Though the Georgia Dome was a profitable facility, its primary tenant, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, grew dissatisfied with it less than two decades after its opening and began planning for a replacement stadium.

[7] The Georgia Dome was the only stadium in the United States to host the Summer Olympics, Super Bowl and NCAA men's basketball Final Four.

The Georgia Dome's successor, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was built adjacent to the south and opened on August 26, 2017.

In 2003, Arthur Blank, the new owner of Atlanta Falcons, funded the installation of the new infilled FieldTurf artificial surface system.

The first stage, which took place before the 2007 NFL season, focused on updating the premium seating areas, including the creation of eight 'super-suites' as well as an owners' club, most of them now incorporating new plasma TVs.

[27][28] In 2009, the video screens in both end zones were relocated to a new exterior monument sign on Northside Drive.

The interior end zones each received a new and considerably wider HD video screen that significantly enhanced views of replays, as well as graphics and digital presentations.

In 2008, the Georgia Dome started showing safety videos before games, presented by Deltalina, flight attendant "mascot" of Delta Air Lines.

[32] The resulting damage forced the rest of the tournament to be moved to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, now known as McCamish Pavilion, at Georgia Tech.

[34] The Dome had been designed specifically for football while a handful of NFL teams still made do with multi-purpose stadiums shared with MLB teams; plus, the Dome had plenty of luxury suites and premium seating which were important revenue-generating features lacking other older venues which made them obsolete.

Nonetheless, sports economist Rod Fort noted that pro sports team owners "thought they could get away with demanding new" stadiums every year with public money; plus, the Falcons did not have control of the Dome nor the profits, which made them less competitive than other teams that owned state-of-the-art facilities.

[40][41][42] In justifying the need for a new venue, Falcons CEO and president Rich McKay said that the Georgia Dome "was a really functional building that served its purpose very well.

You can move vertically throughout the building, we have really wide staircases, we have twice the elevators, twice the escalators compared to the Georgia Dome".

The stadium's final public event took place on March 4 and 5, 2017, with back-to-back Monster Jam shows.

[44] Shortly after the Georgia Dome's closing, a group presented a petition to the governor's office to save the stadium from demolition, arguing that it was still in good condition and that its loss would be wasteful.

[47] On June 9, 2017, Steve Cannon, CEO of the Falcons' parent company AMB Group, stated that construction officials were confident that Mercedes-Benz Stadium would be ready in time for the Falcons' first preseason game, and the process of decommissioning the Georgia Dome had resumed, with the Dome scheduled for implosion on November 20, 2017, at 7:30 am EST.

From September 16 to 30, 2017, memorabilia from the Georgia Dome was sold in an online auction format by Schneider Industries.

[52] Due to the large exclusion zone required for the demolition, no public viewing areas were made available; additionally, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority officials announced that rail service west of the Five Points station would be suspended on the day of demolition until MARTA safety inspectors certified that the tunnels which run below the Dome site were safe for trains to operate.

[56] Initially, demolition officials stated that the two remaining sections would be brought down manually with hydraulic excavators; however, after inspections determined that the explosive charges did not detonate, a supplementary implosion took place on the morning of December 20 at 1:00 am EST.

[60] Cleanup of debris from the Georgia Dome site was completed by late February 2018 with construction of the Home Depot Backyard beginning shortly thereafter; the new park officially opened on September 11, 2018.

Subsequently, with the Dome's impending closure, the university acquired the Atlanta Braves' former Turner Field baseball park and renovated it to Georgia State Stadium for college football.

[70] While playing at the Georgia Dome on March 27, 1998, the Atlanta Hawks set a then-NBA single-game attendance record with 62,046 fans against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

On June 24, 2009, the Dome hosted its first ever soccer match between Mexico and Venezuela in front of 51,115 fans, with grass laid over the FieldTurf.

[75][76] On July 20, 2013, the Dome hosted two quarter-final match-ups of the 2013 Gold Cup—Panama vs. Cuba and Mexico vs. Trinidad & Tobago—in front of 54,229 fans.

[78] The Georgia Dome was also a prominent stop for many music acts including Alabama, Guns N' Roses, U2, KISS, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel, Taylor Swift, Chuck Berry, Smash Mouth, The Beach Boys, Kid Rock, Phil Collins, Backstreet Boys, Korn, Metallica, Skillet, Beyoncé, One Direction and many more.

The win streak would be snapped in 2015 by Carolina Crown with its fan-favorite production of "Inferno" With the announcement of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium to be opened in the summer of 2017, the 2016 tour season would be the last hurrah inside the dome.

While the 2017 show was scheduled to be in the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, construction delays would make the venue not ready for the July 29 event, which would find a temporary home at McEachern High School in Powder Springs.