The Look Company Releases Report on Sports Experience Design

The Look Company (Seattle), a large-scale visual branding company for sports, event and retail environments, has released its inaugural The Design of Sports: How Fans and Brands are Shaping Live Sporting Events, according to a press release.

The report identifies six trends that will shape in-person sports experiences across major stadiums and arenas in North America over the coming years. As broadcast audiences shrink and social platforms become the primary venue for live sports viewing, sports executives are redesigning their experiences with phone-first plans that center on in-stadium visuals, which includes graphics and lightboxes built to be photographed in real time, and signage adapted to support a broader range of fans both physically in attendance and online.

The six trends shaping stadium and arena design are identified as follows:

• Multipurpose graphics for venues that host multiple sports: Teams are investing in displays and field-level graphics that can reconfigure between sports in a matter of hours. Modular setups, swappable turf branding, interchangeable end-zone and midfield graphics, and wraparound signage now update field markings, sponsor placements and team identities depending on the sport being played.
• Rotating sponsorships through a single physical space: Teams are rethinking in-venue graphics so one wall, banner or panel can feature multiple brands across a game, series or season. The shift is driving adoption of panels, vinyl systems and other materials that let sponsors rotate in and out without costly rebuilds.
• “Made-for-social” visuals that read on the phone, not the broadcast: Teams are responding with bolder typography and higher-contrast color palettes on logo walls, tunnel entries and seat-back graphics that are engineered to show up clearly and visibly on smaller screens.
• Building designs that engage the in-stadium audience first: Beyond coloring and typography, sports arenas are keeping social media and the expanding influencer economy front of mind as they design the physical structure and layouts of every visual. They are now leading with vertical-first framing, narrower images along walkways and photo-forward moments built for audience members holding a phone. Every fan-shared image now becomes branded content the venue didn’t pay to distribute, which turns high-traffic photo-op locations into sponsor inventory of their own.
• Marquee-level fan experiences at every game: Stadiums and their sponsors are developing graphics that flex week to week, including modular activation builds, themed concourse takeovers, temporary murals and photo-op environments that swap out between homestands. These are built to attract fans to the stadiums and create a holistic experience beyond the sporting event itself.
• Inclusive wayfinding that goes beyond ADA-compliant minimums: Venues are building multi-sensory navigation systems for neurodiverse guests, fans with visual or hearing impairments, and those managing temporary limitations or language barriers. Designs include high-contrast icon-driven signage, tactile maps, color-coded concourse zones, audio cues and sensory-friendly pathways that reduce wrong turns, assistance requests and gameday stress.

“Sports experiences now reach a much larger online audience than ever and that’s reshaping how venues design gameday,” Jacob Burke, global CEO of The Look Company, is quoted in the press release. “Visuals have to read on a phone camera, where most fans capture and share the game in real time. The teams and brands that design for that behavior will earn the most committed audiences of the next decade in sports.”

To read the full report, click here.