Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium has today (Monday) announced that it will become the first NFL and Major League Soccer venue to implement a complete cashless transaction model.
The change will come into effect this Sunday. The stadium said the transition will allow it to move away from its “whole-dollar” pricing model, which was initially brought in to help speed transaction times.
It is hoped the move will also allow the stadium to adjust prices on food and beverage options more regularly, giving the venue the chance to lower prices incrementally versus keeping prices static.
The announcement comes as Mercedes-Benz Stadium confirmed it was lowering prices on some of its most popular food items for a second consecutive year. The prices of five of the top items will be reduced by 11 per cent from this Sunday when Atlanta United hosts FC Cincinnati in MLS.
The stadium announced last year that, despite a drop of 50 per cent in food prices in 2017, average spending per fan during Atlanta Falcons games increased by 16 per cent over 2016. The 2018 campaign also proved successful, with guests spending on average the same amount as they did in 2017.
The following food items have had their prices reduced for 2019: hot dog (from $2 to $1.50), pretzel bites (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).
Steve Cannon, chief executive of AMB Group, which operates the stadium, said: “Arthur Blank (owner of the Falcons and Atlanta United) repeatedly challenges us to find innovative ways to further improve operations across our businesses.
“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 stadium holds the single-event record for all sports venues run by NCR, its payment and transactions processing partner, for the number of credit-card transactions processed on food and beverage, with some 76,446 transactions processed at Super Bowl LIII.
Image: Mercedes-Benz Stadium
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