04/24/24
January 29, 2017
Boston Sports Writer Trolls 'Zero Enthusiasm' Atlanta: Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy writes that the Falcons reaching the Super Bowl "takes a little fun out of the experience" for Patriots fans because Atlanta is "a town with absolutely zero enthusiasm for professional sports." Atlanta had better home attendance than New England by percentage and total fans.
Friction based too. Shaughnessy is such an idiot. He is currently around a 3.2 on the Kellyanne relevance and coherence scale. With no hope of improvement. I'd rather they paid him to read magazines and not file stories.
The Globe's lame-ass, in-your-face-paywall sports section can't die a quick enough death to suit me. The roaring high water days of that department are long gone.
posted by beaverboard at 08:15 PM on January 29, 2017
Shaggnasty became a part-time talking head on one of the local cable sports outlets a few years ago. If you think he's bad in print, you should hear how insufferable he becomes when he he's trying to talk about sports. The only thing he does is to run down one or another Boston team or player, picking on a real or perceived fault that usually has nothing to do with performance. I have started hitting the mute button whenever I see him on the flat screen.
His colleague (or former colleague) Bob Ryan somehow managed to maintain some degree of accuracy and integrity. Perhaps that is because of Ryan's encyclopedic knowledge of sports in general and Boston sports in particular. He can be quite interesting to listen to.
I agree that the Globe's on-line sports are barely worth the effort it takes to click the mouse. The Herald at least gives the content for free, but their site is not updated frequently and it sometimes seems to take a long time to load a page. Still, at least one can actually read a whole story without being told to pay up.
The difference in attendance percentage (of seats filled I presume) is interesting but not surprising. Atlanta's stadium is a dome, Gillette is not. There's nothing like sitting through a Patriots' game in 30 degree weather with rain. It's even better when the temperatures drop into the low 20s or teens. I don't wonder that more than a few ticket holders stay home rather than drive to the game, knowing that it will take at least 30 minutes just to get out of the parking lot. Then you have to face Rt. 1 on top of that. Fun, fun, fun.
posted by Howard_T at 11:41 PM on January 29, 2017
Patriots fans should be packing that place every game. They are experiencing a run of football excellence and when it's over, the team may never its like again.
The Cowboys had one of those under Tom Landry that stretched across my entire childhood. We eventually took it for granted and were ready to see him go. Now we're 22 years past our last Super Bowl.
Regarding Shaughnessy, I hate it when a new team rises up to compete for a championship and dolts in the Boston-New York media axis act like it's boring. That happened to the Texas Rangers too.
The Falcons are a great team with one of the best offenses to reach the title game in years. They're the best matchup for the Patriots that the NFC could have produced. Dallas and Green Bay's weaknesses were both exposed in the playoffs.
posted by rcade at 09:48 AM on January 30, 2017
Patriots fans should be packing that place every game. They are experiencing a run of football excellence and when it's over, the team may never its like again.
While I agree, the fact the game works better on TV than in person across the league + the experience of getting to and from a game on a two-lane road . . .
Wish I could think of another town that saw a team with sustained success but stayed away in droves . . .
(Working on a CHB-type "Cleaning Out the Desk" column here . . . )
posted by yerfatma at 03:30 PM on January 31, 2017
Despite my comment, I don't know that I'd be at every Jaguars game if they were great over a sustained period. And my weather's a hell of a lot better than in New England.
I just miss the Landry years of taking greatness for granted.
posted by rcade at 04:00 PM on January 31, 2017
Interestingly, Shaughnessy wrote a column years ago that mentioned plane travel. His theory was that any flight was safe from mishap as long there was a famous person on board.
He once boarded a flight that he had misgivings about. When he got on board, he saw that Coach Landry was on the plane, and that immediately put his fears to rest. He figured that of all the people who deserved to be absolved from aviatic harm, Landry had to be at or near the top of the list.
The part of the story I like is that Landry was allowed to board before Shaughnessy. The powers above understand the principles of merited prioritization.
posted by beaverboard at 06:25 PM on January 31, 2017
Atlanta had better home attendance than New England by percentage and total fans
That's a new angle - a fiction based sports column.