LEADOFF: These Super Bowl tickets come with Falcons pre-game party

Falcons fans celebrate beating the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game to advance to the Super Bowl. Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com

Falcons fans celebrate beating the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game to advance to the Super Bowl. Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com

Good morning. This is Leadoff, the early buzz in Atlanta sports.

Want to watch the Super Bowl from a club-level seat along the sideline, attend a "premium pregame party" at Houston's NRG Stadium and have access to the field after the game?

It won’t come cheap — $9,499 and up — but that is one of the packages offered by On Location Experiences, which is the NFL’s official hospitality partner.

The company also is offering several packages geared exclusively to Falcons season-ticket holders and corporate partners. Those packages include tickets to the game and to an “official Falcons pregame party at NRG Arena,” which is within the security perimeter of game site NRG Stadium, and range from $3,514 to $7,029-plus, depending on seat location.

Falcons season-ticket holders received e-mails earlier this week pitching the various packages.

John Collins, CEO of On Location Experiences, said in an interview with the AJC that the “Falcons-specific fan packages” were developed in conjunction with the team.

“We’ll do a lot of the execution work, but the spirit and vision of what that (pregame) party will be is very much driven by the Falcons,” he said.

He said prices were lowered — albeit slightly — for the team-specific offerings Tuesday night.

He called the (still-considerable) prices “compelling and competitive” in the Super Bowl marketplace, with “a bit of a premium” that he said is justified because the packages contain NFL-verified tickets and include access to the close-to-the-stadium pregame party.

“Hopefully Falcons fans will look at it and say, ‘If I’m going to go and make the kind of investment (required), this is the way I want to go,’” Collins said.

On Location Experiences is partly owned by the NFL's private equity entity, 32 Equity. (The 32 NFL owners made investments in it.) OLE had access to 9,500 Super Bowl tickets from the league with the stipulation that about one-third be held back for exclusive offering to the participating teams' fans, Collins said.

OLE’s highest-end package — the “Diamond” package — includes “the best seats in the house,” pregame and post-game stadium parties and post-game field access, all starting at $12,749.

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As the Falcons prepare to head to Houston for this year's Super Bowl, an Atlanta organization is gearing up to prepare to host the 2019 Super Bowl.

The Metro Atlanta Host Committee has selected former Georgia Dome general manager Carl Adkins as executive director and Georgia Tech deputy athletic director Brett Daniels as chief operating officer.

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Matt Ryan was the Falcons' first pick (third overall) in the 2008 NFL Draft.

Further reading:

Falcons say PSL sales surpass 40,000