SBJ Unpacks: The MLS stadium boom

Tonight in Unpacks: A new wave of soccer-only stadiums is rising in MLS. During the first day of SBJ’s Business of Soccer conference, leaders from the Fire, Revolution and NYCFC discuss what those venues mean to the present and future of their clubs’ business ventures, reports SBJ’s Mary Gaughan.

Also tonight:

• Engaging younger fans in the era of TikTok creators and YouTube influencers
• Mauricio Culebro to lead Atlanta soccer teams
• Las Vegas and Seattle to bid for NBA franchises, but Silver says nothing guaranteed
• Op-ed: Saudi Arabia’s blueprint for international competitions

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where SBJ’s Austin Karp, Alex Silverman, Bret McCormick and David Broughton check in from the Business of Soccer event, which will feature coverage of the FIFA World Cup, the continued rise in the women’s game and stadium growth.

The MLS stadium development boom is being shaped as much by business strategy as it is by design, with clubs prioritizing control, premium revenue, fan experience and year-round activation as the league continues its evolution.

Speaking at the SBJ Business of Soccer conference Wednesday, Chicago Fire President of Business Operations Dave Baldwin, New England Revolution President Brian Bilello and NYCFC President and CEO Brad Sims discussed the next wave of MLS stadium development and its impact on club business and fan experience in a panel moderated by SBJ’s Bret McCormick.

Across all three projects — each privately financed and in dense urban markets — the shift from tenant to operator is expected to reshape both the fan experience and club economics for the clubs. “We had one season in my tenure where we had home games in six different venues in three different states,” Sims said. “So it’s been a long process, and we couldn’t be more excited about this opportunity.”

NYCFC is halfway through its $780M Etihad Park project, expecting to begin play at the start of the 2027-28 season amid the MLS’ 14-game transition season running from February 2027 to May 2027. The Fire recently broke ground on its $750M stadium in The 78, expecting to open in the summer of 2028. The Revolution are going through permitting and targeting to have a new stadium up by summer of 2029.

For each club, gaining control of a purpose-built venue was framed as both a business opportunity and a brand reset. Baldwin pointed to limitations at Soldier Field around scheduling, sponsorship and fan experience, while Bilello emphasized the importance of visibility in markets with deeply rooted franchises and venues.

“For us, it’s really about having that relevancy, having our own building visible to all the city,” Bilello said. “When those events are happening, people are going to know about us.”

Sims reinforced that point: “Actually playing soccer in a soccer stadium ... and really having a building that we can monetize 365 days a year versus a building as a tenant that we can monetize 17 times a year.”

A major theme was the growing importance of premium inventory — not just in volume, but in diversification. Bilello said a common lesson from newer venues is that clubs “didn’t build enough premium seating,” while Sims pointed to early high demand at NYCFC’s new stadium: “The Gatsby seats ... 16 seats, $50,000 a year sold out immediately.”

The strategy of offset pricing also supports affordability elsewhere in the building. Sims: “The more that we can derive from our premium ... we can make it more affordable for those fans who are going to really bring the experience.”

The value of building smaller

Despite rising demand, all three clubs are intentionally building smaller venues to encourage demand and create a more intimate atmosphere. “You want to be the hottest ticket in town,” Sims said.

Venue control also unlocks year-round community and third-party programming. Sims said he projects 55 to 60 major events a year at Etihad plus up to 200 private events, while Bilello noted that concerts and other entertainment events can serve as long-term fan acquisition tools. “If I can get someone to come to the venue for a concert … and say, ‘This is really cool,’ … I look at that as just another way of getting people into this really cool, amazing building,” Bilello said.

Each project is also designed with community integration in mind, from NYCFC’s affordable housing project to opportunities surrounding New England’s waterfront park. Sims highlighted the importance of design, citing NYCFC’s immersive LED entrance: “Our wow moment is going to start hundreds of yards away from even entering the building.”

Beyond business, panelists emphasized the emotional impact of having a permanent home.

“There’s a difference between being a tenant in a building versus owning a building,” Baldwin said. “No one ever washes a rental car before they return it.”

Innovative content strategies and data-driven experiences that resonate with younger audiences were key topics at SBJ’s The Business of Soccer event at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Nielsen Sports Global GM Jon Stainer, Mondelez Head of Global Brand Marketing/Refreshment Category Lauren Flanigan, and COPA90 Exec Creative Director/North America Shawn Francis sat with Leaders in Sport Content Director David Cushnan to discuss how soccer can compete with all the other things vying for Gen Z’s and Gen Alpha’s attention spans. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup looming, engaging fans in the attention economy is an essential pilar in both attracting and retaining fans.

Below are highlights from the panel.

On Gen Z’s viewing patterns

Stainer: “It’s frankly unrealistic today to expect younger audiences to sit in front of 90-minute traditional broadcasts. All of our research shows that 1-in-5 Gen Zers will watch a full broadcast, a full game of something. So that sort of traditional model of like, ‘if we broadcast it, they will come,’ is no longer applicable for this type of audience. They are highly mobile, and by that, I mean by the device. They are second-screening the whole time.”

“Some of our research points to 6-out-of-10 Gen Z fans, they get their engagement through the athlete content. ... Four-out-of-10 don’t have a favorite team or a favorite club. So, they value the athlete more than they value the crest.”

On the diverse make up and interests within Gen Z

Flanigan: “[Gen Z is] a very large generation. It’s also one of the most diverse generations in history.”

Francis: “Gen Z doesn’t have a one box to tick identity. They are a bunch of different things, and they consume a bunch of different things. ... They’re also consuming [soccer] through fashion, through music, through all of these different touch points.”

On streaming trends

Stainer: “[Catalog programming and ancillary programming are] giving another entry point to a younger consumer to then go into what I would call like the ‘main meal’ in terms of the live broadcast. ... Streaming initially started out with all the younger consumers, but as sports has migrated onto the streaming platforms, ... the traditional 35-to-54-year-old age group ... migrated onto those platforms.”

On working with creators and influencers

Francis: “You have to kind of trust. Something where a lot of us in the room probably don’t want to do is trust young people and to trust that you can give them a brief, that they can digest and execute on your plan and give you something that ultimately resonates with their audience because they can actually speak the language in a way that you can’t as a brand.”

Flanigan: “Influencer is a very important and big way to reach its audience, but I don’t think that it is the only way nor should it be. ... There are things that sponsoring a league could do for me that sponsoring a talent cannot, or same with sponsoring an influencer who is speaking about a particular piece of that game. There’s a role for it to play across the full funnel. I agree with the point that for when it works well, it is with authenticity. ... When it works well, it’s when you trust the creator, when you choose a creator who aligns with your brand values and you allow them to do what they know works well for the community that they’ve built.”

On 2026 FIFA World Cup plans

Flanigan: “Each country is doing something a little different for World Cup, which I think is great. It should be more locally activated than it is globally. ... In some cases, it’s putting talent on packaging. In some cases, it is working with influencers in specific spaces who are commentators on the sport as a whole. Each market has its own kind of local, individualized plan.”

Francis: “This is going to be the first creator-led World Cup. [During the 2022 Qatar World Cup] we were still kind of in the influencer era, and I think now we’re firmly in the creator era. ... This will be the first World Cup where the games aren’t just being broadcast to the people. The games are going to be broadcast by the people. They’re going to be small creators that can tell big stories in this World Cup.”

ARTHUR BLANK has hired MAURICIO CULEBRO as president of soccer for AMB Sports & Entertainment, a role in which he will oversee all aspects of both Atlanta United and Atlanta’s forthcoming NWSL expansion team. The role is Culebro’s first in the U.S. following two decades of experience at the highest levels of Mexican soccer.

Culebro has served as president of Tigres UANL for the past five years, overseeing both sporting and business operations for the Monterrey-based club’s men’s and women’s teams. He previously served as COO of the Mexican Football Federation and president of Club América, widely considered the country’s most commercially powerful club.

While he lacks experience in the U.S., Culebro’s background within two highly corporate ownership structures in Liga MX, as well as at the national federation level, aligns closely with his new role in Atlanta. Across his tenures at Tigres and América, he is the only club president in Mexico to win men’s and women’s titles with two different organizations.

In his new role with AMBSE, Culebro will oversee both business and sporting operations for Atlanta United while leading the launch of the city’s NWSL expansion team. The women’s side, for which Blank paid a $165M expansion fee, is slated to make its on-field debut in 2028. Culebro will also serve as AMBSE’s primary liaison to U.S. Soccer, which is opening the Arthur M. Blank National Training Center in nearby Fayetteville, Ga., this May.

The creation of the president of soccer role at AMBSE follows the departure of Atlanta United President GARTH LAGERWEY, who permanently left the organization late last year after taking two cancer-related leaves of absence. In the new position, Culebro will report to AMBSE CEO RICH MCKAY.

The three executives who have led day-to-day operations at Atlanta United in Lagerwey’s absence -- Chief Soccer Officer Chris Henderson, SVP/Strategy DIMITRIOS EFSTATHIOU and CBO SARAH KATE NOFTSINGER -- will remain in their roles and report to Culebro.

Culebro will work with McKay and AMBSE brass on hiring soccer and business staff for the NWSL expansion club, as well as on construction of the team’s dedicated training center and NWSL-specific modifications to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Sportsology Group assisted AMBSE in its search for a president of soccer.

The NBA’s Board of Governors on Wednesday greenlit the methodical process of placing expansion franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle, which could potentially bring bids north of $7B or -- in the end -- no new teams at all.

Following a two-day BOG meeting in New York, Commissioner Adam Silver said, “There was nobody in the room saying, ‘I really want to expand right now because I could really use the money’” and indicated there are three possible scenarios that are all fluid and certain to be decided by the end of the year:

1) Expansion in both cities.

2) Expansion in only one city.

3) Expansion in zero cities.

“So there’s absolutely a chance expansion may not happen,” Silver said. “And that’s why we were careful to say: exploring the process. ... As to why it might not happen, at least standing here today, there’s nothing that I see in the relatively short-term future of this league that would indicate in any way that there won’t be enormous interest in those markets and that the board will continue to support moving forward. ... [But] wherever those values land, it’s an enormous undertaking.”

Part of that undertaking included N.Y.-based PJT Partners presenting the financial implications of expansion to the board this week, with owners needing to decide if the franchise fees -- not to mention the dilution of talent on the court -- will outweigh giving up two shares of their national media rights money.

PJT Partners, a high-end strategic adviser led by Paul Taubman, will likely assist on or supervise the incoming bids. Reports are the league is expecting or hoping that bids are in the $7B-$10B range, but Silver was quick to point out that the market will eventually let the league know whether expansion -- pegged for the 2028-29 season -- is worth it at this time.

“It’s generally not just a single owner; it’s a group. It requires financing. It requires arena planning, etc.,” Silver said Wednesday. “So, where the uncertainty to me lies is in issues outside of the league -- that there’s enormous instability in the world at the moment. And we may ultimately conclude for reasons completely out of our control that it’s not the right time to expand, that it’s something that we should postpone and we look at some later time. And so that’s really what our caveat is.

“... But I think the league is in such a strong position right now, and there’s such enormous belief in the future prospects of this league that for the 30 teams, there was nobody in the room saying, ‘I really want to expand right now because I could really use the money.’ It’s very much a strategic decision for this league, because as I said, you’re selling equity. And part of the issue when you’re selling equity is you have to make predictions about future value.

“And so, the real reason ultimately to expand is if you see strategic benefit. And that’s why we’re particularly focused on Seattle and Las Vegas.”

The lead bidder in Seattle is expected to be Kraken owner, chairperson and governor Samantha Holloway who on Monday formed the umbrella group One Roof Sports & Entertainment, with an eye on a potential bid. In Las Vegas, Basketball HOFer Magic Johnson, who calls the city his “home away from home” is said to be interested, with Silver on Wednesday praising Johnson’s acumen as a businessman. Other likely bidders from Las Vegas include the Golden Knights’ billionaire founder and owner Bill Foley and Basketball HOFer Shaquille O’Neal.

As I reported last week, the Big Ten is discussing a carve out within the $20.5 million revenue share cap in order to help schools retain players, per multiple sources with direct knowledge of the talks.

The hope is to develop an exception to permit schools to exceed the cap — whether that’s by a percentage of the existing cap or a flat rate isn’t clear — to re-sign players without dipping into their annual revenue share budget.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s a variation of what the NBA already does with Bird rights, enabling teams to exceed the salary cap to retain players.

How this would actually work remains unclear. Determining who actually makes the call on creating such a carve out isn’t simple. Plaintiff’s counsel in the House settlement likely would need to sign off on this carve-out concept, as it could be classified as a fundamental change, though sources I spoke with were mixed on whether they consider it such.

There’s also the matter of getting other leagues on board. SEC sources said the matter hadn’t been broached by Commissioner Greg Sankey. The Big 12 and ACC also likely wouldn’t have unanimous agreement on spending millions more on rosters when the $20.5 million initially spelled out is a massive strain already.

The idea has support among Big Ten coaches and administrators, giving it enough traction within the league to prompt discussion among Power Four commissioners.

Actual ratification, however, is likely a long shot.

What if you wanted to build a new Olympic movement, but without the International Olympic Committee? We’re not talking about just staging a series of nation-based competitions, but building an entire global governance infrastructure for international sports. If you wanted to create a competitor for the Olympic Games, what would that look like? How would you do it from a commercial and legal perspective?

You would probably start with a small but rapidly growing sport to test out the business case and then build up from there.

As a first step in establishing the legal infrastructure, you would replace the parliamentary-style governance system of the IOC with a private company, so you could act quickly and decisively. That private company would not just stage the competitions, it would, like the IOC, own the trademarks for the games and use them to license legitimacy. It would determine which games are played, which athletes are eligible to compete, and who is awarded the title “world champion.” It would set and enforce the rules that govern the new competition system.

You would also need to recreate the local infrastructure that the IOC uses to select and train national teams. You would need organizations in each country to manage that country’s representation in the new games. These national organizations would act like National Olympic Committees. They would appoint the coaches who build the national team rosters. China, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the U.S. would each have its own national organization.

How would you get top-tier athletes to participate in your new games? They’re not going to train for years for a gold-plated medal from an ersatz Olympics organization. You would have to pay the athletes directly. A lot. And create a massive prize pool for the winners, because the operators of your new competitive system would have no illusions about national pride being the driver of excellence in international competition.

Where would you stage the new games? You might want to have the first events in one location until you could work out the bugs in the system, but eventually you would want to establish a host-city model so you can outsource capital expenditure and operating risk.

If all of that sounds like an absurd thought experiment, you should know that it is happening right now, in full view of the public, and nobody is paying attention because the system is being built, initially at least, around esports rather than gymnastics, figure skating, or luge.

In July 2024, the IOC announced a 12-year partnership with Saudi Arabia to host the newly created Olympic Esports Games. By October 2025, that deal was dead. But Saudi Arabia didn’t just walk away from the Olympics; it decided to build its own version of the Games.

The Saudi-chartered Esports World Cup Foundation has launched the Esports Nations Cup, a biennial competition where gamers represent their home countries. The competition will compete directly with the Olympic Esports Games, which the IOC is still publicly committed to organizing despite the embarrassing failure of its initial effort with the Saudis.

But the real story isn’t the new esports competition, it’s the governance structure that Saudi Arabia is constructing around it and how scalable that structure is. Through a system of “National Team Partners” (entities selected and funded by Riyadh), the kingdom is establishing parallel governing bodies in countries worldwide that bypass both National Olympic Committees and existing esports federations. These partners function as mini-NOCs, appointing coaches and managing national team rosters.

The important thing is not that Saudi Arabia is creating a rival version of the Olympic Esports Games. The key insight is that there is nothing about this newly created structure that limits its application to esports. The same framework could coordinate national teams in the pentathlon, pole vault, or any other Olympic sport, and the Saudis could pay athletes for their participation, just like they are doing for the Esports Nations Cup.

Saudi Arabia learned a valuable lesson from professional golf and the dispute between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf. They learned that you don’t need the incumbent’s permission to build a viable alternative to a mature sport. Apply that lesson to the Olympics: If you can build National Team Partners for esports in about 30 countries, you’ve proven the model works. Scaling that system to encompass traditional Olympic sports becomes a question of ambition and resources, both of which Saudi Arabia has in abundance.

If Saudi Arabia succeeds in establishing a nation-based competition model for esports, they will have a blueprint for challenging the IOC’s near monopoly on international multisport competition. And if you believe in the value of competition, this is a good thing for athletes and fans worldwide.

Stuart Irvin is partner and co-chair of the Video Games and Esports group at global law firm Reed Smith, and Matt Phillips is partner in the Entertainment and Media group at Reed Smith.

• The WNBA and CBS Sports signed a long-term media rights deal that will expand its coverage to around 20 regular-season games annually on CBS and Paramount+, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp.
• Karp also writes that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is having its best start on record, with games through the second round averaging a combined 10.1 million viewers, up 7% from last year.
• The Masters and Prime Video are adding coverage around Amen Corner, Augusta National’s famed 11th, 12th and 13th holes, notes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• NFL owners are poised to award Super Bowl LXIII to Las Vegas at their annual meeting starting Sunday, marking the second time in five years that Allegiant Stadium will host the game, reports SBJ’s Ben Fischer.
• Florida-based law firm Werner, Hoffman, Greig & Garcia will be the presenting sponsor of Marlins.tv starting in 2026 as part of an expanded renewal between the sides, writes SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo.
• SBJ’s Richard Deitsch reports that multiplatinum rock and country pop recording group The Zac Brown Band will star in NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” show open.
• The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, the boxing legislation that TKO Group Holdings has supported as it launches its venture in the sport, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• A study from Performance Research and Full Circle Research reveals strong and growing interest among Americans in the FIFA World Cup 2026, with younger adults, families and urban audiences driving engagement, notes SBJ’s David Broughton.