December 8, 2018: Major League Soccer has the biggest crowd in its history -- but not in one of the cities where it could have been expected from the league's founding in 1996 through the 2016 season.
Atlanta United FC -- officially, no periods on those initials -- began play in MLS in 2017, replacing the city's former minor league team, the Atlanta Silverbacks. (A silverback is a kind of gorilla.) Previously, the Atlanta Chiefs won the 1st title of the North American Soccer League in 1968, and nearly the 2nd in 1969, but folded in 1973. The team was reborn in 1979, but only lasted until 1981.
Atlanta was without top-flight American soccer from then until 2017. However, the '68 Chiefs still stood as 1 of the city's 2 championship teams prior to 2018, along with the 1995 Atlanta Braves.
Rather than build a soccer-specific stadium, or play in a smaller stadium like Georgia Tech's 55,000-seat Grant Field or the 24,333-seat Center Parc Stadium into which the Braves' former home of Turner Field had been converted, Atlanta United chose to groundshare with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons at the brand-new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. (Actually, since M-BS wasn't finished yet, they did have to play their 1st 9 home games at Tech.)
Which made sense: Not only is the stadium centrally located with good public transit access, but Arthur Blank, co-founder of The Home Depot, owned the stadium and both teams.
This turned out to be a bonanza: The stadium officially seats 71,000 people, and United set MLS attendance records, despite being an expansion team. Even when the Chiefs were winning in '68 and '69, the city wasn't a soccer hotbed. Georgia Tech has excelled in some sports, but men's soccer has never been one of them, and the school doesn't even have a women's soccer team.
They first set an MLS single-game attendance record on September 16, 2017, with 70,425 fans for a game against Orlando City, which ended in a 3-3 draw. This broke the record of 69,255 set by the Los Angeles Galaxy for their inaugural game, at the Rose Bowl in 1996. They broke the record again on October 5, when 71,874 game out for the regular season finale against Toronto FC, a 2-2 draw. And they made the Playoffs in their inaugural season, although they lost in the 1st Round.
On March 11, 2018, their 2nd-season opener set another record, 72,035 seeing their 3-1 win over D.C. United. On July 15, they got 72,243 for a 1-1 draw with the Seattle Sounders, whose single-season average attendance record they'd broken the season before, and were doing so again.
Atlanta United qualified for the Playoffs again, beating New York City FC in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and then the New York Red Bulls in the Conference Finals. On December 8, having the better record, they hosted the MLS Cup Final at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, against the Portland Timbers. Attendance: 73,019, a new league record. Josef Martínez, who led the league with 31 regular-season goals, scored in the 39th minute, Franco Escobar in the 54th, and Chris McCann in stoppage time. Atlanta won, 3-0.
They reached the Eastern Conference Finals again in 2019, but missed the Playoffs in 2020. In 2021, they were knocked out in the 1st round. Yet they still led MLS in attendance, and had the top 6 single-game attendances of the season, although only once did they have to open the stadium's upper deck for a crowd of more than 43,000.
It is widely believed that, once the novelty wears off and the winning stops, Atlanta fans will stop caring about United, and go back to being fans of football first and everything else a distant second. We shall see.
One thing we have definitely seen: Mercedes-Benz Stadium has the worst-looking artificial turf I have ever seen, and I live an hour and a half's drive from where Veterans Stadium stood in Philadelphia.
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December 8, 2018 was a Saturday. The last game of college football's regular season was played at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, and it was the Army-Navy Game. Army, ranked Number 22 in the nation going in, won, 17-10.
There were 9 games scheduled in the NBA:
* The Brooklyn Nets beat the New York Knicks, 112-104 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Denver Nuggets, 106-98 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. John Collins scored 30 points for the Hawks.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 111-88 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Houston Rockets, 107-104 at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas. James Harden scored 35 in a losing cause for the Rockets.
* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Wizards, 116-101 at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
* The Indiana Pacers beat the Sacramento Kings, 107-97 at what's now named the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls, 133-77 at the United Center in Chicago.
* The Miami Heat beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 121-98 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 113-105 at the Moda Center in Portland.
There were 10 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers beat the Florida Panthers, 5-4 in a shootout at what's now named the FLA Live Arena in the Miami suburb of Sunrise, Florida.
* The New York Islanders beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-3 at the TD Garden in Boston.
* In the 1st game of CBC's Saturday Hockey Night In Canada doubleheader, the Ottawa Senators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-1 at the Canadian Tire Centre in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, Ontario. Ryan Dzingel scored the winning goal, 1:20 into overtime.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-2 at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
* The Washington Capitals beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-0 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Colorado Avalanche, 7-1 at the Amalie Arena in Tampa.
* The San Jose Sharks beat the Arizona Coyotes, 5-3 at the Gila River Arena in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona.
* In the nightcap of Hockey Night In Canada, the Calgary Flames beat the Nashville Predators, 5-2 at the Saddledome in Calgary.
* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Vegas Golden Knights, 5-1 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.