Learn how Ross Video’s unified production ecosystem helps sports venues increase sponsorship revenue by enabling premium activations, full-venue takeovers, and data-driven branded moments.
Sports venue sponsors don’t want placements anymore. They want moments.
They want to own the touchdown celebration, with every screen flashing their colors, every speaker pumping their audio sting, every light in the bowl synchronized to create an experience 60,000 fans will remember. They want their brand tied to the emotional peaks of the game, not rotating in the background during a timeout.
The venues that can deliver these moments are commanding premium sponsorship rates in a market that’s set to surge in value from $60 billion today to $130 billion by 2033. The venues that can’t compete on price for commodity inventory.
The difference usually comes down to infrastructure. Most venues have plenty of LED displays and video boards. What they lack is a unified production system that can coordinate all of those assets in real time—triggering synchronized activations across every screen, speaker, and lighting fixture with the precision that premium sponsorships require.
Ross Video’s unified sports venue production ecosystem changes that equation. By bringing LED content management, graphics, switching, and venue control together into one integrated platform, Ross Video enables venues to transform every display into premium sponsor inventory and every big moment into a revenue opportunity.
The sponsorship revenue gap (and how to close it)
The sponsorship opportunity in sports is massive and is expected to double over the next seven years. For venues, sponsorship represents a critical revenue line—often 20% or more of total team revenues in major leagues like the NFL.
But there’s a gap between what sponsors want and what most venues can deliver.
Sponsors have seen what’s possible at venues like SoFi Stadium and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They’ve watched full-venue takeovers where a brand dominates every pixel in the building. They know the difference between a logo rotation and an experience. And they understand that tying their brand to these invaluable memories makes them sticky and helps to drive revenue.
Because of all that, increasingly, sponsors are asking their venue partners: “Can you do that for us?”
Kevin Cottam, VP of Global Sports and Entertainment at Ross Video, has watched this evolution unfold across hundreds of deployments. “There’s a lot of standard sponsorship opportunities in venue,” he explains. “Ribbon boards, static signage, digital rotations—anybody can kind of do that. That’s just digital signage.”
The venues capturing premium dollars, he explains, are the ones offering something more—synchronized, contextual activations that tie sponsors to the moments fans care about most.
Ross Video’s unified sports venue technology suite makes these activations possible—transforming the entire venue into a coordinated revenue platform rather than a collection of disconnected screens.
Watch how the Minnesota Vikings are setting the standard for NFL fan experiences with Ross Video.
Premium activation types Ross technology enables
Ross’ integrated ecosystem unlocks sponsorship capabilities that fragmented systems simply can’t deliver. Here’s what becomes possible.
Full-venue takeovers
With DashBoard, Ross Video’s unified venue control software, operators can trigger synchronized activations across every display in the bowl and concourse with a single command. A sponsor’s brand dominates every screen simultaneously, putting them on the main video board, the ribbon displays, the concourse screens, even the IPTV feeds to premium suites.
This kind of coordination is impossible when LED, audio, lighting, and graphics run on separate platforms. With Dashboard, it’s a single button press.
At Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the production team uses DashBoard to create what they call a “sports bar” configuration before kickoff—showing action from multiple games around the league on the massive Halo board. This creative use of unified control encourages fans to arrive earlier, increases concession sales during the pre-game window, and creates entirely new sponsorship opportunities that didn’t exist before.
DashBoard Venue Control software at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia
Branded celebrations
The most valuable moments in any game are the emotional peaks—the touchdown, the goal, the walk-off home run. Ross Video technology enables venues to turn these moments into premium sponsor inventory.
When the home team scores, a single trigger can fire synchronized graphics across every display, shift the lighting to sponsor colors, play a custom audio sting, and queue instant replays—all in perfect sync, all within seconds of the play. The sponsor owns the celebration, and fans associate that brand with the best moment of the game.
Data-driven branded content
Modern sports broadcasts are rich with real-time data on everything from player speeds and distances covered to shot probabilities and historical comparisons. Ross Video’s data integration capabilities allow venues to turn this information into sponsor inventory.
XPression graphics with Datalinq integration can automatically populate on-air graphics with real-time data from official sports providers, creating “brought to you by” moments that feel native to the game story.
“We can take all their stats very quickly and say, ‘This guy ran so far this game,’ and it’s brought to you by Gatorade,” Kevin explains. “There are a lot of different ways our system can be used to bring in more sponsorship opportunities.”
This creates new inventory without adding physical signage. Every data point becomes a potential sponsor surface, adding an element of storytelling to the game itself.
Virtual and persistent graphics
PIERO, Ross Video’s sports analysis graphics platform, enables sponsor branding layered directly into the on-field visual experience. Virtual down-and-distance lines can carry sponsor logos. Persistent graphics can appear on the playing surface throughout the broadcast. These virtual elements create sponsorship opportunities beyond the traditional ribbon board inventory.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, for example, are already using PIERO specifically for sponsorship activations—treating a sports analysis tool as a revenue generator, not just a production enhancement.
See how the Saskatchewan Roughriders are using PIERO for in-venue sponsorship activations
Interactive fan experiences
DashBoard’s custom control panels enable interactive games and fan participation moments that become sponsorable segments in their own right.
Kevin points to an activation the Pittsburgh Pirates created as an example.
“It’s called Super Bucco Run. It’s a field-level display where participants run along the display, jump, and hit blocks to release coins. The experience is sponsor-backed, and at the time, it was a pretty unique concept that hadn’t really been done before.”
These interactive experiences create sponsor inventory that didn’t exist a couple of decades ago. With Ross Video’s unified control, they’re executable without custom engineering for every activation.
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The sports venue technology that makes it possible
Ross Video’s ability to enable premium sponsorship activations stems from an integrated ecosystem where every component is designed to work together. Here’s how the pieces fit.
XPression Tessera: massive canvas for premium moments
XPression Tessera drives pixel-accurate content to LED displays of virtually any size or resolution, creating limitless virtual canvases for high-impact branded content.
At SoFi Stadium, XPression Tessera engines work in synchronized harmony to power the LED cabinets on top of the roof. Every pixel on this massive surface becomes potential sponsor inventory, and Tessera ensures that content renders in real time with broadcast-quality precision.
XPression Tessera being used to drive exclusive branded moments on the roof of SoFi Stadium
PIERO: sponsor-ready sports analysis
PIERO provides real-time sports analysis graphics—like down-and-distance lines, player tracking overlays, tactical analysis—that double as sponsorship inventory. Virtual graphics create new advertising surfaces without physical signage, and the integration with Ross Video’s broader ecosystem means these elements can be triggered and coordinated alongside every other venue system.
Data integration with Datalinq
Ross Video’s Datalinq technology connects XPression directly to official sports data providers, enabling real-time stats to populate graphics automatically. “Brought to you by” moments that once required manual input now fire instantly as data arrives, keeping pace with live game action and creating sponsor opportunities that feel native to the broadcast.
The return on the sports venue technology investment
The business case for unified production technology is proven across Ross Video-powered venues.
Industry benchmarks suggest that well-planned venue technology investments yield $1.50 to $2.00 in new revenue for every $1.00 spent. Teams consistently report 5% to 15% revenue increases across tickets, concessions, and sponsorship after major production upgrades. And critically, fan experience investments show higher ROI than simply adding seating capacity—better experiences drive spending in ways that more seats alone cannot.
The results from Ross Video deployments reflect these benchmarks and often exceed them.
- Mercedes-Benz Stadium uses Ross’s unified control to create experiences that drive both fan engagement and sponsor value. The venue’s integrated systems enable creative activations like the pre-game multi-game display configuration, encouraging early arrival, boosting concession revenue, and creating new pre-kickoff sponsor inventory.
- Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Braves, became the first MLB venue to deploy a complete Unified Venue Control solution from Ross. Content for all 32 LED screens is rendered in real-time and pixel-accurate using eight channels of XPression.
- SoFi Stadium secured $400 million in sponsorship commitments before hosting a single event, with technology capabilities serving as a key differentiator in sponsor conversations. After opening, the LA Rams reported that sponsors saw double-digit increases in fan engagement with their activations compared to the previous venue.
The payback math on this investment is straightforward.
Best in-class venues achieve payback on their investment faster than those with traditional LED screens. And when unified control enables premium activation capabilities like full-venue takeovers, branded celebrations, data-driven moments, the payback accelerates further as sponsors pay premium rates for inventory that commodity systems can’t deliver.
One ecosystem, one partner—the Ross Video advantage
The thread running through every Ross Video deployment is integration. Rather than piecing together components from multiple vendors—each with their own protocols, their own control systems, their own limitations—Ross delivers a unified ecosystem where every element is designed to work together.
For venue operators focused on revenue, this integration translates directly to increased capabilities, and broader—and more valuable—sponsorship offers.
“It’s a bigger toolbox,” Kevin explains, “to be able to come up with new ideas for sponsorships.”
And the business model scales. Ross Video right-sizes solutions for venues of all sizes—the same revenue-generating capabilities that power SoFi Stadium and Mercedes-Benz Stadium can be adapted for college arenas, minor league ballparks, and regional facilities.
The core value proposition remains the same regardless of scale. Production technology isn’t a cost center—it’s a revenue platform. Ross Video helps venues move from commodity inventory (placements) to premium inventory (moments). The result is higher sponsorship rates, stronger renewals, and faster payback on technology investments.
Transform your venue into a revenue platform
Sponsors are asking for more than placements. They want moments—synchronized, emotional, data-driven activations that tie their brands to the game’s peaks. The venues that can deliver these experiences are commanding premium rates and building lasting partnerships. Those who can’t are competing on price.
Ross Video’s unified production ecosystem enables venues to meet sponsor expectations, transforming every screen, every display, and every system into a coordinated, revenue-generating platform. The technology is proven. The ROI case is clear. The question is whether your venue is ready to capture the premium dollars.
Ready to transform your venue into a revenue-generating platform? Contact Ross Video to discuss how unified production technology can help you unlock premium sponsorship revenue.