How to improve FALCONS FAN CULTURE (Atlanta, Cleveland: home, college, live)

[Psykomonkee]

Just wanted to put this out there...

If anyone has any GOOD ideas for how to improve the fan experience for Falcons fans, lets discuss them here AND for the good ideas, please present them to the actual team itself.

Submit ideas to this e-mail address: entertainment@falcons.nfl.com

e-mails will be read by the Falcons Fan entertainment department. The department that makes the kind of decisions that (for other teams) produce such things like the Green Bay Cheese heads, the Pittsburgh Terrible Towels, the hoisting the 12th man flag in Seattle, the band at FedEx in DC, etc...

So, I would like to hear some cool ideas FROM FALCONS FANS (not from the haters or anti-Falcons fans) of things that we could coin as Falcons culture and maybe submit to the team. If it's a good idea, maybe we can get a lot of people from this site submitting e-mails to the team with the same idea and hope that the strength in numbers could yield results.

[Jackalope]

Personally, I'm highly offended by the commercial nature of the Falcons...the "Rise Up" slogan is a perfect example. Conceived and promoted after committee review by an advertising firm. It has no more to do with the Falcons than "You can depend on Depends."

Look at college teams...."How 'bout them dawgs", "Roll Tide", playing Rocky Top, Ramblin' Wreck...these are all slogans and ideas that have evolved over time and tradition. No advertising group came up with them, the fans did. The teams EARNED those slogans and they mean something. Even the Braves have their chop (stolen from the FSU Seminoles).

The Falcons started to actually create something like that in the past with the "Dirty Bird". I never was a big fan of it (seemed pretty low-class to me), but that didn't matter...the Falcons EARNED their dirty bird. It was a collaboration between the players and the fans, not a mass-media marketeer.

If you look all over the league, from the Cheeseheads to "America's Team" to the "Steel Curtain" you'll find that the things that WORK, that endure and that have value are the things that the team and the fans earned, collaborated on and have stuck with. No advertising agency can do it for them. All they can do is create an atmosphere condusive to this collaboration.

[Nanosolar]

Rise up has caught on. People like it.

[berkeleylake]

Originally Posted by Nanosolar

Rise up has caught on. People like it.

I like the term Rise Up, better than calling them Dirty Birds. Lots of Atlanta sports fans are fickle (most any major sports), not sure how the fan culture can really be improved. That would take a lot of thinking "outside of the box."

The only thing that comes to mind is more community spirit, where Falcons fans mentor kids who really want to do well in football or help out with minor league sports where only family members and friends of the players show up at the minor league games. There could be more overreach in that area, I think.

I can't wait to watch the game.

[cqholt]

Rise Up this week has been like roll tide in Alabama. A greeting of fans.

[ChimRichalds]

Force people who move to Atlanta to give up the Bears, Browns, Steelers, Eagles, Giants, Jets, and Patriots. I swear on some game days down here I see more people in those teams' gear than Falcons gear. You're just not going to be able to cultivate a fanbase when everyone is from somewhere else, no matter how good you are.

[gtcorndog]

How to improve it?

Win big games.

Last week was a start, but Falcon's aren't big time yet.

PS: I've lived in Atlanta almost 10 years, but will not give up my allegiance to the Steelers. I don't think you'll get real fans to jump ship to a new team... especially one that is historically much, much inferior.

[brownhornet]

It's not going to happen for one reason, most of the people that live here aren't from here and are fans of other teams. And the fans that do live here only have interest in them when they're winning.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by brownhornet

. And the fans that do live here only have interest in them when they're winning.

People act like that is a unique Atlanta trait. The teams with very passionate fanbases are typically teams that have consistent winning cultures.

If you look at the bottom 10 teams in the NFL in home attendance (percentage of seats filled) you'll see a list of teams that haven't performed well:

Miami, San Diego, Tampa, Oakland, St Louis, Buffalo, KC, Cleveland, etc.

If you look at the top 10 teams in the NFL in home attendance (percentage of seats filled) you'll see a list of teams that have performed well (or had high expectations going into the year):

Indy, Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, New England, New Orleans, etc.

There are a few exceptions to this, but apathetic fanbases are not a uniquely Atlanta problem. Atlanta developed a bad rep as a sports town with year after year of Brave playoff disappointment/apathy setting in, but fanbases, with a few exceptions, don't continue to show up for crappy teams.

[GeorgiatoChina]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

People act like that is a unique Atlanta trait. The teams with very passionate fanbases are typically teams that have consistent winning cultures.

If you look at the bottom 10 teams in the NFL in home attendance (percentage of seats filled) you'll see a list of teams that haven't performed well:

Miami, San Diego, Tampa, Oakland, St Louis, Buffalo, KC, Cleveland, etc.

If you look at the top 10 teams in the NFL in home attendance (percentage of seats filled) you'll see a list of teams that have performed well (or had high expectations going into the year):

Indy, Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, New England, New Orleans, etc.

There are a few exceptions to this, but apathetic fanbases are not a uniquely Atlanta problem. Atlanta developed a bad rep as a sports town with year after year of Brave playoff disappointment/apathy setting in, but fanbases, with a few exceptions, don't continue to show up for crappy teams.

Miami and Tampa have strong fan bases....