Richmond Braves Coming to Gwinnett!!!

Well it looks like Gwinnett County's image for being a "Sports Town" has drawn another professional team to the area. The Atlanta Braves are moving their top minor league AAA team, the Richmond (Virginia) Braves to Gwinnett County. As a matter of fact, a press conference is scheduled in about 1.5 hours to lay out all the details. Early reports indicate the new stadium will be built on Hwy 20/Buford Dr. near the Mall of Georgia next to I-85. Yes, the traffic will suck even worse on game days and nights. Move if you don't like it. Due to the overwhelming success of the Gwinnett Gladiators (which I happened to name :) ) and the previous success of the Arena Football team the Georgia Force, several sports consulting firms named Gwinnett County as a Top 3 Prospect for a minor league baseball team.

This is very exciting to me, as I'm sure it is to all other Braves fans. From what I hear, and if minor league hockey and AFL football is any indication, minor league baseball is a lot of fun to watch. Some good things we can expect are ticket prices that top out at around $12 with $5 "general" seating available in the outfield lawn. Well, not IN the outfield, but on the other side of the fence...you know what I mean. Total seating should be around 7,500 with 5,500 being permanent reserved seating (like Turner Field) and 1,500 being outfield lawn seats. The remaining 500 will come from private suites and boxes. I'm sure we can expect nothing less than a world class, high-tech, fun stadium to enjoy these games in. To top it all off, we can expect a league leading team on the field as the Richmond Braves won their "World Series" last year and are usually a top performer. The Braves organization is often considered one of the top organizations for young prospects in their minor leagues and with the AAA team as the last stop before playing in Turner Field (that gives me goose pimples to think about), these guys are playing their hearts out to show that they belong.

So, to make this relevant to my blog...this will have quite an economic and social impact on the area and Gwinnett County as a whole. Tax revenue could be around half a million a year for the county. Hundreds of jobs will be created for the community. Up to $7 million in consumer spending could be seen each year. And we would have yet another team contributing to the community.

Now, when all said and done I get the Department of Transportation will be wishing they had made Hwy 20 into an 8-lane highway and I will be lobbying to get my mini-helicopter license.