Each time there is a rainout for a Braves game, whether we were at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Turner Field, or Truist Park, there was always someone complaining that they should have a dome. My response have always been the same. Domed stadiums add a prohibitive cost to an already expensive item. That cost is almost always shared with the surrounding community, whether they enjoy our sports team or not. To have a dome, you’re taking hundreds of millions of dollars from people that are trying
to make ends meet just so 3-6 times a year we can watch a ballgame without rescheduling. And I feel okay with that stance.
However, that was considering rainouts and their cancellations. Right now, I want to talk about the heat. It was 96 degrees in Atlanta yesterday, with a heat index in the 105-110 range. A game was played yesterday that started at 1:30 pm local time. I caught the end of the game yesterday. There weren’t a lot of people in the stands for the finish. In this game, Matt Olson hit a three-run home run in the eighth to counter the game-tying homer by the Diamondbacks. The Braves survived the August Raisel Iglesias Experience for the win. And the response was… eh. But I get it.
I spent about three hours outside yesterday in my corner of Braves Country. It’s hot, fam. I get it that a nickname for the city is Hot ‘Lanta. But come on, it’s hot for 65-70 home dates a year. This isn’t some rare occurrence like a rainout, although we have seen more than a few rain delays and cancellations.
The level of heat does make the dome argument a little easier. It’s a near-year-round occurrence. Then you look at Tampa, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix. These are all cities with roundabout the same weather concerns, that play baseball in domes. Well, Florida is its own weather (and everything else) animal, but it’s similar.
You can justify the heat argument, but I don’t know about the money angle. Truist Park, sans the lid, cost somewhere in the 622-672 million dollar range. Domes can add 40% of the cost of construction. We would end up going to the public with a tab of 260 million dollars minus whatever the Braves kick in.
For my experience, only about 20 percent of the park is guaranteed to be shaded for the entire game. For the rest, you can hang in the concourse or pay up for the seats with air conditioning. Some parks help ventilation that allows the park to breathe, but not Truist. Something about that park helps it hold in the heat. It probably has something to do with it being surrounded by acres of concrete and steel, which they can’t really control.
So do the Braves need a dome? I mean, no but still. Maybe we could have giant Big Fogg fans in the aisles? It’s hot, y’all.
