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CHICK-FIL-A KICKOFF GAME

September 2, 2017

Arthur Blank

Atlanta, Georgia

GARY STOKAN: Welcome, everybody. Thanks for coming to the goat game at the new Mercedes-Benz world-class facility. I want to introduce Percy Vaughn, our chairman of the Chick-Fil-a Peach Bowl, and it's an honor and pleasure to introduce an extremely successful businessman and CEO, a most benevolent servant, community leader, but more importantly, as my dad used to say in Pittsburgh, my hometown, he's a great man because he's a good man. The owner of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, my pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Arthur Blank. Arthur?

ARTHUR BLANK: I have even less to say than Gary. It was very easy for me to get dressed tonight because you don't know who I'm rooting for. I've got the right colors on if I'm rooting for the Falcons or Alabama or FSU.

We're thrilled to be here. One of the purposes that we established early on in building the stadium is that it would be the home for many great events. Many great events have been held here for many years, and being able to host this particular game tonight and again Monday night on behalf of Chick-Fil-a is a unique opportunity for us.

I was reading earlier today actually this game was decided on that we would do it here some six to seven years ago, so to end up with the No. 1 and No. 3 teams as rated today in the nation playing against each other, we had the foresight. We really didn't have the foresight, but actually it was a very good guess. So we're thrilled to be here tonight and welcome everybody to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

I've been honored to have been asked to flip the coin tonight, so I haven't flipped a coin in like forever, so I've been practicing flipping the coin. I hope I don't mess it up a little bit later.

Welcome, everybody. The fans seem to be loving the building, and we couldn't be more excited to host this game tonight and have this relationship with Chick-Fil-a. Happy to take any questions that anybody here might have.

Q. This has been labeled the greatest opener of all time. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
ARTHUR BLANK: I'll wait until the end of the game, and then we either agree on that or not. But these two teams are both superlative. You could rank them 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, anywhere in that mix, and to have the opportunity to open it up to the full crowd and the opportunity for me to walk around and see the way we're handling the crowd in the building tonight really made me feel very, very good, both on the outside and the inside. I had a chance to cover a fair amount of territory, and everybody, our guests seem to be treated well. They all have smiles on their face. They're lined up getting a lot of food to eat and getting a lot of drink to drink, and in amazement of the halo scoreboard and all the other amenities we have here.

I'm happy for the game. I'm happy that it's an important game early in the year, and we're looking forward at the end of the year to playing the National Championship here followed up by the Super Bowl the year after, followed up by the Final Four, first time in the history of America where a complex has had the opportunity to entertain those three wonderful U.S. events in a row.

Q. You were obviously with this thing from the ground up. Now at that it's completed, is there still anything about it that's blown you away, inside or out?
ARTHUR BLANK: I think what I saw tonight, I was very excited about, but this is the first event we've had here where we're going to project 70,000 plus in the building, and to see how well they were moving around the concourses, to see how well they were on the outside, how well the gates were working, how well the food, concession stands were working, the drink concessions stands were working. To see the smiles on everybody's faces, there wasn't a lot of people being pushed around and what have you. So all the escalators, all the extra elevators, all the things we had planned on to double and triple the capacity, not of the building in terms of attendance, but in terms of ability to move people around the concourses and have them be able to circulate concourse 100, 200 and 300 completely, I think all of that is showing very well tonight, so I'm excited about that.

Q. It's probably kind of hard for you to walk around here incognito --
ARTHUR BLANK: It is, really hard. But I'm happy -- to me it's not a question of how quickly can I get through the building, it's how many hands can I shake, how many people can I say thank you to. That's why I come early, and I'll come earlier for all the Falcon games and all the soccer games in the future to visit with our associates and visit with our fans and just show my appreciation for their support for this fabulous stadium and complex.

Q. As a fighting Babson Beaver, I don't know what your relationship to college football is, but does the college game much appeal to you --
ARTHUR BLANK: It does, yes.

Q. And the atmosphere --
ARTHUR BLANK: Well, the atmosphere in college football is pretty hard to beat. We try to have at least that, and we think we have a good shot at that going on in the stadium, going forward. We certainly have it at soccer today. We think we'll have it with the Atlanta Falcons going forward, but there are stadiums around the NFL like Green Bay or Pittsburgh or other places that have that atmosphere, that have that college atmosphere. We're going to see that today in spades, between these two great universities, and I'm sure we'll learn something about it, as well. We're all about the fans, all about making sure they feel at home, making sure that they feel this is their place, so we want to do everything we can do to articulate that and to live it. And the reaction we're getting so far is wonderful. It's great.

Q. Why did you get involved in soccer? Where do you see MLS in 10 years, 15 years?
ARTHUR BLANK: Well, I got involved in soccer, we started to look at it probably about 15 years ago, and at that time it would have meant us building a soccer-specific stadium. We knew eventually we'd have an opportunity to build a new stadium, and so it made more sense to wait at that time. Also, MLS was probably about halfway through their life in terms of 22 years, they were probably about year 11 or 12. A lot of the teams are owned by the same owner, so the foundation of the league really wasn't as solid as it is today. Today there are 22 teams in the league. The league is moving in this direction.

At that time the league was valued -- it's not valued, but in terms of the quality of the play, generally it was looked at compared to other leagues throughout the world really as probably 23, 24. Today it's ranked No. 7. So the quality of play today is terrific, and obviously our Atlanta United team, both on the field and off the field, off the pitch, if you will, has had an incredible year, setting all kinds of attendance records not only for a first-year franchise, but for any franchise, and our aspiration is to break the attendance records for the entire year this year for Atlanta United. It's a great credit to Atlanta, to our soccer fans, and our family has been connected to the sport for many years. I personally didn't play it. I have a son who plays it. My wife has had two children who have played it. That's how we first met. Our boys were playing on the same club.

And it's a great community event. I mean, you see soccer played in 209 countries throughout the world.

Q. Do you think it could become one of the big three or four in this country?
ARTHUR BLANK: Well, I look at today, Atlanta United we're averaging about 47,000 per game. It's more than any average in Major League Baseball, in basketball, or in hockey, so second to the NFL, we're averaging -- average attendance is higher than any other professional sport today in the country. Do I think that can happen elsewhere in the country? Yes, I do. I give Atlanta great credit. I give our leadership team great credit for tuning in to -- our soccer fans really were telling us and what they were asking, and they feel a sense of ownership over the team. They should.

I've always said this, and these gentlemen have followed me for many years for the Falcons, that I view myself as a steward for our fans, I really feel like they really own the team. During my period of ownership I try to act in their behalf, their best interest, Falcons and soccer both in this case.

Q. The roof, the closing and opening, is it a pace that you guys are happy with? Can you update on the progress of that?
ARTHUR BLANK: Yeah, the roof, after our first opening game on -- it's preseason Saturday, the following day we opened and closed the roof in a day, so it's moving along well. It's not a question is it opening and closing. It opens and closes. We have to get it down to a time frame that's tighter than -- as we first envisioned it and what it currently is today, but we're making a lot of progress. We anticipate during the fall the roof will open and close, we'll be playing a number of games here that the roof will be open.

Q. Are there any major differences between having a college football game and an NFL game here?
ARTHUR BLANK: For me? Yeah, I don't have as much blood in the game, if you will. I mean, I can root for whichever team. Obviously when I'm playing here with the Falcons, I'm a strong fan. Put it that way. And have all that energy and passion, et cetera. And I do tonight in terms of both teams. They're both terrific football teams.

I probably know Coach Saban a little bit better, only because Steve Cannon, our CEO, was the CEO of Mercedes-Benz, Coach Saban owns several dealerships, and so part of my research on Steve Cannon was speaking to Coach Saban, and he was great. He gave me a lot of time and gave me a lot of background on Steve Cannon before we hired him.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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