SEC Championship stadium to begin selling beer, other ‘fan-first’ menu items
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Per AJC.com, the Atlanta Falcons announced Monday morning that new Mercedes-Benz Stadium — which is slated to be ready to go for the 2017 season — plans to begin selling alcohol to fans, along with providing a “fan-first” menu with noticeably reduced prices.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium, of course, is the home of the SEC Championship Game.
The report states that a number of items will be priced at $2: soft drinks (with unlimited free refills at self-serve stations), Dasani bottled water, hot dogs, pretzels and popcorn. In addition, pizza slices, nachos, waffle fries and bags of peanuts will be available for $3.
And the kicker: domestic beer will cost $5. Yeah. That’s a game-changer.
Falcons president Rich McKay said that the concession changes are a response to fans’ long-time complaints about high-priced stadium food, locally and nationally.
“It keeps ranking as the lowest satisfaction in all the surveys, whether that’s the league survey or our own survey,” McKay said. “… Amazingly, it’s not one we’ve been able to move the needle in, so we’re going to try.
Considering the average price for a hot dog at an NFL stadium was $5.29 in 2015 with the average lowest price of a soft drink sat at $4.79, this should be a pretty big step in the right direction when it comes to future “satisfaction” rankings.
“We look at it as a very fan-friendly pricing strategy that in many ways reflects what a fan would pay if they were on the street … as opposed to using our captive experience to up the price,” said McKay.
Tyler Waddell is a member of the Saturday Down South news team. He brings over five years of professional journalism experience and is closing in on a Bachelor's in sports management. Follow him on Twitter (@Tyler_Waddell).
