Instead of building from scratch, this NFL team is renovating—and saving $1 billion

FastCompany: In the highly competitive and profitable world of professional sports, stadium building has become an arms race. With lucrative sponsorships and naming deals on the table, and the potential jackpot of hosting an event like the Super Bowl, sports teams are scrambling for the biggest buildings, the largest screens, the flashiest private suites, and the most tech-forward fan experiences. But newer isn’t always better. For a growing number of professional sports teams and stadium operators, it’s starting to make a lot more sense to renovate their existing buildings instead of building new ones.

Often, they’re getting more out of an old building than they could have from a new one. [Rendering: courtesy HOK] The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars is one team currently in the midst of a major stadium renovation project . Located on the edge of downtown on a site both the team and the city felt was too good to lose, the 31-year-old EverBank Stadium is now under construction in a $1.4 billion renovation that will refresh the building for a full reopening in 2028.

Jaguars president Mark Lamping says the project has all the economic and sustainability benefits of not having to build a project from scratch, but dollar-for-dollar, it also gives back more than a new stadium could. “You utilize existing infrastructure. So you’re not going back and redoing utilities and big costs related to traffic and transit and parking and all those things that are not necessarily viewed as value added to the customer,” he says.

“We’re investing, you know, $1.4 billion, but a greater percentage of that $1.4 billion is going into fan-facing elements.” [Rendering: courtesy HOK] Designed by the architecture firm HOK , the project has been dubbed the Stadium of the Future, and it re-sculpts the old stadium into a curvaceous and modern facility, with wider concourses, a transparent roof canopy, more seating options, and 11 club environments. “Fundamentally it’s an ROI discussion,” says Peter Broeder, design principal of HOK’s Kansas City studio.

“Because the bones of that building were in good shape, it became about deploying capital in a way that would yield maximum value for all parties.” A new-ish design Compared to the conventional open-air bowl it’s replacing, the new stadium is a space-age capsule wrapped in a mirrored facade. It’s essentially a new shell wrapping around the steel and concrete bones of the stadium, all of which are still in good enough shape to stand for decades. “[Team owner Shad Khan] was really interested in trying to do something that made a pretty significant architectural statement for downtown Jacksonville,” Lamping says.

“We clearly wanted it to be a significant departure from what our existing stadium looks like. It’s not the same stadium with some improvements here or there. We wanted people, when they looked at it, to see and feel something that was totally different than what they had experienced in the past.” [Rendering: courtesy HOK] The new stadium also solves some of the problems that have bothered the team and its fans since the 1990s. The biggest issue: punishingly hot seats in the Florida summer sun. “It is incredibly hot inside the stadium, particularly on the east side of the stadium during the early parts of the season.

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The article discusses a significant renovation project for a major NFL team, highlighting strategic insights that are relevant to brand strategy professionals focused on cost-efficiency and community engagement.