This project uses Tik Toks, roughly ninety seconds long, to educate viewers on Atlanta’s conflicted sport history. This project is not meant to be hagiographic, but rather critically analyze the city’s lengthy history. Educators might use these videos to introduce secondary school students, early college students, or other interested learners in sport history or Atlanta’s history. The videos are meant to be both an introduction to this history and a conversation starter for interested students. When being used by instructors, I highly encourage instructors to use the recommended readings included in the list below.

The videos in these series run (roughly) chronologically.

1. 1956 Sugar Bowl and the Color Line in College Football
   • Demas, Lane. “4.“We Play Anyone”: Deciphering the Racial Politics of Georgia Football and the 1956 Sugar Bowl Controversy.” In Integrating the Gridiron, pp. 72-101. Rutgers University Press, 2010.
2. Magnificent Magnolias/Ponce Baseball Stadium
3. Bobby Jones and Golf in the “New South” in the 1920s and 1930s
4. The movement of professional sports to the city in the 1960s using Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
   • Trutor, Clayton. Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta–And How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports. U of Nebraska Press, 2022.
5. The Atlanta Chiefs and Atlanta’s Early Soccer History (1960s)
6. Muhammad Ali’s Career Relaunch in 1970
7. The Omni Arena Development
8. The 1996 Olympics Part I: Were the Olympics Worth the Cost?
   • Hobson, Maurice J. The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and class in the making of modern Atlanta. UNC Press Books, 2017.
9. The 1996 Olympics Part II: The Women’s Olympics
   • Andrews, David L. “Feminizing Olympic reality: preliminary dispatches from Baudrillard’s Atlanta.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport33, no. 1 (1998): 5-18.
10. The Atlanta Thrashers and Why isn’t there Hockey in Atlanta?
11. Mercedes-Benz Stadium Development and Publicly Funding Stadiums
    • Smith, Jason M., and Alan G. Ingham. “On the Waterfront: Retrospectives on the Relationship between Sport and Communities.” Sociology of Sport Journal 20, no 3 (2003): 252-274.
    • Long, Judith G. Public/ Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities. London: Routledge, 2012.
    • Friedman, Michael T, and David L Andrews. “The Built Sport Spectacle and the Opacity of Democracy.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 46, no. 2 (June 2011): 181–204.
12. The Braves Relocation to Cobb County
    • Kellison, Timothy, and Beth A. Cianfrone. “Building Civic Identity Around a Suburban Ballpark District.” In Routledge Handbook of Sport Fans and Fandom, pp. 73-83. Routledge, 2022.
13. Braves Relocation II: How Can a Stadium be Racist?
    • Kruse, Kevin M. White Flight. Princeton University Press, 2013.
14. Soccer in Modern Atlanta: How did Atlanta United Get So Popular?
15. The Super Bowl of Policing
    • Shelby, Renee, Sarah Barnes, Nassim Parvin, and Mary G. McDonald. “The Conjoined Spectacles of the “Smart Super Bowl”.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society6 (2020): 312-319.
16. The Atlanta Dream and Senatorial Politics in 2020

Instructions

Students may access this information on my Tik Tok @declanonsports or through the Georgia Tech BOLD website.