For the vast majority of the game, his back was to the field, and he instead was facing his fellow attendees in the stands instead of watching the game transpiring on the actual field itself. Repeatedly, he would pace back and forth through the mostly-empty row of seats in which his own ticketed seat was located, and seek out fans wearing gear of the opposing team. Whenever he located one, he would either pantomime that he was watching them, make a throat-slashing gesture, puff out his Atlanta Falcons sweatshirt, or all of the above, among a few other taunting gestures, like the “loser” L on the forehead gesture.
It did not matter if those he taunted were grown adults, or young children. If they were wearing the other teams’ colors, they were fair game for taunting. A grown man, taunting young children, and essentially calling them losers.
This wasn’t just an Atlanta Falcons fan; this was a typical Atlanta sports fan.
I’m not really a Falcons fan, nor am I really a fan of any NFL team anymore these days. The Michael Vick dog-killing scandal, the general nonchalance from the Falcons and the NFL in regards to it, Daniel Snyder ruining the Redskins on a yearly basis, and just the general fact that the NFL is so fervently crammed down our throats; I’ve just simply gotten sick of the NFL in general.
However, the circumstances were favorable, and I enjoy good company, so I went to the Redskins vs. Falcons game this past Sunday. It turned out to be a very exciting game, with a controversial finish that could really only be summed up with players and coaches that didn’t want to play overtime, and we got to sit with Kirk Cousins’ family, so it was a fun experience as a whole, but I walked away with the impetus of this post in my head afterward.
But I am both a person who enjoys sports and watching people, so I think I’m not really out of the ballpark to say that I think I know a thing or two about the typical Atlanta sports fan.
The truth of the matter is that Atlanta sports fans aren’t necessarily bad ones; the vast majority of them are undoubtedly fairweathered, and will completely vanish when a team is not popular or doing well, but when they do show up, they’re generally what teams want to see in fans in the stands – people wearing team colors, buying their shit, and cheering when they’re supposed to cheer. Some, obviously more fervent and enthusiastic than others, but when they day is over, as long as the tickets have been sold, the teams are satisfied with the dollar bills rolling in.
However, the bottom line is that Atlanta sports fans are fans that are pretty much lifeless without antagonists. Sometimes it’s the case of the professional athlete that’s generally unpopular or reviled amongst fansbases outside of their own, but in the case of the aforementioned impetus of this post, it’s when fans of the opposition show up that brings the Atlanta sports fans to life.
Fans of Atlanta sports are tepid at best, until fans of the opposition show up to support their visiting teams. Then, Atlanta sports fans wake up, as it’s more important to them to show up opposing fans than to actually root for their team from the onset.
I admit that I’m not writing this as well as I had thought it would be in my head, and that I feel like I’m struggling this morning to put my thoughts into words as well as I’d hoped to be doing, so let’s just simplify things, and go with examples.
The guy at the Falcons game, who spent the entire game taunting Redskins fans, would have absolutely no point in his entire life if there were no Redskins fans in attendance. If there were no Redskins fans to taunt, he would actually have to sit down and watch the game, because there would be no point to his grandstanding and hey-hey-look-at-me behavior, as everyone’s already there to cheer for the home team. He might not even have been at the game, and would have been miserably watching the game at home, quietly, if he were even watching the game at all in the first place.
The thing about Falcons games is that there’s a guy like this guy in pretty much every single section of the Georgia Dome. Once, I was at a Jets/Falcons game, and there was this particular Atlanta fan who marched around taunting everyone wearing a Jets jersey; eventually he zeroed in on one guy wearing a Chad Pennington jersey, and decided to repeatedly taunt him about how he was going to go over there and pee on him.
Whenever the Braves host a team that has a notoriously well-traveling fanbase, such as the Cardinals or an AL squad like the Yankees, the attendance will undoubtedly be good for all the games; but it’s not necessarily that Braves fans want to see strong competition, it’s mostly due to the fact that Atlanta fans feel the innate necessity to defend their home territory from invading visitors.
It’s surprisingly difficult for me to get to the point here, but the fact of the matter is that Atlanta fans don’t often enough cheer for their teams because they want to cheer for them, they cheer for them at their best when there are visitors present to be shown up.
I’ve never heard Turner Field at its loudest until the Yankees came to town, and the locals and their misguided prejudice against visiting New Yorkers would cheer as if their lives depended on it for the littlest things, like a simple flyball putout, or a routine grounder. Any time any sort of Yankee section managed to become audible in support of their players, the ensuing boos from Atlanta fans were quick to follow in order to drown them out as effectively as possible.
I’ll wrap this up, because I think I’m just repeating myself with different words thrice over now, but there’s a good chance that this kind of behavior isn’t limited to just Atlanta, but I don’t think that I have enough experience in other places to be able to make that call. Either way, I find it a little deplorable that there are so many fans that don’t really demonstrate true support until there’s tangible opposition, to which then I question the legitimacy of it if it only shows up when put into question.
Either way, in the end it proves the importance of antagonists when it comes to sports fans, especially in the case of Atlanta; without perceived invading visitors to show up, Atlanta fans have zero reason to show up to any game.
