Fear of suburban move could boost Falcons stadium deal

[flyonpa]

Falcons have the rights to sell the naming rights, They get to keep the dollars from it. They won't start to sell off the rights till they are about to start construction.

Also the dollars that naming rights bring has been going down over the last few years.


http://www.gwcc.com/about/stadium/re...ion%20copy.pdf

Down on page 23

[Big L]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Well, what about Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Miami, etc.? Don't a lot of cities have their football stadiums in the suburbs?


Another thing I have wondered about is why we haven't sold naming rights. Isn't that very common these days? That might bring in enough money to get the taxpayer off the hook for $300 million.

San Diego's stadium (Qualcomm Stadium) is in the Mission Valley area of the city, which is definitely not in the suburbs. Houston's stadium (Reliant Stadium) is also actually in Houston.

The Falcons, Panthers, Saints, Buccaneers, Seahawks, Rams, Eagles, Lions, Packers, Vikings, Bears, Chiefs, Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, Jaguars, Titans, Colts, Texans, Browns, Steelers, Ravens, and Bengals all play in stadiums that are somewhere within the main city that they represent. All of these stadiums may not be in the downtown areas of those cities, but they definitely are not in suburbs.

With 23 out of 32 teams not playing in the suburbs, that would mean that roughly 72% of the league does not play in a suburban stadium.

[arjay57]

I don't feel strongly about it but it just seems Doraville would be closer to the fans and have more parking.

[cqholt]

I don't feel strongly about it but it just seems Doraville would be closer to the fans and have more parking.

From the games I've been to, the majority of Falcons fans do not live in the northern suburbs. The Blue Line trains are packed and that's with them running ever 10 minutes. Now its the opposite for Braves games. Downtown has the infrastructure to handle close to 100,000 people.

[Big L]

Originally Posted by cqholt

From the games I've been to, the majority of Falcons fans do not live in the northern suburbs. The Blue Line trains are packed and that's with them running ever 10 minutes. Now its the opposite for Braves games. Downtown has the infrastructure to handle close to 100,000 people.

That's how I see it. If people think that the area between the top end of the Perimeter and Spaghetti Junction is a nightmare during rush hour, imagine trying to get 70,000+ people to either the Peachtree Industrial exit or the Buford Highway exit for a Monday night or Thursday night game. Naturally, this is all hypothetical since Doraville was already ruled out as a potential stadium site.

The Doraville MARTA station wouldn't really help as much as some may think. The person from the northern suburbs that would typically park at North Springs or Sandy Springs more than likely wouldn't want to ride down to Lindbergh and then switch trains to Doraville. It would be easier to just keep driving and take 285 over, which creates more traffic to the games. Likewise, the person from the eastern suburbs that would typically park at Indian Creek may not want to take the train to Five Points and then ride up to Doraville. It would be easier to just take 285 up to Doraville, but again that leads to more cars on the road trying to get to the games.