Why major sport organisers are choosing destinations over venues

What event organisers are increasingly looking for when choosing where to take major sport is no longer just about the arena.

Organisers are looking at the whole destination – how easily athletes and fans can travel, whether there is an established audience, whether sponsors and partners can activate effectively, how supportive the host city will be and, critically, whether they trust the venue team to deliver.

Increasingly, that means looking at what surrounds the venue too.

You can see this at destinations that have hosted the Laver Cup in recent years. At Laver Cup Berlin in 2024, for example, the practice court was housed in Uber Eats Music Hall and the Fan Zone was on Uber Platz, taking the event beyond the main arena.

This year, The O2 is the same, housing the Fan Zone on Peninsula Square just outside the doors of the venue.

That wider footprint matters because major sporting events have to work for several different audiences at once. Athletes need the right performance environment, broadcasters need dependable infrastructure and production conditions, sponsors want visibility and hospitality, and fans increasingly expect an experience that goes beyond simply arriving for the match and leaving afterwards.

A successful venue is one that can bring these different requirements together without making the event more difficult to deliver.

For broadcasters in particular, the venue experience goes far beyond what happens in front of the crowd. This year’s Laver Cup was shown live across all three days by Sky Sports, underlining how much of a major sporting event’s audience now experiences it through a screen.

Connectivity, camera positions, power, lighting, rigging, access and turnaround times can all affect how easily an event is produced and distributed.

At the same time, the increasingly diverse calendar of domestic, global and touring sports presents a significant opportunity for arenas. We are seeing growing demand across sports including boxing, darts, MMA, basketball and tennis, each with different requirements and many with formats capable of returning year after year or moving between international cities.

That means expectations of venues are constantly changing. Organisers need flexible, adaptable and experienced venues that can offer much more than a competition floor. This ranges from spaces for fan engagement and press conferences, to community initiatives, hospitality, sponsor activations and events around the main competition.

This is where the destination model can become a real advantage. The arena remains the centrepiece, but the surrounding campus and city help turn a sporting fixture into something broader – an event people can spend a day around, partners can build activations around and organisers can make their own.

For venue operators, success should not only be measured by the number of major events they attract. In an increasingly competitive market, an equally important measure is how many organisers choose to come back.

Gael Caselli is SVP of Sport of AEG International