The Hawks Introduced ‘Fan-Friendly’ Concessions Pricing, Including $5 Beers

When Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the new home to the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, opened last year one of the main selling points to fans was the stadium’s concessions pricing structure.

Typical stadium food (i.e. hot dogs, pizza, pretzels, soda, domestic beer, etc.) was priced as you would see it at a restaurant, not a stadium, which is to say, significantly cheaper than most any other stadium food. A hot dog, pretzel, popcorn, or regular soda at a Falcons game will run you $2, not $5 or more like many places. While the Falcons saw a slight drop-off in concessions revenue year-over-year from the Georgia Dome pricing, they saw a significant increase in the amount of concessions sold, which led them to believe it was a success.

The Atlanta Hawks will enter the 2018-19 season in the same building, Philips Arena, they’ve occupied for nearly two decades, but the interior has undergone an almost complete renovation. Along with new suites and in-arena attractions, the concessions are getting a Falcons-like facelift, as the team announced on Thursday morning.

For a team that is in desperate need to attracting fans to games in any way they can, adjusting concessions pricing is a very smart move, especially considering when game time is compared to the Falcons. The vast majority Hawks games tip-off at 7:30 p.m. ET, which means to get there for tip-off you’ll likely need to eat dinner at the arena or pick up something quick you can eat in the car on the way. This has led to Hawks fans being notoriously late to games, which is partially do to horrendous traffic in Atlanta, but also due to the fact that a lot of people didn’t want to shell out big bucks for arena food.

We’ll see what impact this actually has, but in theory, dropping prices for standard concessions might be a catalyst to get more people in the door and get them in earlier, especially families. For a team that’s rebuilding, anything they can do to bring in fans is a smart move, and this new pricing structure figures to be a hit in the newly renovated arena.