How Braves Developed Blueprint For Potential Return of NHL To Atlanta

A return of the NHL to Atlanta looks closer than ever, and the Braves developed the blueprint that could make the third time the charm.

The Braves' current setup is a clear inspiration for a potential new team | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

A return of the National Hockey League to Atlanta looks closer than ever. Forsyth County approved the final pieces of a $3 billion mixed-use project anchored by an NHL-specific arena, The Gathering at South Forsyth.  

This puts all the funding and approvals in place to give the NHL a well-rounded pitch by the expansion group led by Vernon Krause. The group is expected to meet with the league to make this pitch in the coming weeks following the Stanley Cup Final, which is currently underway. 

There will be no formal expansion process this time around, so coming forward and making the pitch is key. 

Those in charge of this process certainly took a page, and understandably so, out of the Atlanta Braves handbook for setting the team up for success. The Gathering is an area similar to The Battery. The stadium or arena is the focal point of the area, but there is housing and businesses built around it. It creates a place to be other than just the stadium. Another term people like to throw around is ballpark village. Projects like The Battery have spiked the interest in having these villages around the arena as opposed to the cavernous parking lots we have seen for decades. 

If you want the team to succeed, the reality is that you need more than just the game itself in the area around it. The arena too is likely going to need quirky features to help bring people in. It’s all about an experience now instead of just being a place with a game that people want to see. 

The Battery also showed that location is a major part of the success. The Braves obviously never had bad attendance - they haven’t had under 2 million fans in a season since they had under 1 million in 1990. However, as things started to go south performance-wise for the team, attendance dipped. 

During the final years at Turner Field when the Braves were losing, attendance dipped from 31,465 to under 25,000 per game. Even in the years they were good in the early 2010s, they had years where they averaged under 30,000 per game. The first up at The Battery, when the Braves were still a 90-loss team, attendance shot back up to over 30,000. Those numbers have been there ever since. Even this year, when the team is outright bad, attendance is over 35,000 on average. For a large chunk of the fanbase, it’s a better location and experience that’s encouraged them to keep coming out. 

This helped a team that has been established in Atlanta since 1966. That needs to be acknowledged. That being said, the precedent was shown that location matters, and a team that is trying to lay roots in a city needs to take anything that helps into consideration. Having the new development where it is set to be was strategic.

When the Thrashers were around, they played at Phillips Arena, now Statefarm Arena downtown. They struggled at the gates and the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks currently do at the same location as well. The Thrashers and Hawks had and have the product on the ice or court to blame too, but having to go all the way downtown doesn’t help incentivize people. The hope is that by taking the new Thrashers, as I’ll call them for simplicity's sake, north, they’ll be closer to the fans and therefore will get more people to come out as well. 

It’s a combination of two factors - experience and location - that this new prospective ownership group is banking on to make the third time bringing the NHL to Atlanta the charm.