One of the recurring controversies around this American World Cup concerns prices, from transport to tickets to the cost of getting through the gates, and then everything that happens once you are inside the stadiums, where food and drinks are sold only within the perimeter and there is no real possibility of leaving and coming back, so the entire experience ends up shaped by a kind of internal economy that functions without alternatives.
For 2026 there is an exception in this landscape, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia — “Atlanta Stadium” for the tournament — which has for years operated with controlled pricing on food and beverages, iPaper noting a steady sequence of reductions over time, while remaining home to the Atlanta Falcons (NFL) and Atlanta United (MLS), and a venue that has already hosted the Super Bowl in 2019 and is scheduled to host it again in 2028, with its status shifting depending on which calendar it is read through.
Tim Zulawski, president of the group that runs the Falcons, Atlanta United and the stadium, puts it in relatively plain terms when he says: “We focused a lot on the experience of people. If you go anywhere and feel someone is taking care of you, that experience shapes how you perceive that place. If you are not treated like a hostage audience, but treated with fairness, people feel valued. And that is exactly what we want.”
It works economically too, or at least that is how it appears, with lower prices leading to higher volume and a different rhythm of consumption inside the same space, beers at five dollars and hot dogs at two circulating almost without emphasis, and Zulawski insisting the model is non-negotiable even in the context of the World Cup, as well as in the longer horizon of a possible women’s tournament in 2031, where the same approach would remain in place without adjustment.