Georgia Dome (Atlanta, Decatur, Dallas: sales, leases, luxury)

[littlelou]

As a friend and I were watching the game yesterday, he asked me why Atlanta is going to demolish the Dome and rebuild. Neither of us could remember how old it was. Is there any reason other than the desire for more seats? Isn't it going in the same place?

[Iconographer]

The new stadium is right next door to the Dome.
The main reason for the change is competition. If we want to continue vying for major events such as the Super Bowl or the World Cup, we need a state of the art venue.
The Dome was completed in 1992, BTW.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Dome

[ATLTJL]

The new stadium will have far fewer seats, but more luxury seats they can sell for a lot more money. I used to wonder why they were tearing down the GA Dome until I went for Monster Jam last year (don't judge me....Lol!) It really does have crummy seats, terrible food options, gross bathrooms, and is just a really kind of bad stadium experience. They realized it would never host another Super Bowl because people today prefer much nicer comfortable stadiums with high quality food and restaurants in them. Football really isn't a sport for the common man anymore, at least not in person....Ya gotta have money to go to games nowadays!

I think the Dome was built in 1993. It seats 80-something thousand people. The new stadium seats 50-something thousand. Even though I was against using taxpayer money to help fund the new stadium, I won't miss the GA Dome at all. It was as bland a stadium as you can imagine.

[Newsboy]

Originally Posted by littlelou

As a friend and I were watching the game yesterday, he asked me why Atlanta is going to demolish the Dome and rebuild. Neither of us could remember how old it was. Is there any reason other than the desire for more seats? Isn't it going in the same place?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kwyHuIKThsw/maxresdefault.jpg

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

The new stadium will have far fewer seats, but more luxury seats they can sell for a lot more money. I used to wonder why they were tearing down the GA Dome until I went for Monster Jam last year (don't judge me....Lol!) It really does have crummy seats, terrible food options, gross bathrooms, and is just a really kind of bad stadium experience. They realized it would never host another Super Bowl because people today prefer much nicer comfortable stadiums with high quality food and restaurants in them. Football really isn't a sport for the common man anymore, at least not in person....Ya gotta have money to go to games nowadays!

I think the Dome was built in 1993. It seats 80-something thousand people. The new stadium seats 50-something thousand. Even though I was against using taxpayer money to help fund the new stadium, I won't miss the GA Dome at all. It was as bland a stadium as you can imagine.

MB Stadium will have flexible seating. There is a minimum seating capacity to host a SB.

[gold15]

I was a season ticket holder for 5 years, and attended a few regular season games and both playoff games this year. I've done both regular seats and corporate suites. I love the Georgia Dome. The life cycle of these stadiums continues to get shorter-and-shorter, partially as result of having to "one-up" the last one built.

I'm 6'5" and never thought the seats were horrible - maybe for other events, but for football, I thought them to be fine. It's a game, not a Broadway play.

***

I bought two PSLs for Mercedes-Benz stadium. The sales department tells you the leases are good for 30 years - as if they'll be in that building that long.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I think the Dome was built in 1993. It seats 80-something thousand people. The new stadium seats 50-something thousand. Even though I was against using taxpayer money to help fund the new stadium, I won't miss the GA Dome at all. It was as bland a stadium as you can imagine.

1992. Dome seats about 74,000; MBS will seat 71,000 and be expandable to 75,000.

[ATLTJL]

Boy, were my numbers off!

Sorry, everyone.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by gold15

I was a season ticket holder for 5 years, and attended a few regular season games and both playoff games this year. I've done both regular seats and corporate suites. I love the Georgia Dome. The life cycle of these stadiums continues to get shorter-and-shorter, partially as result of having to "one-up" the last one built.

I'm 6'5" and never thought the seats were horrible - maybe for other events, but for football, I thought them to be fine. It's a game, not a Broadway play.

***

I bought two PSLs for Mercedes-Benz stadium. The sales department tells you the leases are good for 30 years - as if they'll be in that building that long.

HAHA I wouldn't bank on it.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

The main reason for the change is competition. If we want to continue vying for major events such as the Super Bowl or the World Cup, we need a state of the art venue.

This is an excellent point.

In addition to being able to continue to vie for major events like the Super Bowl and/or the World Cup, other major motivations for building a new stadium include being able to retain the SEC (Southeastern Conference) Championship Game and draw multiple National Semifinal and National Championship Game hosting berths in FBS/Division I college football in a region where college football often seems to be nothing short of an obsession.

Atlanta city and Georgia state officials seemed to become extremely motivated to build a new football stadium after learning that Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones was making a very serious attempt to convince SEC officials to move the Atlanta-based SEC Championship Game to AT&T Stadium in Dallas after the admission of Texas A&M into the conference back in 2011.

In this football-crazed region and part of the country, being the semi-permanent host of a major high-profile college football event like the SEC Championship Game is a massive source of pride around these parts....So one can imagine the alarm when Atlanta and Georgia officials learned that they were in real danger of losing their highly-prized SEC Championship Game to Jerry Jones and his recently-built "Jerry World" stadium (AT&T Stadium) in Dallas.

The construction of the new stadium (Mercedes-Benz Stadium) guarantees that Atlanta will remain the host site of the highly-coveted SEC Championship Game through 2027.