On February 14, 2013, Atlanta Falcons President and CEO Rich McKay appeared before the Atlanta City Council and delivered a message that downtown Atlanta had heard before but never quite believed: the team might leave. If negotiations for a new stadium on a downtown site fell through, McKay said, the Falcons would "have no choice but to consider a suburban site." He characterized the possibility not as a negotiating tactic but as "a reality."
The reality McKay described was straightforward. The Georgia Dome, which had opened in 1992, was aging. The Falcons wanted a new stadium — modern, retractable roof, capable of hosting a Super Bowl and a College Football Playoff championship and, eventually, a World Cup. The question was where, and more importantly, who would pay for it.
The Downtown Stakes
A Falcons departure would have been devastating for downtown Atlanta. The Georgia Dome anchored the western edge of the central business district, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors per year for football games, college events, and conventions. The surrounding hotels, restaurants, and parking operations depended on that traffic. A suburban stadium — the model that had pulled the Braves to Cobb County later that same year — would have redirected that economic engine to a location outside the city limits.
McKay's warning was calculated. State and local officials were already considering a special hotel-motel tax to finance the new facility, and the team wanted that conversation to move faster. The implicit message to the City Council: make this work downtown, or we will find a partner in Gwinnett or Cobb or wherever else has land and appetite.
What Followed
The suburban threat accomplished what it was designed to do. Over the next eighteen months, negotiations accelerated. Owner Arthur Blank committed $800 million of his own money to the project. The City Council approved a funding structure built on hotel-motel tax revenue in March 2013, and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority — which owned the land adjacent to the Georgia Dome — became the vehicle for the public side of the deal.
The result was Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened in August 2017 on a site immediately south of the Dome. The $1.5 billion facility featured the first retractable roof of its kind, a 360-degree halo video board, and — in a move that became Arthur Blank's signature — concession prices set at roughly half the NFL average. The Georgia Dome was demolished in November 2017.
The Falcons stayed downtown. The stadium that replaced the Dome has since hosted a Super Bowl, multiple College Football Playoff games, an MLS Cup, and is a confirmed venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. None of that was guaranteed in February 2013, when Rich McKay sat in front of the City Council and told them, politely, that the team's patience had limits.
Original reporting by Georgia Public Broadcasting, February 14, 2013.
