Anyone else notice how the NFL and their corporate partners at NBC likely hid a potential embarrassing Thanksgiving night in Atlanta? Is it possible the crowd in Atlanta was so sparse that NBC and the NFL had to take unusual steps to hide it from the public? Was the stadium half-filled? Was the stadium mostly filled? Who knows, due to the darkness and the camera angles?
1) When Arthur Blank's Atlanta MLS team plays, him and the league are so proud of the crowd size's in Georgia, that you can see actual pimples on the faces of teens sitting in the upper decks, because the lights are so bright! Okay, I'm being a bit facetious, but the lighting is so good for Atlanta MLS games, that you can clearly see the entire crowd. Did anyone else notice how dark the Stadium was last night? All you could see, was the playing field spotlighted and lower level seats, but nothing else? You could still see quite a few unoccupied seats up front and most of the "fans" visible in the lower level were sporting New Orleans apparel. When Atlanta was driving to tie the game in the final two minutes, it looked like the lower levels were mostly empty. Even "Full-blooded Italian" Mike Tirico was forced to talk about "empty seats" in the 4th quarter. Whether most (or all) of the tickets in the stadium were sold to fans and corporations prior to the game or not, who knows? But why do so few bother to show up, if those tickets are sold? After all, NFL teams only 16 games per year -- only half of those in their own stadiums.
2) Seemed to me that NBC's camera's where constantly zeroed in directly on the field play and avoided the stands at all costs. Basically used only the field camera's the entire night -- except for punts and kickoffs. AAF did similar things, except in San Antonio, where they were elated with the crowd sizes. NBC also showed very few crowd shots. And when they did show crowd shots, the Tribesman in the Truck (aka producer) generally zeroed in on a small group of fans -- perhaps a tiny throng of 9 or 10?
As I've noted, some of these Southern teams have really struggled with attendance in recent years. In the last few weeks I have watched games in Miami and Jacksonville in which the crowds were so sparse, the stadiums seemed half-filled. Too bad Atlanta's owner, the NFL and NBC went out of their way to hide the crowd size last night? Would loved to see a "hat-trick" -- garbage crowds in consecutive weeks in Miami, Jacksonville and Atlanta.
In fairness, I might be wrong. Perhaps there was a partial "black out" at the stadium do to a "power outage", where all the lights went out, except field level? Or perhaps it was just a late arriving crowd at the games start....who then spent too much time coming back to their seats in the second half. Perhaps 1,000's were held hostage in the bathrooms at half-time?
P.S: I winced upon hearing the "tight end" reference regarding Hill, although they did line up him at tight end quite a bit last night. He is a special talent and criminally underutilized. How good could he be if he was full-time running back? I guess we'll never know, barring a miracle.