Not many cities can claim to have hosted an Olympics, five World Series, and two Super Bowls, but Atlanta has done it all since 1991—and that’s just the start.
Major League Baseball’s 2000 All-Star Game was played in the city, and men’s college basketball’s Final Four was held here in 2007.
Our Atlanta Braves had an unparalleled championship run in baseball’s National League and the Atlanta Falcons went to the 1999 Super Bowl as champions of the National Football Conference.
Add to that our regular menu of professional golf tour events, NASCAR races, top-flight college football and basketball, the Chick-fil-A Bowl, professional tennis matches, and soccer.
When it comes to pro sports, you gotta have a win now and then to keep ticket sales high. It wasn’t until 1995, however, when the Braves bested the Cleveland Indians in the World Series that an Atlanta professional team had a major win. Then in 1998, the Atlanta Falcons confounded the experts by beating “better” teams in the playoffs and earning their first trip to the Super Bowl in 1999. Although they lost the championship to the Denver Broncos, the “Dirty Birds” won the hearts of many transplant citizens who still root for their old home teams.
Things have been looking up.
In 1999, the National Hockey League returned to Atlanta with the expansion Atlanta Thrashers beginning play in the newly built Philips Arena. No, the team is not named for some renegade from World Championship Wrestling—it’s named for our state bird, the brown thrasher. Now joining the Thrashers in the new venue are the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association. While the Hawks have come close a few times, they haven’t won a championship since moving to Atlanta from St. Louis in 1968.
Atlanta’s long march to a pro sports championship began in 1966 when it became the first city ever to acquire franchises for both professional baseball and football teams in the same year. To meet franchise deadlines, the 58,000-seat Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium was designed and built in less than 12 months. Suddenly, Atlanta was in the big leagues.
For many years, Atlanta was the only city in the South with big-league baseball, football, and basketball teams. Our teams became the “adopted” home team for millions of Southerners, many of whom seldom visit Atlanta and have never attended a game in person. These long-distance fans are fiercely loyal and follow the action as closely as folks in Atlanta.
On the other hand, Atlanta fans can be fickle and take the teams’ newfound success for granted. In recent years, playoff games for the Hawks and Braves have not been sellouts, and just a year after appearing in the Super Bowl, the Falcons had trouble selling out their home games in the Georgia Dome. With so many people coming to Atlanta from elsewhere, they often bring their old loyalties with them. Each weekend in the fall, sports bars throughout the metro area are packed with college and pro football fan clubs cheering on their favorite teams from the Midwest, South, East, or Far West.
But when we win, we know how to party. After the Braves beat the Indians in 1995, thousands filled the streets of Buckhead, where one TV reporter excitedly declared that people were “partying like wild ants.” The following Monday, fans packed Downtown for the Braves victory parade.
Sports enthusiasm also has a trickle-down effect. There’s a scramble every spring for Little League team slots in the rapidly growing suburbs. And local golfers and tennis players jam neighborhood courses and courts to emulate the pros they can see come to town.
Atlanta also has taken its place in the world stage.
The 1996 Olympics, one of the largest staged in its history, was also the secondmost-viewed Olympics (Sydney 2000 now holds that crown!), thanks to cable and TV coverage worldwide. For Atlanta, the Olympics was like a three-week street festival highlighted by all the sports you could cram into 24 hours. And we were proud that Atlantans came out looking courteous and caring. Volunteerism was at an all-time high for this Olympics that brought in guests and athletes from close to 200 countries, all requiring assistance from locals who worked almost around the clock doing everything from language translation to carrying water. We were proud that crime was kept to an all-time low, and we handled the Centennial Olympic Park bombing (where more than 100 people were injured and a young mother died) on the 10th day of the event without panic.
The world will not soon forget the image of Muhammad Ali carrying the Olympic torch. But Atlantans also recall torchbearer and Atlantan Olympic swimmer Janet Evans receiving the flame from fellow Atlantan Evander Holyfield. Olympic flag bearers Edwin Moses, Steve Lundquist, Geoff Gaberino, Dave Maggard, Benita Fitzgerald, Katrina McClain, and Mary T. Meagher-Plant were Atlanta residents.
(NOTE: Ticket prices and policies for all sporting events are subject to change. Not all seats are available in all venues; many sections sell out to season-ticket holders.)