Atlanta’s reputation as best host city for sporting events started in 1960s

His “if we build it they will come” attitude quickly resulted in the Braves moving from Milwaukee, followed by the Falcons, and then the Hawks coming from St. Louis. Atlanta was instantly big league, appearing daily in newspapers listed with New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other important cities. It worked.

The culmination of Allen’s dream was Atlanta being selected to host the 1972 MLB All-Star Game. It became the centerpiece of the celebration of Atlanta’s 125th birthday.

I was 25 years old, the public relations director of the Braves and in charge of the All-Star Game.

That would be young by today’s standards, but the game back then wasn’t nearly what it is today.

A-Town took baseball’s All-Star game to the next level

Credit: contributed

Credit: contributed

Before Atlanta, the game rotated from city to city and was treated just like any other game. I attended the game in Detroit in 1971. It was a historic game with famous players, but there were no events surrounding the game itself. Hospitality was a continental breakfast for men only. The total budget for hospitality and special extras was $40,000. If you weren’t a baseball fan, you wouldn’t know the game was being played. Baseball was very conservative and tradition bound. However, that was not Atlanta’s way of doing things.

Our convention bureau and chamber of commerce were determined to make our game a spectacle. I was young and didn’t care about traditions. Besides, I didn’t understand the power of tradition and didn’t know what the traditions of baseball were. I thought the reason women weren’t allowed in the hospitality was to save money.

Our Atlanta All-Star Hospitality Committee developed a grand plan to have lavish hospitality, decorate light polls in the city, put up billboards, have a transportation committee to drive dignitaries and have children’s baseball art at the airport. We didn’t think we could do it all but had a budget and were going to raise as much money as we could of the $600,000 total.

I visited Opie Shelton, who ran the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (we weren’t big enough to be called Metro Chamber yet) with my new budget, hoping he would give me guidance on how best to raise the money. He asked to see it and got on the phone with J. Lucian “Luke” Smith, the then-president of Coca-Cola, as well as the heads of Delta, Georgia Power and Atlanta Gas Light Co., getting a $150,000 commitment from each. I left the hour meeting with the money we needed to do everything. We were certain baseball and the world would be dazzled.

The All-Star Game was held on Tuesday night and dignitaries arrived in Atlanta on Sunday night. The buffet and hospitality setup in the ballroom of the Marriott looked fabulous and the orchestra was ready. When the doors opened, my wife, Susan, decided to check it out. However, Major League Baseball handled security. They told her women weren’t allowed.

As she walked away, Bill Lucas, who later became the first African American to run a big league team, stopped her. He walked her to the security guard and simply said, “They used to treat my people that way.” She was in and the sex barrier was broken. By the end of the night, there was dancing.

Past leaders would look fondly on how city handled World Cup

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

When I went to Detroit the previous year, the field looked drab. The only decoration was some bunting on the rails. I knew NFL teams painted colorful logos in the middle of their field. The Falcons told me how to have a giant logo in center field. An artist in New Orleans made stencils. He told me he made them in a high school basketball gym. I told him I wanted one as big as the gym.

Our ground crew painted the logo. It looked great, but they thought it looked lonely. They had our office artist Wayland Moore (who also designed the logo and the snazzy new Braves uniforms) to finish decorating the field with designs for the tops of the dugouts, on deck circles, coaches’ boxes and literally every blank space they could find. It looked delicious.

A half hour before the game, the umpires called me to the field because my decorations broke the ground rules of big league baseball. I panicked. We were about to go live on NBC, and there would be no game because of me. Luckily, baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn told the umpires it was an exhibition game and OK to break the rules. And 50 million people saw a big event taking place in Atlanta.

There were other things we did that hadn’t been done, but all made perfect sense to us. The night before the game, 75,000 people were in downtown Atlanta for a street party in honor of Atlanta’s 125th birthday. What started as a game became a celebration for an entire city.

I am certain Atlanta is the best host city for sports events in the world. The spectacle and hospitality get bigger and bigger. The World Cup is the biggest yet. However, I am proud to be the last man standing from that committee of our first major sports effort. I am hopeful that people — including Ivan Allen Jr., Opie Shelton, Spurgeon Richardson, Sam Massell, Dick Stormont, Bill Bartholomay, Bill Lucas, Lee Walburn, Bob Eskew, J.L. Jordan, Steve Schmidt, Furman Bisher and others — are somehow watching Atlanta’s World Cup hospitality from above.

William Pate, president of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, once said, “Atlanta was hospitality before anyone knew what hospitality is.”

And, as evidenced by the World Cup, it only gets better.

Bob Hope is chairman of Hope Beckham Espinosa public relations firm. He is former public relations director of the Atlanta Braves. He also was Ted Turner’s original publicist and promoter, and served as a member of the Atlanta Braves board.