't going to spend a great deal of money buying up the blighted area around Turner. Just how much would they have to buy up to secure the area adequately to make it feel safe for fans to go to the park where officially sanctioned parking is limited and ripoff lots and car break ins are apparently a common occurrence? According to sports media here, the City made promises to spend money to encourage development around Turner much as they did when the Georgia Dome was built and nothing was ever done on either front. Granted the Braves are rolling the dice to some extent because as you've pointed out, the traffic in that part of town in my experience is not a great deal better than the downtown connector around gametime, there still is no public transportation, and this is definitely going to alienate a portion of their fanbase.

Long term lurker and seldom a poster. Going back to 2003 (and I thought this at the time) winning the division and getting as close to the World Series as the Cubs did was probably detrimental to the team's long term success for the following reasons: 1. It provided apparent nearly immediate validation of Dusty as a manager and Dusty's philosophy of extensive use of "proven veterans" like Lenny F. Harris in inappropriate roles. Other examples were the $ spent on Estes and Alfonseca who we won in spite of rather than because of. This also provided apparent validation of Hendry as a GM considering his trade for Aramis close to the deadline. 2. It led everyone to believe we were a lot closer to being a contending team than we actually were and resulted in an organizational shift toward acquisitions of Dusty's "type of player" and away from the emphasis on the farm system that had positioned the team for success by the middle of the decade. 3. They achieved the post-season by overuse of the team's young pitching staff which was, as BBB pointed out, the primary reason that the team made the playoffs to start with. 4. In Hendry's mind, everything bad that has happened since is the result of bad luck or bad bounces (or curses or what have you). Surely the manager can't be the problem since he was able to win in 2003 with less talent going into that year than any year since. IMO the team continues to pay the price for the success it had in 2003. Meanwhile, it has become apparent that the architects of that team in reality are total incompetents with no clue on how to construct a team.