The Atlanta Falcons, who previously set prices of $10,000 to $45,000 for personal seat licenses on club seats in their new stadium, plan to unveil sharply lower prices Tuesday for the rest of the building.
The stadium’s 60,000-plus non-club seats will carry PSLs — one-time fees for the right to buy season tickets — ranging from $500 to $5,500, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
The proposed prices are subject to approval by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority board, which will review them at a special called meeting Tuesday morning.
The Falcons have been selling PSLs for the stadium’s approximately 7,500 club seats since January. The team has sold 54 percent of those seats, generating $77 million in contracted revenue, an executive with the firm retained by the Falcons to operate the sales program told the AJC on Monday.
That would mean the Falcons have sold approximately 4,050 club seats and have roughly 3,450 still available.
Michael Drake, vice president of Legends Global Sales, also said 65 percent of the $45,000 seat licenses, the stadium’s most expensive, have been sold. Those are for lower-bowl seats between the 45-yard lines on both sides of the field. On the home sideline, 94 percent of the $45,000 PSLs have been sold, Drake said.
Club seats, which come with access to lounges and other amenities, are located in the lower bowl between the 20-yard lines and the mezzanine level roughly between the 35-yard lines.
To this point, the Falcons haven’t sold non-club seats, which will comprise about 89 percent of the new stadium. Those sales will start later this week, assuming the GWCCA, which will own the stadium, approves the Falcons’ pricing plan.
Drake said the plan calls for an average PSL price of $2,500 for non-club seats, breaking down this way:
- Lower bowl: $5,500 for sideline seats between the goal lines and the 20-yard lines; $3,500 for corner seats; $3,000 and $2,500 for end-zone seats.
- Mezzanine level: $5,500 for sideline seats between the goal lines and the 35-yard lines; $2,500 for corner and end-zone seats.
- Upper bowl: $2,000 and $1,750 for sideline seats from 5-yard line to 5-yard line; $1,500 and $1,250 for goal-line corner seats; $500 for end-zone seats.
Proceeds from seat-license sales will go toward the cost of building the $1.4 billion stadium, which is slated to open in 2017.
The seat licenses could bring in as much as $300 million. If all of the club seats are eventually sold at the prices set earlier this year — $45,000, $20,000, $15,000 and $10,000 — those seats would generate almost $150 million in PSL fees. And if 60,000 non-club seats are sold at an average PSL fee of $2,500, that would bring in another $150 million.
The seat licenses require a down payment of 10 percent and can be financed without interest until 2017 or at 8.5 percent interest (with no credit check) over as long as 10 additional years, according to the Falcons.
Drake said current season-ticket holders will be offered seat locations comparable to what they now have. He said the team hopes to meet with all season-ticket holders by October.
PSL buyers will have to pay the season-ticket price each year to retain their seats. The Falcons haven’t said what the season-ticket prices will be for non-club seats in 2017.
Drake, who previously worked on sales programs for the Dallas Cowboys’ and San Francisco 49ers’ new stadiums, said the Falcons’ club-seat sales to this point measure up well by comparison.
“I’ve had a greater percentage of people purchase during the club-seat relocation phase here than I did on those other two projects,” Drake said. “We are very, very pleased with where it’s at today.”
Club-seat sales so far have been limited to season-ticket holders with comparable seats in the Georgia Dome and later will open to people interested in relocating from elsewhere in the Dome and to new customers, Drake said.
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