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A Sports Collectors Digest Best Baseball Book of 2022 A Public
Books Public Pick of 2022 In July 1975 the editors of the Atlanta
Constitution ran a two-part series entitled "Loserville, U.S.A."
The provocatively titled series detailed the futility of Atlanta's
four professional sports teams in the decade following the 1966
arrival of its first two major league franchises, Major League
Baseball's Atlanta Braves and the National Football League's
Atlanta Falcons. Two years later, the Atlanta Hawks of the National
Basketball Association became the city's third major professional
sports franchise. In 1972 the National Hockey League granted the
Flames expansion franchise to the city, making Atlanta the first
southern city with teams in all four of the big leagues. The
excitement surrounding the arrival of four professional franchises
in Atlanta in a six-year period soon gave way to widespread
frustration and, eventually, widespread apathy toward its home
teams. All four of Atlanta's franchises struggled in the standings
and struggled to draw fans to their games. Atlantans' indifference
to their new teams took place amid the social and political
fracturing that had resulted from a new Black majority in Atlanta
and a predominately white suburban exodus. Sports could never quite
bridge the divergence between the two. Loserville examines the
pursuit, arrival, and response to professional sports in Atlanta
during its first decade as a major league city (1966-75). It
scrutinizes the origins of what remains the primary model for
acquiring professional sports franchises: offers of municipal
financing for new stadiums. Other Sunbelt cities like San Diego,
Phoenix, and Tampa that aspired to big league stature adopted
Atlanta's approach. Like the teams in Atlanta, the franchises in
these cities have had mixed results-both in terms of on-field
success and financial stability.
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