The Falcons’ sales of personal seat licenses for the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium have “spiked” since the team clinched a berth in the Super Bowl, owner Arthur Blank said Friday.
“It hasn’t spiked up like 100 percent or anything close to that, but it has definitely spiked up,” Blank said. “We don’t have really a lot of seats left to sell. We do have some, so it’s helped.”
According to the most recent available figures, the Falcons had sold 41,102 seat licenses as of mid-January, up from 33,000 at the start of the season. As of mid-January, the team appeared to have about 20,000 PSLs left to sell. (Some seats, such as those in suites or sponsor deals, are excluded from the PSL inventory.)
From a business standpoint, it would be hard to imagine a better springboard into a new stadium than a Super Bowl berth, which in the Falcons’ case is only the second in the franchise’s 51-year history.
“I think the timing is great,” Blank said Friday. “I would say Mercedes-Benz Stadium — in terms of design and construction and selling of PSLs — has been going along great. We were on pace, above pace, and I think when you have this kind of season it supports that.”
While sales benefit from emotion and enthusiasm surrounding the Super Bowl — “the city is on fire,” Blank said — he thinks seat-license purchases are a reflection not only of the current season, but also of confidence about the future.
“I think a lot of fans when they make that decision about PSLs and long-term commitments, in their mind what they’re asking is: Is this a one-year wonder or is this an organization … that is going to be a sustainably winning organization?” Blank said.
“And that has been my longest-term goal: Not just to get to a championship game and win it — certainly that is our goal — but beyond that to have a team that (is among the) four to five teams you discuss at the very top every year. If you’re in that conversation, you’re at the party, you have a chance.”
PSLs are one-time fees for the right to buy season tickets annually over the next 30 years.
How Mercedes-Benz Stadium cost rose
In a pre-Super Bowl briefing with reporters Friday, Blank recapped the escalating cost of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, now set at $1.5 billion.
“We started out with a cartoon number of about $1 billion,” Blank said. “We ended up at $1.2 billion. It grew to $1.4 billion.”
Then $1.5 billion.
Blank said the increases were “primarily due to scope changes” in what was being built.
“We’re not a good organization and I’m not a good owner at saying no to good ideas,” Blank said. “The longer it took to assemble the real estate and develop all of our construction documents, our architects and our internal team came up with a lot of good ideas that were responsive to what fans were looking for. So we felt the need to say yes.”
The stadium is slated to open this summer.
ESPN experts overwhelmingly pick Patriots
Everyone has a Super Bowl prediction. ESPN.com has 68 of them.
The website’s “staff of writers, editors, analysts, columnists and pundits” made their predictions for Sunday’s game.
Forty-five picked the Patriots. Twenty-three favored the Falcons.
Of those picking the Patriots to win, predicted scores were as close as 23-22, as not-close as 34-17, as high-scoring as 38-35 and as low-scoring as 27-13.
Of those favoring the Falcons, predicted margins of victory ranged from as little as one point to no more than eight points. One picked the Falcons to win a 38-30 shootout. Another saw a 17-14 victory.
ESPN’s TV commentators have an even more overwhelming expectation of a Patriots victory than their ESPN.com counterparts.
Of 36 on-air commentators who offered prognostications, 30 predicted a Patriots victory and only six predicted a Falcons win.
The numbers game
9: Super Bowl appearances by the Patriots, the most by any team in NFL history
7: Super Bowl appearances by Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady
2: Super Bowl appearances by the Falcons
3: Super Bowl appearances by Falcons coach Dan Quinn in the past four seasons, the first two as the Seattle Seahawks' defensive coordinator
3: Super Bowls in Houston — 1974, 2004 and 2017
Sound bites
“He’s not a guy that’s like, ‘Hey, look at me.’ As a quarterback, he’s a guy that’s never really in the spotlight. They talk about quarterbacks a lot, and Matt is not one of those guys that you hear a lot from. He’s just a hard-working guy.”
— Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones on quarterback Matt Ryan
“He’s certainly one of the greatest of all-time, for sure. There have been some great quarterbacks, and Tom is in that one, two or three category. He’s in the mix — 1A, 1B or 1C.”
— Ryan, asked if the Patriots’ Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback ever
“I’m not nervous at all. I’m anxious for Sunday to be here. I’m anxious for our team to get going. I have great confidence in our coaching staff. I have great confidence in our players. I have seen them perform all year long.”
— Falcons owner Arthur Blank
“This should be a very close game. I’d be surprised if it’s a low-scoring game, but you never know.”
— Blank
