I'm still a fan though, as I have been for more than three decades. That will never change, no matter how deep they sink (no matter how many "rebuilding" years they have). Unlike my love for the Pittsburgh Steelers (the reason for which is hidden in vaguer childhood memories), I know exactly how my Braves fandom happened: I was on the Little League Braves in my hometown around the time that the cable channel now known as TBS was WTBS, a "superstation" out of Atlanta, Georgia, owned by Ted Turner, who also owned the Major League Braves. Shrewdly billed as "America's Team" back then, every game was broadcast every season, all summer long.
What memories I have of being ten, eleven and twelve, nothing to do but lay splayed out on the living room couch, fan pointed toward me, Faygo Rock-n-Rye in hand, watching the Braves, hoping my older brother didn't saunter in and abruptly change the channel. What a way to while away a summer afternoon. I still remember the players on the roster - Dale Murphy, Chris Chambliss, Glenn Hubbard, Phil Niekro, Bob Horner, Rafael Ramirez...they weren't a playoff team (this was almost a decade before the start of the glorious (and second) Bobby Cox era...Joe Torre was the skipper during the height of my interest), but I followed them, year after year, until high school, when - for a little while at least - I grew my hair long and decided everything sucked.
I cut my hair and came back in 1991, the year I graduated. It was a "worst to first" season for Atlanta that saw them playing the Minnesota Twins in the World Series...and losing.
The next year, 1992, they made it to the Fall Classic again, this time playing Toronto...and losing. But the highlight of that season wasn't the World Series, it was Game 7 of the National League Championship against Pittsburgh, and this incredible finish:
I had the good fortune of watching that game live, was doing the sports cobra dance (hands clasped anxiously behind my head) for pretty much all of the 7th inning stretch, right up until slow-footed Sid Bream got in just under the tag with - seriously - two outs in the bottom of the ninth. It was one of those moments that clarifies why people love sports, and love to love their teams. It was the moment you wait for...sometimes for a lifetime...your team coming back against all odds, pulling off a miracle. And when it happens, you feel part of it, like you got in just under the tag.
Cox retired in 2010, and that was definitely the end of an era. This year sees another passage: starting in 2017, the Braves will leave Turner Field (The Ted, as it's known locally), and move to the new 41,000-capacity SunTrust Park, in Cobb County, outside the city a ways.
Constructed for Atlanta's hosting of the 1996 Olympics, it seems people were never really happy with Turner Field, which replaced Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Traffic congestion, limited parking facilities, and urban problems have all been cited as reasons to abandon it after less than twenty years. If you consider how long some parks last, The Ted is barely out of diapers.
But the new park is significant, I think, for its new name. SunTrust Park is the namesake of a large bank, and it occurred to me that corporate names and logos slapped on the side of sports arenas has become the norm in recent years, to a point where it seems there are precious few sports arenas left that are named after people, or locations connected to people, or some past event involving people worth commemorating.
Well, okay...maybe not "precious few". Maybe it's more accurate to say that the list of U.S. stadiums sporting names of gigantic corporations is growing at a notable rate, and that this surely reflects the times we live in. SunTrust is an $8.2 billion dollar financial holding company. Headquartered in Atlanta, to be sure, with bank locations throughout the southeast, but still a corporate entity too enormous to really have a discernible face....just a logo.
This has been happening a lot in pro sports over the last thirty years. MetLife Stadium replaced Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.
FedEx Field replaced the Capital Centre (which was USAir Arena for a while).
AT&T Stadium replaced Texas Stadium.
Heinz Field replaced Three Rivers Stadium. (yes, Heinz ketchup...;-)
Bank of America Stadium.
Mercedes Benz Superdome.
Qualcomm. M&T Bank. CenturyLink. Gillette. Nissan. Levi's. Tropicana. Petco. FirstEnergy.
All of these corporations have paid to have their names on major stadiums somewhere in the United States.
SunLife. Ford. U.S. Bank...
There are others.
Now, to be sure, naming rights as a promotional tool took place in the old days too. Boston's Fenway Park was named after a real estate company. Chicago's Wrigley Field is named after the guy who made Wrigley's gum. But Fenway is also the neighborhood in Boston where the park is located. And "Wrigley" was a real person - William Wrigley, Jr. - who, like Ted Turner with the Braves, actually owned the Cubs. I think it's fair to say - to suggest, at least - that in an age in which corporate sponsorship has run amok in all areas of our lives, most of the venues our favorite teams call home are not any sort of "house that Ruth built", so much as nameplates for sterile corporations with global, rather than local, priorities. Often (not always, but often) they have no particular (at least no organic) connection to the team, players or fans they welcome to the games...that is, other than trying to sell them something.
And yes, it might be argued that the millions of dollars these corporations pay for naming rights helps pay for the stadiums - maintenance, utilities, taxes - not to mention player and staff salaries. I get it; sports is a business, like anything else.
But these days, the teams are often revealed to be little more than corporate entities themselves, with the bottom line being the most important thing. While they're squeezing tens of millions of dollars out of companies for naming rights, they're also squeezing tens of thousands of dollars out of fans each season, with outrageous parking fees ($20 and up, just to park!), $10 beers, a blitzkrieg of merchandise so outrageously priced it just isn't an option for a lot of people, to speak nothing of the sky-high cost of tickets.
Worst of all (in my opinion), is the jealous guarding of their content - that is, game broadcasts - which makes it impossible for "out of market" fans to watch their favorite teams without paying through the nose. Full disclosure: I am definitely an out-of-market fan, and I understand most people will be unsympathetic to this grievance. "Forget the Steelers and Braves," people have actually said to me, "be a Packers fan and you'll never miss a game."
That's what was so uniquely great about the Braves in the 1980s. I just happened to play on the Little League Braves (first base, all-star, thank you very much...) while WTBS just happened to be carried on our cable system, and just happened to broadcast all the Atlanta games. I admire Ted Turner for many reasons, but God bless him, he made me a Braves fan when I was a kid with his decision to present his team to the entire nation. WGN-Chicago was carried on our cable system too; I remember watching the Cubbies now and then, remember Harry Caray's 7th Inning sing-along, and 'day games only' at Wrigley Field. But I didn't play for the Cubs. On that little diamond across from the elementary school I attended, I played for the Braves. When I tried out for Little League, and survived the cut, I just happened to be placed on the Braves.
It was serendipity.
These days, that organic touch is but a distant memory. Turner sold the Braves to Time-Warner when he sold them his entire media empire, and Time-Warner has since sold the team to Liberty Media Group, which itself is a major stock holder in Time-Warner. Ted Turner's business savvy made him a mega-fortune, but left the Atlanta Braves one of three MLB teams under corporate ownership. And now, I'm lucky to catch a Braves games on ESPN every now and then (which sucks, because I KNOW my brother's not going to walk in and turn the channel!).
Same with the Steelers. They're not corporately owned at all, but I live in Wisconsin, so I'm definitely "out-of-market". And I think it's sad that out-of-market NFL games are more or less buried deep within DirectTV's pricey Sunday Ticket.
It's a tall order, because the rules and regulations governing all this (the sight-blurring nexus of ad revenue, brand ownership, broadcast rights, copyrights, etc.) are notoriously complicated, but I think the NFL (all pro sports leagues) should rethink the current model and follow the trend happening in other areas of television: make individual games available on-demand for live streaming to fans anywhere, buffet-style, without having to sign up for a package. Let people cherry pick whatever game they feel like watching...and only that game. You want to see Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, it's not being carried on a network and you live in North Dakota (or Wisconsin)? $10.99 please, and it will stream LIVE right on your television, right through your Roku, or some other streaming device or service.
Games ARE offered for streaming as soon as they're over, within half an hour actually, but naw, I've never availed myself of any "day-old" games. Really, what's the point? It's not the same as watching live. It just isn't. Might as well keep my $10.99 (or whatever it costs...) and watch highlights on Sportscenter.
I would never remember Sid Bream's game-winning slide home, or my explosive reaction to it (the excitement of the moment actually causing me to jump across furniture, as if I was being directed for some future Atlanta Braves promotional video), if I hadn't been watching it live. Live makes all the difference.
Sports live matters.
Fans of all types, whether it's the semi-casual viewer like myself, or the rabid fans wearing team color underwear, LOVE their teams. But sadly, nothing about the whole business makes me believe the leagues or teams love the fans back.
Any more than SunTrust "loves" the people who bank with them.
