AMB Sports and Entertainment, which controls the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, MLS’s Atlanta United and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, has extended its existing deal that makes Ticketmaster the ticketing partner for the teams and all events at the Atlanta facility.
“AMB Sports and Entertainment are known for pushing the envelope and pioneering some of the most successful innovations in the sports industry and are critically attuned to the wants and needs of fans,” said Clay Luter, Ticketmaster Executive Vice President and Co-Head of Sports. “We look forward to our continued partnership and supporting them in their relentless pursuit to evolve the fan experience.”
The deal leverages Ticketmaster’s mobile-only ticketing systems to provide enormous quantities of consumer data to the organizations and anyone they wish to share that data with, which has become the cornerstone of the Live Nation Entertainment-owned ticketing platform’s deal-making.
“We are incredibly proud to extend our partnership with Ticketmaster,” said Tim Zulawski, AMBSE chief revenue officer. “They have not only been a supporter in our quest to drive fan innovation through ticketing and backend technology that empowers our internal teams, but in our communities as well. We are proud to continue this long-standing partnership with a company that continues to align with our organization’s core values.”
That the two companies extended their deal is unsurprising, in light of the mutual support they showed against the implementation of a more consumer-friendly ticketing ecosystem in Georgia that was under consideration in the state legislature earlier this year. Officials representing AMBSE and its teams, as well as from Live Nation testified extensively in committee hearings, lobbying to keep their rights to use mobile-only ticketing systems to limit consumer choice and box out competition from other reasale platforms, a move that one legislator called “a Class A money grab.”
As part of the extended contract, Ticketmaster has also agreed to sponsor a new initiative – the Georgia High School Football Ticket Program. In that program, Ticketmaster will offer every player on both tackle and flag football teams in the state a complimentary ticket to a Falcons game and the ability to purchase additional tickets for friends and family at a 50% discount. That program will likely help the Falcons improve on their vacant seat rate, which saw nearly 10 percent of the seats at Mercedes-Benz Stadium empty for their home games in 2021.
