2026 Sports Venue-Anchored Real Estate Development – Overview by League

2026 Update to RCLCO’s New Sports Venue Anchored Development Tracker

Sports continue to be a unique value driver for real estate development, increasingly serving as an anchor for mixed-use development throughout the country. RCLCO created and maintains a proprietary Venue-Anchored Development Tracker of every major league stadium in the United States and Canada to track existing, under construction, and planned venue-anchored real estate development. RCLCO’s Venue-Anchored Development Tracker includes detailed information regarding every stadium’s ownership, announced future plans, and the surrounding real estate development.

In this 3rd release of RCLCO’s development tracker, the momentum has shifted from planning to building, and the supply boom is on its way for 2028-2029:

Key Updates:

• With Jacksonville Shipyards’ first delivery in March, we now track 49 existing venue-anchored real estate development projects (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS) and a pipeline of 23 under construction and 35 planned or publicly under consideration.
  • Over the past year alone, fourteen projects previously tracked as planned or under consideration advanced into active construction. As a result, the number of projects under construction increased 130% year-over-year.
• Notable postponement and abandonment of a few pipeline projects highlight the unavoidable market realities of real estate development that these projects are subject to. However, given the broader real estate capital market headwinds slowing all development for the past several years, the number of pipeline projects that DID advance to construction this year is far better than “market typical” and demonstrates the durability and differentiation of sports-anchored real estate from typical development assets.

• Of the thirteen U.S. and Canadian World Cup 2026 host cities, more than 60% already have an existing sports venue-anchored development in-market — a preview of how intertwined major events and this asset class have become. With the upcoming Summer Olympics (Los Angeles & Oklahoma City) and Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City) on the horizon, teams and developers behind major projects in these cities are hoping to supercharge development in anticipation of these major events.