Tuesday, June 30, 2009

More Evidence that Atlanta Sucks as a Sports Town, Confederations Cup Edition

Atlanta was the #6 market nationally for the USA-Brazil match. Atlanta isn't usually thought of as a great soccer market and it isn't as if there is a huge Brazilian population here. Maybe people here just like sports? NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

The Confederations Cup Final got a 2.7 rating, which is a good number. By way of comparison, Wimbledon got a 1.1 on Saturday afternoon and Fox's MLB broadcasts have failed to get higher than a 2.0 on six of the last seven Saturdays. This interest was not sufficient, of course, to get the Sports Reporters to pay attention on Sunday morning, as they were busy discussing Shaq to Cleveland, Don Fehr's legacy (steroids!), and Manny Ramirez (more steroids!). Mitch Albom made the rarest of perceptive points - that the fans he encounters just don't seem to care that much about PED use - and then the group went merrily along discussing the issue. That show does self parody better than most.

5 comments:

chg said...

Come on, Michael! Everybody knows if soccer was a real sport, they'd invite the Red Sox and Yankees to their tournaments. It's like that college football thing they've got going on down South. What's 100,000 people screaming passionately from kickoff to the final seconds compared to 35,000 eating hotdogs and talking about what's going on at the office?

Jeff said...

I know you have a bee in your bonnet about the knocks on Atlanta as a "sports town" but is it possible that most--or at least many--of the critics are talking about something other than a town that likes and watches sports? Sure, it's great that people from Atlanta watch a wide range of sports on TV, and I'm sure the advertisers are very interested in it. And I'm sure the SEC commissioner and ADs of the nearby schools are psyched Atlantans watch and travel to college football. But I think when the mainstream media is talking about a great sports town, they're usually referring to that town's ability to emotionally and financially support the local teams, i.e., the ones the owners can move away in a heart part/that need fan money to pay for player acquisition. In those ways, Atlanta is no Pittsburgh, for instance.

Michael said...

That's exactly my point. There are a number of ways to measure whether a city is a great "sports town." The national media have a very limited definition: do the local pro sports franchises get great support. There's no consideration of the fact that other sports may be more important, or that people may like various sports, but not the local teams.

I guess this means that we need to define the term "sports town." How about "a place where there is a lot of interest in sports; a good place to be a fan"?

chg said...

Can't wait to get your take on the "Euro Superleague" floated by Perez. Is it an inevitability?

Michael said...

It's a shot across the bow at UEFA because Platini is talking about a salary cap.