Good morning. This is LEADOFF, an early look at Atlanta sports.
It's going to be quite a busy weekend at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. A total of about 140,000 fans are expected for an Atlanta United match at 4 p.m. Saturday and the Falcons' regular-season home opener at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
And consider what must happen in the roughly 24-hour period from the end of the soccer game until the gates open for the football game:
The seating bowl, concourses, plazas, everything, will have to be cleaned. The field will have to be reconfigured and repainted. The lower-level corner seats, which retract for soccer, will have to be pulled back out. The concession stands will have to be restocked.
And, oh yes, the retractable roof will have to be moved. It'll be closed Saturday, but the Falcons plan to play Sunday with it open, weather permitting.
One thing that won’t have to be done between the events is adjusting the curtains that have hidden the 31,000 upper-deck seats for the stadium’s first two Atlanta United games. The curtain system won’t be in use Saturday because United will open the upper deck and break the MLS single-game record for attendance (which is defined as tickets distributed).
Atlanta United announced Thursday night on Twitter it will set the record, topping the previous high of 69,255 some 21 years ago.
The construction delays at Mercedes-Benz Stadium contributed in a way to this impressive record.
That is because after Atlanta United announced that it would have to play part of its inaugural season at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium, the team offered to compensate season-ticket holders with two free additional tickets to future games in the new stadium per season-ticket seat. In other words, an account-holder with two season tickets would get four free tickets. Those free tickets could be used for either Saturday’s game against Orlando City or the Oct. 22 game against Toronto, Michael Drake, senior vice president and chief revenue officer of AMB Sports & Entertainment, which includes Atlanta United and the Falcons, confirmed last week.
“That group that was season-ticket holders at that time (of the Tech announcement) have that offer,” Drake said.
The free tickets also benefit Atlanta United by bringing new fans -- perhaps friends or relatives of season-ticket holders -- to the games and into the team’s database.
The stadium’s upper deck also will be open for the Toronto game.
This weekend’s events will be the seventh and eighth held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which so far has hosted two Falcons exhibition games, two college-football games and two United matches. This weekend will mark the first time events have been held in the new stadium on back-to-back days.
Meanwhile, take about 90 seconds for a look, courtesy of this 4K time-lapse video by EarthCam, (above) at how the stadium evolved from bare dirt in June 2014 to a 2-million-square-foot facility in September 2017.
READ ON ...
Al Michaels, who called a World Series in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and a Super Bowl in the Georgia Dome, will broadcast the first regular-season NFL game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. See story here.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "is looking forward to" attending the Falcons' game Sunday night. See story here.
Atlanta's host committee for the 2019 Super Bowl has taken a small but symbolic step in its early preparations for the big event: adopting an official logo. See story and logo here.
The Falcons acknowledge they have fallen short of their long-time goal of selling out of personal seat licenses before their first regular-season game in the new stadium. See story here.
About the Author
