Since opening in August 2017, Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium has taken an atypical approach to concessions, and today MBS officials announced that the stadium will become the first to go completely cashless.
By going cashless in time for Atlanta United's March 10 home opener against FC Cincinnati, Mercedes-Benz Stadium will beat Tropicana Field to "first cashless stadium" bragging rights. The Tampa Bay Rays announced in January their intention to make The Trop the first to go cashless. Not that MBS officials are bragging. They see it as necessary to meet the expectations of today's fans.
Since opening in August 2017, Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium has taken an atypical approach to concessions, and today MBS officials announced that the stadium will become the first to go completely cashless.
By going cashless in time for Atlanta United's March 10 home opener against FC Cincinnati, Mercedes-Benz Stadium will beat Tropicana Field to "first cashless stadium" bragging rights. The Tampa Bay Rays announced in January their intention to make The Trop the first to go cashless. Not that MBS officials are bragging. They see it as necessary to meet the expectations of today's fans.
"First-mover doesn't really matter," Mercedes-Benz Stadium CEO Steve Cannon told the Atlanta Business Chronicle. "The only thing that matters is the fan-experience. We feel like we've been really thoughtful about this. We've made this decision not based on anybody else, we made it based on our own research and our fans' experience inside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, so that we are confident. We're not chasing any other team doing this."
To assist in the cashless learning curve, AMB Sports + Entertainment — the parent company the Arthur Blank Family of Businesses, which includes the stadium, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United — is also placing 10 "reverse ATM machines" around the stadium.
In addition, concessions pricing at MBS will drop for the second straight year. Despite a 50 percent drop in food prices in 2017, average spending per fan during Atlanta Falcons games increased by 16 percent over 2016. Last year, stadium guests spent on average the same amount as they did in 2017, but thanks to "operational tweaks," which included eliminating slow-selling products and waste, the organization saw 5 percentage points of margin lift year-over-year.