Video: A look at Atlanta United’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium
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People from Atlanta shouldn’t take it so personally when someone says it’s a bad sports town. It is, I’m from Phoenix and we suck too, it’s the nature of being a sunbelt city. There are more transients so less civic pride.
Looks like the Falcons got them a nice one. I said the same about the Cowboy’s stadium when I first saw it, but it doesn’t give the team that imposing home-field advantage like I hoped it would. We’ll see how well this one does for ATL. I imagine the affect on soccer games will be very similar to Vancouver…
I like the fact that stadiums are being built in the Sun Belt because that makes it easier to eventually go to a traditional soccer calendar because there will be places to play games in decent weather during the winter.
Anyone doubting this will be an MLS success is a fool. Arthur Blank knows what he’s doing, doesn’t do anything half ass, and already has the building blocks to be successful in place. I love when yahoo’s who work in fast food get on a blog and act like they know something about how to invest billions of dollars
Incredible stadium, what a treat to be able to watch soccer there.
Turf field, bummer, but tough when you are sharing a stadium and there is nothing wrong with a city sharing between teams…except turf.
BUT. They are not really showing this as a shared situation, so while they may sell a lot of tickets, we will see, it isn’t Seattle that is for sure. Seattle’s was built for soccer, so the seats are right on top of the field. These are modified so sort of fit. Not terrible, but not Seattle great either. I would be worried about perception after watching the video. Are they just another Final Four to keep the stadium being used?
Big. Not that I don’t like small, Portland’s is one of the best places to watch a game, but I don’t like the small stadiums because they will quickly/already are being out grown.
ps. I have experience here, so listen to me Atlanta fans. There will be hate even if you sell out the place for the Timbers game. There will be hate even if almost every team in the biggest leagues in the world wish they had your stadium.
Just ignore it and walk into your building, realizing you are very lucky.
Then kneel down and pray your players know how to handle the turf.
I completely agree. I stopped arguing with the haters a long time ago. They can keep on haiting all they want while I enjoy my season tickets 🙂
It’s nothing personal, no hating here, enjoy your matches.
But soccer is (even) better on real grass and with fans close to the field. For that matter I think football is too.
Thanks, that saved me some time. This is a cool looking stadium but it’s basically an MLS 1.0 type arrangement with the MLS playing second fiddle and the games being played in an cavernous bowl that will be 2/3 empty. For some reason MLS is so desperate to have a team in the worst sports town in America that it accepted this subpar arrangement.
Didn’t Atlanta United fans drop something like 20,000+ season ticket deposits already? The demographics for professional soccer are so different from football, baseball, basketball and hockey, it’s really incomparable.
I’m a “founding member”, but the number is BS. We put $50 down and that’s it — no promises to buy season tickets, etc.
Slow, no offense, but you don’t know jack about Atlanta and you won’t listen when people try to tell you.
Atlanta is largely one big, giant, sprawling burb. They play more soccer there than in just about any city in America. Most of the ACC teams that so dominate college soccer are built largely with Atlanta recruits.
Get out of Atlanta, there’s really not a ton of soccer in Georgia. But once you get into the city…Oh, My. Different world. Just off the top of my head, you’ve got GSA, Georgia United, Concorde Fire, Norcross Fury…it goes on and on, and these clubs are massive.
Does it surprise me they’ve already sold 20K of season tickets? Nope. The city is largely transient, they’re all largely from somewhere else – often expats – and there’s a huge, huge Hispanic population on top of all that.
Despite that, the Falcons draw well. The Braves draw really well. Georgia Tech draws pretty well; Bobby Dodd is a 60K stadium and it’s usually full if the Yellowjackets are any good. The Hawks have been a mess but that’s mostly location and ownership. Calling it “the worst sports city in America” is just…tired invective. Especially when it’s Arthur Blank bankrolling this club; he was on board with LA Galaxy long before it was trendy to be involved with MLS.
Arthur is good people; when he does something, he does it well.
Keep in mind, I don’t even like Atlanta much. I hate driving there, I really don’t even like going there, much. But I think this is going to be a whole lot closer to Seattle than to New England.
I would agree with most of what you said but Bobby Dodd does not fill up even if the jackets are good. Maybe when UGA comes to town but that’s about it.
I’ve only ever seen it as a Clemson fan. Always packed then.
Granted, probably 20K of them are Clemson fans, but still. I’ve been there a bunch, and never seen it empty.
I am Georgia born and bred…
Never understood the “ATL is the worst…”
If you are talking about the Hawks, yeah. And the “no name” Braves, yeah. But I’ve been to plenty of Games and can’t EVER recall a stadium being empty. Falcons games are insane…well attended save for a few seasons post Deion and Vick. Braves games are poorly attended in the summer because it os GOD-AWFUL-HOT, but in the fall and early spring much better.
Bobby Dodd is a rocking place as well…not just when my UGA Dawgs (future National champions-that ’16 signing class-WHAT!) are in town.
A.T.L. is a great city and has a great sporting culture even if at times there are not sell out games every weekend.
Mr. Blank will field a winner! He will invest in ATL! He and the fans are UNITED!
We are #ATLUTD
While I can’t question your soccer specific comments…you lose credibility when you say the Braves draw ‘really well’
They’re 28th in MLB at 51.6% capacity. Atlanta also recently lost their NHL team.
So the teams may be the ‘transient’ part of Atlanta, not the people.
Same here. I was with you until the Braves comment. Although this is only anecdotal, I was on vacation at Lake Lanier in June, and we decided to make a road trip to a Braves game. Turner Field was not even half full. It totally killed the ambience (granted, I’m not a big baseball fan to begin with).
Anyway, I hope you’re right about the soccer culture.
They tanked the team to save money until 2017. Like any city, winning draws fans.
Well said. If not real grass, even worse. Amazing how the Don throws his own mandates out the window re: expansion teams and sss’ going hand in hand.
Even with 25-30K fans this stadium will be terrible for soccer. Seems impossible to sit close to the field, roofs won’t catch any noise, artificial turf… The soccer fan experience will be – incessant reminders that their team is most certainly not the main tenant. This eeeery corporate video representation… and that music… I don’t know if it’s because I’m a soccer purist, or an architect, or just have an aversion to bad hollywood overproductions, but I’m sick to my stomach.
My guess is you didn’t want it to be good.
On the contrary, I wanted it to be better. I care otherwise I wouldn’t be on this site.
People from Atlanta shouldn’t take it so personally when someone says it’s a bad sports town. It is, I’m from Phoenix and we suck too, it’s the nature of being a sunbelt city. There are more transients so less civic pride.
Looks like the Falcons got them a nice one. I said the same about the Cowboy’s stadium when I first saw it, but it doesn’t give the team that imposing home-field advantage like I hoped it would. We’ll see how well this one does for ATL. I imagine the affect on soccer games will be very similar to Vancouver…
Go Falcons!
I like the fact that stadiums are being built in the Sun Belt because that makes it easier to eventually go to a traditional soccer calendar because there will be places to play games in decent weather during the winter.
Anyone doubting this will be an MLS success is a fool. Arthur Blank knows what he’s doing, doesn’t do anything half ass, and already has the building blocks to be successful in place. I love when yahoo’s who work in fast food get on a blog and act like they know something about how to invest billions of dollars
Obviously :
Incredible stadium, what a treat to be able to watch soccer there.
Turf field, bummer, but tough when you are sharing a stadium and there is nothing wrong with a city sharing between teams…except turf.
BUT. They are not really showing this as a shared situation, so while they may sell a lot of tickets, we will see, it isn’t Seattle that is for sure. Seattle’s was built for soccer, so the seats are right on top of the field. These are modified so sort of fit. Not terrible, but not Seattle great either. I would be worried about perception after watching the video. Are they just another Final Four to keep the stadium being used?
Big. Not that I don’t like small, Portland’s is one of the best places to watch a game, but I don’t like the small stadiums because they will quickly/already are being out grown.
ps. I have experience here, so listen to me Atlanta fans. There will be hate even if you sell out the place for the Timbers game. There will be hate even if almost every team in the biggest leagues in the world wish they had your stadium.
Just ignore it and walk into your building, realizing you are very lucky.
Then kneel down and pray your players know how to handle the turf.
I completely agree. I stopped arguing with the haters a long time ago. They can keep on haiting all they want while I enjoy my season tickets 🙂
It’s nothing personal, no hating here, enjoy your matches.
But soccer is (even) better on real grass and with fans close to the field. For that matter I think football is too.
Well said, quozzel.
Yes indeed, please check out 2:47 – 2:50 in the video for a fascinating 3 second look at the stadium’s soccer configuration.
Thanks, that saved me some time. This is a cool looking stadium but it’s basically an MLS 1.0 type arrangement with the MLS playing second fiddle and the games being played in an cavernous bowl that will be 2/3 empty. For some reason MLS is so desperate to have a team in the worst sports town in America that it accepted this subpar arrangement.
Didn’t Atlanta United fans drop something like 20,000+ season ticket deposits already? The demographics for professional soccer are so different from football, baseball, basketball and hockey, it’s really incomparable.
I’m a “founding member”, but the number is BS. We put $50 down and that’s it — no promises to buy season tickets, etc.
Slow, no offense, but you don’t know jack about Atlanta and you won’t listen when people try to tell you.
Atlanta is largely one big, giant, sprawling burb. They play more soccer there than in just about any city in America. Most of the ACC teams that so dominate college soccer are built largely with Atlanta recruits.
Get out of Atlanta, there’s really not a ton of soccer in Georgia. But once you get into the city…Oh, My. Different world. Just off the top of my head, you’ve got GSA, Georgia United, Concorde Fire, Norcross Fury…it goes on and on, and these clubs are massive.
Does it surprise me they’ve already sold 20K of season tickets? Nope. The city is largely transient, they’re all largely from somewhere else – often expats – and there’s a huge, huge Hispanic population on top of all that.
Despite that, the Falcons draw well. The Braves draw really well. Georgia Tech draws pretty well; Bobby Dodd is a 60K stadium and it’s usually full if the Yellowjackets are any good. The Hawks have been a mess but that’s mostly location and ownership. Calling it “the worst sports city in America” is just…tired invective. Especially when it’s Arthur Blank bankrolling this club; he was on board with LA Galaxy long before it was trendy to be involved with MLS.
Arthur is good people; when he does something, he does it well.
Keep in mind, I don’t even like Atlanta much. I hate driving there, I really don’t even like going there, much. But I think this is going to be a whole lot closer to Seattle than to New England.
I would agree with most of what you said but Bobby Dodd does not fill up even if the jackets are good. Maybe when UGA comes to town but that’s about it.
I’ve only ever seen it as a Clemson fan. Always packed then.
Granted, probably 20K of them are Clemson fans, but still. I’ve been there a bunch, and never seen it empty.
I am Georgia born and bred…
Never understood the “ATL is the worst…”
If you are talking about the Hawks, yeah. And the “no name” Braves, yeah. But I’ve been to plenty of Games and can’t EVER recall a stadium being empty. Falcons games are insane…well attended save for a few seasons post Deion and Vick. Braves games are poorly attended in the summer because it os GOD-AWFUL-HOT, but in the fall and early spring much better.
Bobby Dodd is a rocking place as well…not just when my UGA Dawgs (future National champions-that ’16 signing class-WHAT!) are in town.
A.T.L. is a great city and has a great sporting culture even if at times there are not sell out games every weekend.
Mr. Blank will field a winner! He will invest in ATL! He and the fans are UNITED!
We are #ATLUTD
While I can’t question your soccer specific comments…you lose credibility when you say the Braves draw ‘really well’
http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/sort/homePct
They’re 28th in MLB at 51.6% capacity. Atlanta also recently lost their NHL team.
So the teams may be the ‘transient’ part of Atlanta, not the people.
Same here. I was with you until the Braves comment. Although this is only anecdotal, I was on vacation at Lake Lanier in June, and we decided to make a road trip to a Braves game. Turner Field was not even half full. It totally killed the ambience (granted, I’m not a big baseball fan to begin with).
Anyway, I hope you’re right about the soccer culture.
They tanked the team to save money until 2017. Like any city, winning draws fans.
Well said. If not real grass, even worse. Amazing how the Don throws his own mandates out the window re: expansion teams and sss’ going hand in hand.
Even with 25-30K fans this stadium will be terrible for soccer. Seems impossible to sit close to the field, roofs won’t catch any noise, artificial turf… The soccer fan experience will be – incessant reminders that their team is most certainly not the main tenant. This eeeery corporate video representation… and that music… I don’t know if it’s because I’m a soccer purist, or an architect, or just have an aversion to bad hollywood overproductions, but I’m sick to my stomach.
My guess is you didn’t want it to be good.
On the contrary, I wanted it to be better. I care otherwise I wouldn’t be on this site.