dear arthur blank...

from the 1.15.08 edition of the herald-gazette
image from sports illustrated

Dear Arthur Blank

I hope you had a great weekend watching the successful NFL franchises owned by your select peer group in the playoffs.
Historically, the words ‘Atlanta Falcons’ and ‘playoffs’ are used in the same sentence about as often as those of us down south enjoy a white Christmas.

Long suffering pro football fans here in Georgia had high hopes when you used your millions to acquire the Falcons and pledged to use even more of those millions to bring us a winner.

Sadly, you have failed. The Falcons have some fans but very few of them reside outside I-285. The rest of us have adopted teams from other cities.

Why? Because they win. Your team has never won consistently and many of us wonder if it ever will. The Falcons franchise made Rankin Smith - another hyper successful businessman - look like an idiot. One can’t help but wonder if you are headed down the same path to dismal failure.
You made your vast fortune putting together a business designed to market and sell products built by others. No one can build the Falcons for you. You must take charge of the manufacturing of the product if you are to succeed in this business model. No one can market an abysmal product. That is what you currently have on the NFL shelves and, like a dented Home Depot dishwasher, it ain’t selling.

The one bright spot here is you have the millions to get this thing done.

Your first misstep was to spend a large portion of those millions on a quarterback who was basically a scatback with a strong but erratic arm. Unfortunately, Mike Vick had more drug connections than touchdown connections and, to paraphrase Steve Martin, is now some bad man’s girlfriend in federal prison.

Over the weekend, you made the first good move you have made in a while in hiring former New England director of college scouting Tom Dimitroff as your general manager. Dimitroff comes from a franchise that is all about winning pro football games. Back off and let him run the show.

What should your next steps be? Here’s a few I would suggest.

First, stay off the sidelines.

Second, start making plans for a new suburban stadium outside downtown Atlanta. The Georgia Dome is not the best place in the world to watch football. No dome is.

Southern football is supposed to smell like barbecue, bourbon and Chanel #5 not a circus midway. Fans should be in their seats not walking around 100 different shops and food franchises on the concourses. They can do that at the mall.
Use your money to build an outdoor football venue second to none. You need only look 60 miles east to Athens for a model.
If you are feeling magnanimous put in a retractable roof for that rare rainy or icy day. But, that is optional. They play outdoors at Lambeau field and win consistently with a quarterback your team cast off. Football is an outdoor game. Move it back there.

Third, tell your player personnel people to start drafting players with Georgia connections - those who played at UGA, Tech or had stellar high school careers in the state. Bring these players to Atlanta, pay them enough to keep them and, in the process, you will attract and keep their fans.

On the same topic, draft out of the SEC whenever possible. It is by far the toughest college football conference and players who have gone to war in its trenches are forged in football’s hottest furnace from the hardest steel.

Forget Virginia Tech. It brought you two thugs who lost you games and fans with their antics - on the field and off. Put D. Hall on the road.

Georgia is a football state. Use your money put winners on the field and winners on the sideline to coach them. Demand discipline. Demand effort. Demand excellence.

Conversely, don’t demand your fans (read customers) take out a home equity loan to attend a game. Cut ticket prices. Try to get buy with a one dollar profit per beer. Forget the wine bars. Serve hot dogs, hamburgers, peanuts and maybe pizza by the slice. Forget the rest.

Do all this and your fans will be back. String together five straight wins and it will be standing room only at the new Blank Field. You will be a hero from Helen to Hahira.

Start spending those millions.

Spend them wisely.

Spend them on winners.