The Falcons struggled to get their new retractable roof to open last season, but the league is hoping they get the issues solved in time for the reason they got the new stadium to begin with.
According to Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com, the NFL hopes to be able to open the roof on Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Super Bowl LIII.
Because of construction issues, the Falcons were only able to open the distinctive roof of the $1.5 billion building once last season, for their game against the Packers.
“Certainly where we’ve been in stadia with retractable roofs, our preference is always to open the roof,” said NFL senior vice president of events Peter O’Reilly. “We did that in Arizona for Super Bowl XLIX in a model there where they typically don’t open the roof for a stadium, but we opened it for the Super Bowl.
“It our mind, [an open roof] creates some great energy in that building. We obviously will be down for a number of Falcons games this fall. And I know the plan is for it to be open, pending weather. So we’ll evaluate it and watch that.”
Of course, if they were able to open the roof, that would mean two bits of good news. One, the roof actually worked. Two, it would mean Atlanta wasn’t getting slammed by an ice storm, like the last time they hosted a Super Bowl in 2000.