Dueling stadiums: Braves, Falcons pitch their new homes

Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay said yes, explaining most seats will grow from 19 inches at the Georgia Dome to 21 inches. Then Arthur Blank put a finer point on it.

“You say SunTrust is … 1 1/2 inches different?” the Falcons owner said to the reporter. “We’re 2 inches.”

The comment drew laughter and reflected the inevitable comparisons between metro Atlanta’s dual and dueling new stadiums.

With both SunTrust Park and Mercedes-Benz Stadium slated to open next year, the Braves and Falcons are in the marketplace concurrently selling sponsorships, suites and season tickets. Sometimes the two stadiums seem to be battling for the market’s attention — even as both teams insist they don’t consider themselves in competition with the other.

The Braves last month held a media tour of the SunTrust Park construction site and this month held a “topping out” ceremony to celebrate the placement of the final steel beam atop the ballpark. On Thursday, the Falcons opened the Mercedes-Benz Stadium construction site for a media tour of their own.

The Falcons last month staged an elaborate announcement of reduced concession-stand prices in their new stadium and followed up by mailing crisp $2 bills to prospective season-ticket buyers with the message: “The first hot dog is on us.” Three days after the Falcons’ food announcement, the Braves announced “eight new restaurant, retail and entertainment concepts” for the mixed-use development adjacent to their new stadium.

The Braves and Falcons organizations get along well, which allows them to occasionally cross-check schedules for major stadium developments.

“If it’s a big enough announcement, we try to do a little bit of due diligence to see whether or not they have some sort of really big announcement (at the same time),” said Derek Schiller, the Braves’ president of business.

Still, as 75 media members toured SunTrust Park one morning last month, many of them received an emailed news release on their phones announcing a sponsorship deal to make SunTrust the “official bank” of Atlanta United, Blank’s new soccer team that will play in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

“We were not aware that they were doing an announcement. I don’t know that they were aware that we were doing our big media tour for the first time,” Schiller said later.

It was no big deal — except as a reminder of how unusual it is for a metro area to have two stadiums opening in the same year.

“We’re not worried about making our splash versus them making their splash,” said Steve Cannon, CEO of AMB Group, the parent company of the Falcons and Atlanta United. “We’re not worried about grabbing mind-share in terms of folks’ attention. We believe there is room enough for (the Braves) to launch their stadium their way, the right way, and that doesn’t concern us whatsoever about how we’re going to launch Mercedes-Benz Stadium.”

McKay suggested the biggest issue posed by having both stadiums being built simultaneously is the demand for construction workers.

“It’s very rare that you have $2 billion-plus of construction going on between just two projects, so that’s a challenge,” McKay said. “It’s one that our subcontractors, I’m sure, have struggled with at times to make sure they get enough manpower.”

The cost of the Falcons’ downtown stadium has risen to $1.5 billion. The Braves’ Cobb County stadium has a $672 million price tag and the team’s adjacent development another $558 million. Both stadiums involve hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.

The dual stadiums don’t appear to have hurt the Braves or Falcons in sponsorship deals, which are a major revenue source for both teams.

The Braves signed a 25-year naming-rights deal with SunTrust Banks in September 2014, and the Falcons followed 11 months later with a 27-year deal with Mercedes-Benz.

Before reaching its deal with the Braves, SunTrust also explored naming rights on the Falcons stadium.

“We had a conversation with (McKay) and others about their vision and what they wanted,” said Jenner Wood, corporate executive vice president of SunTrust Banks. “We were well down the road with this (Braves) vision. We started earlier with the Braves. But yeah, we talked it. And I think we found the right sponsorship level for us (on both stadiums).”

After putting its name on the Braves stadium, SunTrust extended a long partnership with the Falcons by signing a new deal that will put the bank’s name on one of the field-level clubs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Coca-Cola also has sponsorship deals with both stadiums. But a number of companies have narrowed their focus to deals with one or the other.

Schiller said “it would be foolish” not to assume that a company considering both stadiums weighs how to allocate dollars between them, but he said the two projects are distinct enough to minimize head-to-head sales competition.

“I think not only the sponsors, but also the different assets we each can deliver, are differentiated enough that it is not viewed by us as a competitive issue,” Schiller said. “We’re not seeing a company say, ‘Braves, you give us your best pitch. Falcons, you give us your best pitch. And we’re going to decide between the two.’ That may be out there, but I haven’t heard of that.”

Both Schiller and McKay said the teams’ season-ticket bases have relatively little overlap.

In the end, McKay said, the Atlanta market is big enough for all of its teams — and for the simultaneous marketing of two new stadiums.

“We’ve co-existed with the Braves and the Hawks for a long time — and very successfully,” McKay said. “We don’t view ourselves as competitors (with each other). We like the Hawks a lot. We like the Braves a lot. They like us. We’ve never tried to market against them, and I know the same would go for them of us.

“There is plenty to market to. This is a big town.”