In 2017, the Atlanta Braves will move into SunTrust Park, a new stadium in Cobb County, 10 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta. The slight re-location has been widely criticized for signaling to the city of Atlanta and its mostly non-white population that the Braves organization is indifferent to their fandom.
Well, in a move that can be viewed as a rebuttal to that criticism or a reinforcement of it, depending on your perspective, the Braves are partnering with Uber to provide longtime usher Walter Banks free rides to all 2017 home games. Banks began as a Braves usher in 1965 and has spent that past 50+ years guiding fans at Fulton-County Stadium and Turner Field. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay on at SunTrust Field because of how inconvenient it would be to commute from where he lives in Atlanta.
Here’s the video of Banks’ tour of the new park, plus the reveal that he’d be getting free rides.
First of all, this is very sweet for Walter and nice for the Braves fans who’ll get to enjoy his Braves trivia and his jovial demeanor. Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Mark Bradley recently called him, “the nicest man who has yet lived.”
But at the same time, putting on a big show of letting Banks attend Braves games in the suburbs conspicuously underlines the fact that many fans will be unable to make it to SunTrust Field. It’s cool that Banks gets free rides, but what about all the other Braves loyalists who similarly won’t be able to reach the park through public transportation?
Plus, the Braves have promised Banks rides in 2017, but what happens after that? The bottom line is, if the Braves placed any priority on letting people in downtown Atlanta attend games, they wouldn’t be giving free Uber rides because they’d still be playing in downtown Atlanta.
