Anyone else play mahjong? I’m into it. Bought a set and everything. Since I’m not older than 70, this apparently outs me as “basic,” says my wife (the person I play with most). So be it. Bam bird. Cheers.
Digging deeper into the women’s sports-specific training facility burst in 2024, early 2025
At least eight training facilities specifically intended for women’s pro teams have either been announced, begun construction or opened during the last 12 months. I’ve been covering them in a drip, drip, drip fashion, so it’s probably time to take some stock.
“This is one of the most significant signs of the change in the market, not just lip service but putting real capital behind projects that serve the quality for the full player experience,” said Monarch Collective managing partner Kara Nortman, whose firm is investing in women’s pro franchises. “It’s an incredible permanent sign of what the standards are for building and running and excellent women’s pro franchise.”
Kim Stone, CEO of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, remembers when she first started with the Heat decades ago, when the team practiced at a local private high school.
“Women’s sports is on a trajectory that men’s sports has been on,” she said. “It’s just present time instead of past time.”
Within the last year:
- Built or renovated: Angel City FC; Golden State Valkyries; Phoenix Mercury ($100 million).
- Under construction: Chicago Sky ($38 million); Bay FC (reported $30 million to $50 million).
- Announced: Dallas Wings; Indiana Fever ($78 million); Portland Thorns/WNBA expansion team ($75 million).
- In the works: Washington Spirit; BOS Nation; Toronto Tempo (and likely others -- email me if you’d like to tell me about your project that hasn’t been announced yet!).
New owners see a different opportunity
I wrote in January 2024 that women’s sports were attracting ownership groups new to sports, which would make a difference. There is no better example of that claim when it comes to facilities and real estate, than the Long family in Kansas City. Chris and Angie Long have been joined in the last year by more groups new to sports ownership that are enhancing their teams’ physical footprint, including the Seattle Storm, Dallas Wings, Angel City and Bay FC, RAJ Capital in Portland (heck, even Mat Ishbia in Phoenix, who also owns the Suns, is still relatively new to sports).
The Spirit may soon join the new training facility bandwagon. Stone couldn’t share any details, but confirmed that the D.C. squad -- owned by another first-time owner in Michele Kang -- is “actively working” on a practice facility project. Kang has already done that for the English women’s club she owns, London City Lionesses.
Crucially, this group is being joined by ownership groups with men’s teams. The Aces, owned by the Raiders’ Mark Davis, were the first, but the Golden State Valkyries and Indiana Fever (both with NBA team owners) have followed suit.
“There is still a fair amount of variability in how these facilities are underwritten and financed between equity and debt and how you price the debt,” Nortman said. “It’s a very new market in terms of sponsorship and auxiliary use but a very fertile one.”
Monarch Collective, which has invested in BOS Nation, the San Diego Wave and Angel City, isn’t moving forward with women’s projects without a “thoughtful stadium or arena approach and a great practice facility option,” Nortman said.
Competition is a driver
Organizations that haven’t invested in training facilities and support infrastructure for players -- childcare is an ever-present in these buildings -- are beginning to stick out, in a bad way. Additionally, Stone pointed out, the NWSL has ditched a college draft. So, the league’s teams will be competing for teenaged talent in the same way the rest of the global professional soccer world does.
“To a certain extent, your amenities are going to be part of how you’re going to lure the best athletes,” she said.
Existing facilities were hugely important for the California teams
That Angel City and the Valkyries could assume and renovate facilities formerly inhabited by men’s pro teams (the Rams and Warriors) was a huge bonus in the California real estate market, but the same difficult real estate markets exist in New York and other places.
“There are certain cities that are just harder,” Nortman said. “They also tend to be cities where you’d want to own a team.”
No naming-rights deals yet, but it feels like they’re coming
“It comes down to the proximity of the real estate and the quality of the team that’s selling it. I think the market’s there,” Nortman said. “It’s definitely an early but real market.”
Little to no public money for these buildings (so far)
Stone: “The challenge for the performance centers is they’re not a revenue stream for the municipalities. So, if the municipality is going to sell it to their constituents that this is a good deal, there has to be some benefit back to the county. I think they’d be more likely to fund a stadium.”
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Simultaneous projects give Hornets' new owners some off-court momentum
When new ownership buys into a pro sports team, they’re often the ones that have to kickstart venue projects. The Hornets’ new-ish majority owners -- Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin, who acquired majority ownership from Michael Jordan in fall 2023 -- bought into a very different situation in which two major venue projects were already well in motion, the two-year, $245 million renovation of Spectrum Center plus the Hornets Performance Center project that should commence this spring.
For an organization looking to reinvent itself -- and a reminder that I’m a longtime Charlottean and not out on a limb saying the second edition of the Hornets hasn’t taken off the way the first one did before moving to New Orleans in 2002 -- improved real estate is a solid starting point.
“They’re excited about it, they’re very involved in the process,” said Donna Julian, Hornets Sports & Entertainment’s chief venues officer, of the new owners. “They really wanted to make sure that we come up with a world class facility and enhance our food and beverage experience, our guest experience. It just is a great time for our organization as we move forward.”
I was speaking to Julian in the First Horizon Bank Theater Box, one of the new premium areas added during the renovation. That project began last summer, has slowed during the NBA season and will pick up speed again this summer (Perkins&Will is doing the design work, and a Turner/D.A. Everett tag team is doing the building with CAA Icon overseeing both projects).
Formerly corner suites, the Theater Box has plush seating (by Alfred Williams) for 120 people in front of an open club space and faces the stage end of the arena. For the 2025-26 season, season-long access will cost $23,500 per seat and includes all Hornets games, events and shows, an unlimited premium food & beverage experience, in-seat cocktail service and a VIP arena entrance. The Hornets will launch season-ticket renewals later this month followed by new-ticket sales business in March.
The renovation -- it has transformed the arena’s event and suite levels, part of a wide range of improvements throughout the building -- and the new performance center (designed by Populous) were part of the larger lease extension that will keep the Hornets in downtown Charlotte until at least 2045.
The city is covering $30 million of the performance center project costs, with the Hornets absorbing any overruns (it’s likely to cost more than $100 million). A Gilbane-R.J. Leeper joint venture will build the 160,000-square-foot performance center that will provide the Hornets' basketball and business brain trusts with a new HQ from which to plot the organization’s revival located right across the street from the arena on a 3.2-acre parking lot owned by the city.
Expect a groundbreaking ceremony in the near future with that project scheduled for completion ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season. Also check out a video I did for SBJ on this project happening in uptown Charlotte.
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Red Bulls' training facility construction moving along
SBJ research director David Broughton was speaking at the 39th annual Stadium Managers Association conference in Palm Springs this past week and bumped into Andrew Vazzano, the Red Bulls' director of communications (full disclosure from Broughton, my office desk neighbor: The Red Bulls were in the desert for the Coachella Valley Invitational and were at the same hotel as the conference, and he talked his way into the team’s ballroom/breakfast room).
Asked how construction on the club’s soon-to-open, 80-acre training facility was going, Vazzano shared some just-taken images.
Red Bulls Training Complex
Tenant: Red Bulls
City: Morris Township, N.J.
Cost: $112 million
Architect: Gensler
General contractor: March Construction
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Would you eat this?
An exclusive item on offer at Chase Center this past weekend for the NBA All-Star festivities was “Karl the Fog,” created by the venue’s F&B provider, Bon Appetit.
It’s lavender cheesecake, smoked honeycomb and a chocolate Golden Gate Bridge, along with a smoked bubble finish to imitate San Francisco Bay fog -- all served in a half-basketball cup.
This is what in-venue specialties are all about! Bravo.
Regarding the name, apparently San Francisco’s ever-present bay fog is named “Karl.” #TheMoreYouKnow.
A big idea
FactSet research has determined that this recent quarterly earnings period saw the most uses of the terms “tariff” or “tariffs” during earnings calls since 2019.
Of the 291 Fortune 500 companies that conducted earnings calls between Dec. 15 and Feb. 6, 146 companies (or 50%) used one or both words, at a pace for the highest usage in at least a decade.
Much more info in FactSet’s story.
Facility speed reads
- Monumental Sports & Entertainment is approaching its $800 million renovation of Capital One Arena as if it were building a new arena from scratch, with an eye on leveraging the fresh sponsorship and premium inventory that will be in play, writes SBJ’s Wes Sanderson.
- Bruce Miller has been named CEO and global chair of sports architecture force Populous. Miller had been Managing Director of the Americas region, and he replaces Earl Santee, one of the firm’s original founders 40 years ago, who transitions to executive chair (and will remain on the company’s board).
- The Yankees completed a two-year renovation project of their spring training facility, unveiling a new building on the first-base side of Steinbrenner Field as pitchers and catchers reported for duty, notes SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo.
- Populous shared new interior renderings of Penn State’s $700 million Beaver Stadium renovation project, specifically the venue’s new concourses and premium areas.
- During Super Bowl Week, the Bills and Legends were showcasing the $2.1 billion New Highmark Stadium in a suite at the New Orleans Intercontinental through Hypervsn’s unique and dramatic 3D hologram system, reports SBJ’s Terry Lefton.