SBJ Unpacks: The modular revolution

Tonight in Unpacks: As teams and leagues dive deeper into events, they’re increasingly turning to modular designs over existing structures, giving them far more creativity and flexibility for such builds, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick in this week’s magazine.

Also tonight:

• PS&E, Range team to grow Fever, Pacers, Fieldhouse District brands
• Four teams turn to NHL for local production
• World Cup ‘exceeded’ Fox Sports’ expectations
• Op-ed: Why the future of pro football belongs under cover

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour discusses Michigan AD Warde Manuel’s decision to step down at the end of the year, the NHL becoming the latest league to get into local game telecasts, Commissioner Greg Sankey saying the SEC is holding discussions about breaking away from the NCAA and more.

Stepping into the air-conditioned Legends Lounge at Kansas City’s FIFA World Cup Fan Festival on a hot June day was a blessing.

The neatly appointed structure featured faux-hardwood floors, assorted greenery accenting the seating spaces, and a two-story atrium whose natural light illuminated glass cases containing the Kansas City Chiefs’ two Super Bowl trophies.

Another two-level structure sat adjacent, connected by a walkway. Its open-air second floor afforded sweeping views of the fan festival’s main viewing area and the stage, which featured performances by Flo Rida and the Chainsmokers or hordes of orange-clad Dutch fans.

What almost no one who bought access to the Legends Lounge would know was that weeks before, the very kit of parts that made that two-part edifice in Kansas City had been assembled to create a mega yacht at the F1 Miami Grand Prix, a massive multilevel premium space that would look right at home on the waters of Biscayne Bay.

Or that weeks after the K.C. fan festival ended, the structure’s components would be on the move again, this time to Queens for the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, where it will become a three-story ESPN production facility.

Temporary and modular structures’ importance to the sports industry has grown in tandem with the expansion of sports teams’ businesses and the mega events they now regularly host. The products being used to build temporary and modular structures are growing in sophistication and, in the case of interior finishes, luxury. These days, most fans would be hard-pressed to differentiate between temporary and permanent structures.

The industry’s creations range from 4Topps’ movable loge seating product — consisting of four chairs, a table and a floor plate (oh, and table hooks for purses) — to the 50-foot-tall F1 Super Yacht, to the 34,000-seat cricket stadium on Long Island, maybe the largest, temporary stadium ever created.

These structures are helping the sports industry achieve key goals, across all levels.

Already a longtime fixture of sports marketing activations, the temporary and modular structures market is supporting a modern sports industry in which teams have become sports and entertainment platforms and are hosting more major events not related to their core sport. Think Hard Rock Stadium, with the Miami Open tennis tournament and the F1 race, and leagues that annually produce one-off spectacle events, such as a baseball game at a rural NASCAR track.

These structures are enabling once-a-year events, such as open-wheel racing and golf and tennis tournaments, to level up their offering and capture more of fans’ seemingly unstoppable premium demand.

They’re helping college athletics cope — quickly and cheaply — with the sudden and desperate revenue hole it’s facing, while creating new naming-rights inventory. These concepts are assisting budding franchises and leagues in getting off the ground, such as USL club Lexington SC’s completely modular stadium.

Even as the finishes grow nicer, the beauty of these structures remains: They’re still just a kit of parts, possessing all the flexibility the sports world needs.

16th Hole Coliseum at WM Phoenix Open

4Topps Pop-Up Loge Box

M&T Bank Stadium’s The Flockyard

Courtside Sandbar at the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid

Grand Prix of Arlington’s Over-Track Suites

MetLife Stadium’s World Cup Seating Stand Conversion

Nassau County International Cricket Stadium

Ohio Stadium South End Zone Premium Seating

Super Yacht at F1 Miami Grand Prix

PGA Championship Satellite Merchandise Store

University of Texas Baseball Pop-Up Party Patio

Pacers Sports & Entertainment has aligned with Range Sports to capitalize on the gravitas of its WNBA and NBA franchises and its burgeoning entertainment district, as it continues to organically turn a traditionally smaller market town into a larger one.

Range Sports -- a representation, marketing and production agency -- will identify commercial partnerships for PS&E’s mixed-use Fieldhouse District, in concert with PS&E’s in-house global partnerships team. It will also leverage PS&E’s novel Fieldhouse Media Network -- and its systematic advertising through keywords such as Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell and Tyrese Haliburton -- to deliver expanded market presence for would-be clients.

In addition, Range’s experiential marketing arm will ideate live fan activations inside the under-construction Indiana Fever Sports Performance Center, consistent with the “make everyone a fan” mission statement prioritized by PS&E CEO Mel Raines.

As part of the exclusive arrangement that is already underway, Range Sports will not partner with any other WNBA and NBA franchises during the course of the multiyear deal.

“We are wildly selective about who we represent as we truly believe in ‘disciplined prioritization’ relative to our clients,” said Greg Luckman, co-president of Range Sports. “And our entire firm is fiercely committed to this long-term, mutually beneficial partnership with PS&E.”

The deal was conceived in-house, a full year in the making. Joey Graziano, PS&E’s EVP and Chief Commercial Officer, and Flint Reilly, head of partnership at Range Sports, are both former NBA employees who reconnected and brought Luckman into the discussion. Range had already been repping the Fever to expand its media distribution opportunities -- complex considering Clark had them on national TV almost every game -- and so Luckman and Reilly flew to Indianapolis to begin expanded talks.

“Our larger thesis is around market expansion, that in this era of data, digital and earned media, there are no longer big and small markets,” Graziano said. “…And in order to be able to help bring that to the world, you need a partner who’s having conversations globally. What Range is doing for us is they are connecting us with partners and markets that otherwise may not have thought of us first.

“We needed to have a global agency who’s thinking about our city and our teams and our larger entertainment and real estate business from the largest lens possible. And so that’s what they’re doing.”

Range has exactly that -- a range of capabilities. Its women’s client base includes athletes such as Gabby Thomas and Ilona Maher; teams and leagues such as Gotham FC, LOVB, and Athlos; and various musicians, actors, directors, showrunners, chefs, digital creators and corporations. Range also combines an in-house premium film & TV studio with a commercial production arm, which also appealed to a PS&E organization that exudes content and is ubiquitous on social media.

“We immediately recognized PS&E was exactly the kind of innovative, disruptive, and ambitious partner that Range Sports was built for,’’ Luckman said. “And we are fired up for the future together.”

The Blue Jackets, Blues, Hurricanes and Wild are turning to the NHL’s newly created centralized production arm for their local telecasts beginning in 2026-27 following the closure of the Main Street Sports Group-operated regional networks that previously carried their games. Additional teams could join before the start of the season, with the Ducks a potential candidate after informing local streaming partner Victory+ of their intent to terminate the relationship.

The move is supported by a high-seven- to low-eight-figure investment in the league’s in-house content and media arm, NHL Productions, over the next three seasons. The expansion of the production unit will enable the league to provide clubs with comprehensive services including live game production, studio and shoulder programming, advanced graphics and replay capabilities and technical and engineering support.

The league-wide effort has been led by President of Events and Content Steve Mayer and Chief Media Officer David Proper. The NHL has also hired former MLB Network President Rob McGlarry as GM of Local Media to help oversee the new local-production operation.

Though the NHL’s centralized production initiative was prompted by the erosion of a traditional local broadcast model that delivered annual eight-figure rights fees to some clubs, league executives believe it will improve the telecasts and help teams monetize them more effectively by giving clubs greater control over advertising inventory.

“When you control all of the different aspects of the production and the sales, what you have the ability to do -- market, promote and sell -- becomes infinitely better,” said NHL President of Business Keith Wachtel.

The NHL is following a precedent set by MLB, which began producing and distributing local Padres telecasts in 2023 and now handles local broadcasts for 14 teams. The NBA is also moving toward greater centralization, with Commissioner Adam Silver saying last week that he expects his league to launch an aggregated streaming hub for local broadcasts in time for the 2027-28 season.

The NHL, by contrast, is offering production support while allowing clubs to pursue market-specific distribution models.

“You hear the other leagues talking about doing national products and so on and so forth,” Proper said. “Our main goal right now is to maintain as much flexibility as we can so that as the market matures and we start to understand what the future really holds, then we can react very quickly.”

Under the NHL’s centralized production model, teams will pay the league to cover the baseline cost of producing their local telecasts while retaining all revenue from distribution and advertising inventory they control. The NHL will bear the cost of building out the shared production infrastructure, including personnel, technology and innovation that can be deployed across markets.

“Even teams that aren’t taking advantage of it have been very supportive of us building this out,” Proper said. “They understand the strategic value of having this capability existing within the league office.”

Distribution models: The NHL’s production support is not tied to any particular distribution model, meaning even teams that remain with their existing RSNs could potentially take advantage of the league’s production capabilities. In the case of the four former Main Street clubs, the NHL is helping them develop market-specific plans. That support includes negotiating direct distribution agreements with pay-TV providers to preserve linear availability, as well as pursuing streaming and over-the-air partnerships.

None of the four former Main Street teams have finalized distribution plans for 2026-27. The Blues, Hurricanes and Wild said they are prioritizing agreements with pay-TV providers as their primary means of distribution while also planning to offer a streaming option. Executives with the Blues and Wild said they expect to make a handful of games available over the air. A Hurricanes spokesperson said the club is hopeful for some over-the-air distribution, though that remains uncertain. A Blue Jackets spokesperson said the team is “exploring a number of options but aren’t ready to share specifics at this time.”

“There’s a lot of different factors that go into what decision a team ultimately makes, but we’re trying to make our products as accessible as possible while also trying to drive revenue so that we can compete and challenge for the Stanley Cup,” Blues Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer Steve Chapman said. He added that agreements with pay-TV providers currently appear more lucrative than an entirely over-the-air model.

Ad sales: In addition to supporting clubs on distribution, the league is helping them determine whether to build their ad-sales operations internally, use outside agencies or adopt a hybrid approach. Wild CRO Mitch Helgerson said the team has hired two dedicated representatives to sell advertising across its local television and radio broadcasts. The Blues are also adding personnel and evaluating outside sales partners.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is for agency buyers to know that if somebody wants to buy Wild hockey game advertising, they’re going to the club now in lieu of an RSN,” Helgerson said.

Playfly Sports, which packages and sells local sports advertising inventory across the NHL, NBA and MLB to national brands, is among the outside agencies being considered by the Blues and Wild.

While taking control of ad sales represents a major transition for clubs, it also gives them an opportunity to make better use of that inventory. Teams can now incorporate media assets from their local telecasts -- whether they’re traditional commercial spots or branded broadcast integrations -- directly into sponsorship packages, complementing the digitally enhanced dashboard inventory they already sell.

“The obvious thing, which you’ve never been able to do, is package very valuable media assets -- enhancements, features, vignettes, whatever it may be -- into your partnership deals,” Wachtel said. “That’s always something that is incredibly valuable that clients and media agencies are looking for: tangible media assets.”

As more clubs gain control of their local advertising inventory, the NHL could eventually aggregate that media into league-level sponsorship deals. Wachtel believes the NHL would need access to inventory from roughly 12 to 13 teams before seriously pursuing a broader national sales strategy.

Production capabilities: Mayer believes NHL-produced telecasts will improve the viewing experience for fans of participating clubs. Local broadcasts will more consistently incorporate technology used on national telecasts, including NHL Edge puck- and player-tracking data. The league-produced telecasts will also feature a uniform graphics package, new music and additional handheld, robotic and point-of-view cameras.

Mayer sees an opportunity to incorporate more league-wide coverage rather than maintaining a strictly local focus.

“We want to make sure that the Minnesota Wild are talking about the NHL, the stars of the league,” Mayer said. “Many times, we find that these broadcasts are local in nature. We’re going to try to nationalize them a bit.”

The NHL also intends to begin providing content and event production services to third parties, taking advantage of core competencies built up by Mayer over the past decade to generate additional revenue. Live production could be a part of that offering, particularly as streamers without in-house live production capabilities increasingly carry one-off sports and entertainment events.

“All those streamers except for Amazon probably do not have the capabilities to produce,” Mayer said. “So, if we’re ever in that situation, we’re ready to go. Put us in, coach. We’re willing and ready to produce for any of those entities as well.”

The final numbers aren’t in yet for the FIFA World Cup final, but Mike Mulvihill told SBJ the tournament “exceeded” expectations from an audience perspective, with the biggest games pushing NFL playoff numbers.

“I don’t know that anybody fully expected that coming in,” said Mulvihill, Fox Sports’ president of insights and analytics. “We knew that this was going to be tremendously successful, but I think it surpassed even our most bullish expectations.”

Surprising numbers came early in the tournament as well. While games involving teams like the U.S., Mexico, England, Portugal, Spain, Argentina and France were expected to do well, Mulvihill notes his most notable shockers came from teams like Haiti, Cabo Verde and Scotland, which drew bigger-than-expected audiences in the group stage.

Also surprising was the audience retention after all three host countries lost in the round of 16.

Fox had a streaming strategy for this World Cup, something quite different than four years ago, and fans embraced the new service. “Signups for Fox One have exceeded all expectations during the tournament,” Mulvihill said.

Staying hydrated

Much of the discussion around World Cup hydration breaks focused on the added revenue opportunity for Fox, especially for Sunday’s final with a big audience expected.

During Spain-Argentina, Powerade (distributed by FIFA Tier 1 partner Coca-Cola) was listed as the sponsor for the hydration breaks in the full screen before and after ads. The hydration break in each half featured the picture-in-picture approach, with an ad taking up the larger box to the lower right and live action from the stadium in the smaller box to the upper left.

A Fox Sports logo bumper ran before and after the three ads in the first half and four ads in the second. The first-half ads were for Bank of America, Dove and Adidas. The second half ads were for Verizon, Lay’s, Michelob Ultra and The Home Depot. The BofA, Lay’s and Home Depot ads all featured David Beckham, while Lionel Messi was featured in the Mich Ultra ad with Billy Bob Thornton. Timothée Chalamet was in the Adidas commercial, and the cast of “Austin Powers” was in the Verizon ad.

Mulvihill told SBJ there was “no significant loss of audience” when hydration breaks came on during the tournament, regardless of whether the game went to full-screen ads or picture-in-picture. “The audience behavior was very much in line to what we see in traditional commercial breaks across all of our relationships,” he said.

What’s next?

Sunday’s game marked the end of Fox’s (and Telemundo’s) deal for the World Cup rights in the U.S. Fox Sports President and Executive Producer Brad Zager told SBJ the company is interested in bidding for the next iterations of the event in 2030 and 2034, even though questions persist on what the tournament will look like (perhaps with 64 teams). Fox joins NBCU and ESPN in publicly acknowledging their interest in bidding for the World Cup. Netflix and Prime Video are also likely to take a look at the rights.

Regarding Fox’s tenure as the rights holder for the men’s event dating back to 2018, Mulvihill feels the company has been a “good steward” for soccer’s growth in the U.S.

“I hope that FIFA recognizes that we played a significant role in bringing the game to where it is today,” he said. “Whatever the future holds, I think Fox is always going to be a major supporter of soccer in America.”

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Something has shifted in how stadium decisions get made. A decade ago, the roof debate was largely aesthetic; outdoor purists versus comfort maximizers, tradition versus technology. Today, it is something more concrete: A roof is increasingly the price of admission to the events that define a franchise’s ambition.

The modern mega-event calendar of Super Bowls, Final Fours, NCAA championships, World Cup matches and Olympic ceremonies doesn’t just favor enclosed venues. It increasingly requires them. Organizing bodies selecting host cities are evaluating controllable conditions, extended programming windows and the ability to guarantee broadcast-quality experiences regardless of weather. An open-air stadium in a climate-challenged market simply cannot compete for that calendar. Owners and cities have absorbed this logic, which is why every major NFL franchise that has built or broken ground on a new stadium in the past decade has included a roof or retractable coverage — with one exception.

The economic case

The financial argument follows directly from the programming one. Naming rights deals at nine-figure values over multi-decade terms are not being written against eight home games a year. They are written against a facility capable of hosting concerts, award shows, championship events and international fixtures year-round. SoFi Stadium’s activation calendar, which includes Super Bowl LVI, WrestleMania, the CFP National Championship, eight 2026 FIFA World Cup matches and the 2028 Olympics opening ceremony is what justifies a naming-rights deal worth more than $600 million. That calendar is only possible under a roof.

Construction cost is the legitimate counterargument, and any architect who dismisses it isn’t serving their client. A roof adds hundreds of millions in capital outlay. These are real numbers that require genuine financing strategies. But as the stadium-building cycle of the 2020s demonstrates, private capital is increasingly willing to fund enclosed venues when the revenue case is sound. The question ownership groups are now asking isn’t whether they can afford a roof. It’s whether they can afford not to have one.

The climate calculus

Climate is also accelerating the decision. In October 2024, an NFL game at Levi’s Stadium saw fans flee uncovered upper decks to escape 100-degree-plus heat. Some collapsed; others were treated for heatstroke. The previous hottest game at that venue had been 88 degrees. That episode is not an outlier; it is a preview. It speaks directly to the constraint open-air venues in warm climates increasingly face: dangerous early-season heat, weather-driven attendance disruption and an event calendar that simply cannot be filled.

The systemic risk is larger still. A 2024 analysis of all 30 NFL stadiums projected $11 billion in cumulative climate-related losses by midcentury, with annual losses from natural hazards increasing by $117 million across the league by 2050. MetLife Stadium alone was projected to face $5.65 billion in cumulative losses from coastal flooding and storm surge; a figure that exceeds its estimated replacement cost. Southern, low-elevation venues face the highest hazard concentrations, but the risk is not static. As the analysis noted, places currently unimpacted will become affected as conditions shift. Geography no longer reliably solves the weather problem. A covered venue is increasingly the only architecture that makes a franchise competitive across the full event calendar, and the full horizon of climate exposure.

The civic dividend

The civic argument may be the most underappreciated. Mega-events don’t just fill the bowl; they catalyze the district around it. The pattern around SoFi, Allegiant and the stadiums now in planning is consistent: hotels, transit investment, mixed-use development, public realm improvements built around a year-round anchor. The enclosed venue becomes the economic armature around which cities and private developers build for decades.

There is also a resilience argument that ownership groups are only beginning to factor in. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell committed every club stadium as a vaccination site. The enclosed, climate-controlled facility represents a categorically different civic asset than an open-air venue that sits idle during a heat emergency or hurricane. As cities negotiate public contributions to stadium financing, that distinction carries real weight.

Tradition, resolved

The romance of outdoor football is real, and not every tradition needs to change. Lambeau Field’s weather exposure is part of its legend, and its non-coastal location shields it from many of the hazards facing Southern venues. Not every market faces the same risk profile.

But the convergence of market intelligence, climate risk, and event-calendar competition is arriving at the same conclusion across the industry. Every major NFL franchise that has built or broken ground in the past decade has included a roof. That isn’t coincidence; it is a collective risk assessment made visible in steel and glass. The game is moving indoors because the evidence — economic, climatic and civic — all points the same way.

Kirk Funkhouser is a principal in Gensler’s Sports Practice Group.

• TMRW Sports hired industry veteran Brendan Donohue to become its first president of flag football, where he will lead the company’s professional flag football league along with the NFL, writes reports SBJ’s Ben Fischer.
• Oklahoma City selected the design of local artist Matt Goad for the main concourse floor at Continental Coliseum, the future home of the Thunder that opens ahead of the 2028-29 NBA season, writes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• McCormick also writes that the Mavericks hired Legends Global as their owners’ representative for the team’s upcoming arena construction project.
• The Dynamo are the first club to sell MLS’s new back-of-kit logo placement as a standalone sponsorship asset, striking a multiyear deal with Dude Wipes, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• Vanderbilt signed a jersey patch deal with SRM Concrete that will feature the company’s logo on all 17 of its varsity sports uniforms, notes SBJ’s Ben Portnoy.
• RAJ Sports signed a wide-ranging sponsorship with AI-infused customer data platform Treasure AI that will include assets and technology deployments with the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and WNBA’s Portland Fire, reports SBJ’s Rob Schaefer.
• Soccer media and culture company Footballco has moved into the services side of its business by acquiring a controlling stake in K.C.-based creative and production agency Starting Eleven, writes SBJ’s Irving Mejia-Hilario.