Stadium offers super food prices for big game

ATLANTA• Super Bowl LIII is still a few days away and throngs of fans and celebrities have yet to arrive, but Falcons owner Arthur Blank is confident Atlanta is already positioning itself to have the NFL’s biggest game return.

It has been 19 years since the Super Bowl was played in Atlanta, whose metropolitan area boasts a population of nearly six million. Blank was the driving force behind replacing the aging Georgia Dome with the $2-billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where fans will consume US$2 hotdogs and $3 nachos en masse come Sunday.

The stadium’s “responsive pricing” has been a buzz term leading up to the Super Bowl. Blank’s plan to slash the cost of food and beverages has been much debated, but the 76-year-old co-founder of Home Depot said the financial model has been proven successful.

Blank has welcomed other stadium operators to review the books and understand the economic model. He said more than 50 institutions follow the model, and the NFL and Major League Soccer ranked Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the No. 1 fan experience when it opened in 2017.

“Food and beverage is a big component of that,” said Blank. “Our hope is that (responsive pricing) becomes more of a sea change across America. I think all entertainment areas around the country need to acknowledge that if they can.

“Our hope that when we did that was to not only do that right thing for Atlanta, but to plant a seed for other operators to be able to do the same thing. It’s working in terms of the economics, but we didn’t do it for the economics. We did it because it was the right thing to do for the people who are supporting us.”

Now Atlanta is hosting the biggest game of the year.

“I’d like to earn the right to host another Super Bowl,” Blank said.