ATLANTA — As fans stream into the Georgia Dome on Saturday to watch the Falcons play the Seattle Seahawks, they will pass a construction site next door. There the team owner and home improvement magnate Arthur Blank is building the Falcons’ new stadium, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a $1.5 billion palace with eye-popping features: a 30-story-high retractable roof shaped like petals, the N.F.L.’s largest video board and enormous windows that face the Atlanta skyline. The stadium’s place in that chasm between rich and poor is an uncomfortable reminder of the disconnect between the vast wealth of the N.F.L. and the cities to which they extend open palms. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyThe Falcons have been no different, getting a minimum of $200 million in hotel-motel taxes out of the city for the construction of the stadium, and potentially hundreds of millions more for its upkeep.

Source: New York Times January 12, 2017 15:08 UTC