Officials at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium announced a cut in food and beverage prices for a second consecutive year, with hot dogs dropping from $2 to $1.50, among other items.
The stadium plans to reduce prices by 11 percent on five of the top items starting Sunday, when MLS Cup champions Atlanta United play their first home match of the season against FC Cincinnati.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium introduced the "Fan First Menu Pricing'' when the $1.5 billion venue first opened in August 2017. The spending per customer went up 16 percent despite a 50 percent drop in concession prices from the old stadium, the Georgia Dome. The success of the pricing plan, which is the lowest of any major sport, led to Monday's announcement of even lower prices.
Catering to the fans was Falcons owner Arthur Blank's vision with food and beverage pricing from the outset.
"Arthur Blank repeatedly challenges us to find innovative ways to further improve operations across our businesses," said Steve Cannon, AMB Group CEO. "As we've always said, it is incumbent on us to listen and respond to our fans, and we've heard that value, quality and speed of service are incredibly important. Therefore, we've again made operational adjustments that address each of these areas. Our fans are our most important influencers and we want to ensure they have the level of service they've come to expect from Mercedes-Benz Stadium."
The other price reductions along with hot dogs include pretzel bites decreasing from $5 to $4.50, ATL Bud Burger from $8 to $7.50, ice cream waffle cone from $5 to $4.50, and chips and salsa from $3 to $2.50.
The fan-friendly pricing is available for all events at the stadium. It was in place for Super Bowl LIII and will be implemented for the Final Four in 2020.
Officials also announced a plan for the stadium to become the first NFL and MLS stadium to have a complete cashless transaction model starting March 10. During Super Bowl LIII, it set a single-event record for credit-card transactions with 76,446 transactions processed.