The Atlanta Braves new home of SunTrust Park will open in 2017, but it will not be without controversy. It will cut into money that had previously been allocated for public parks. It will also be replacing Turner Field, which was only built in 1996.
Fans in cities like Oakland and Tampa Bay would jump at the chance to have a home park like Turner Field.
The latest controversy is that private parking lots in the area will be banned from operating on game days. This ban comes under the guise of “public safety.”
That’s bad. The fact that this stadium will not be served by public transit makes the situation much worse.
In a nutshell, if you’re not driving to the game and parking in the parking lot, you’re not going.
This plan is more or less the same that Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder set up for his team years back.
“Their efforts in Cobb County matter of factly mimic two campaigns to weaponize parking previously launched by Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins and the godfather of so many forms of fan gouging,” per Dave McKenna of Deadspin.
A note to anyone owning a professional sports team. If you see an idea from Dan Snyder, do not copy it. If anything, go 180 degrees in the other direction.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that safety is the real reason that the Braves are doing this.
For any sporting parking lot to be truly safe for fans, a few things must happen.
One, every bit of the lot must have ample security from the moment the first car arrives until the final car leaves. There can not be any exceptions. Without ample uniformed security and police, cars in a baseball stadium’s parking lot are prime for break ins.
Two, the lot must be well lit. First of all, a well-lit lot will deter thievery. Secondly, a well-lit parking lot will go a long way towards preventing accidents.
Remember, even a poorly attended game has a couple thousand all arriving and leaving the same place and at roughly the same time. It’s not that hard for pedestrians to be hit. And it’s certainly not hard for cars to hit each other.
Three, the security and police should be looking incredibly hard for drunk drivers. Anyone who appears to be drunk needs to be watched closely. If that person gets into the driver’s seat of his/her car, the police need to approach him/her and do so in a very speedy way.
Somehow this needs to happen while still keeping a close eye on other fans. People often go to baseball games and have a few too many drinks. If those people are literally forced to drive to the game and all park within close proximity to each other, the risk of drunk driving accidents is even greater.
If at a bare minimum all three of those things can’t be offered, “public safety” is not a credible argument. Will this parking lot offer all of those features? It’s possible, but it would be the first, especially given how big that lot would need to be.
Of course, if you believe that safety is the reason for this, we have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you.
This is simply a way for Atlanta’s owners to milk every possible penny from the fans. If someone walks, takes public transit or parks in a private lot, it’s money that those owners are not getting.
Additionally, when they literally hold a parking monopoly, the Braves can charge whatever they want for parking.
The prices might be slightly more reasonable in down years as a way to encourage fans to come to the stadium. But if Atlanta is consistently contending and drawing close to sell-out crowds every night, there is simply no way that those tickets will be reasonably priced.
SunTrust Park may end up as a beautiful stadium that serves the Braves well. But right now, it seems like nothing but one PR nightmare after another. Nearly everything around it seems unfriendly to the fans and the residents around it.