How to Build an Immersive World Inside a Sports Arena

By Skyler Mattson, Chief Executive Officer of WongDoody

Immersive experiences are no longer a nice‑to‑have, they are the new baseline for brands that want to turn passive audiences into active participants. In an era of streaming fatigue and second‑screen distraction, bringing story, tech, and venue together can create moments fans remember. A recent wave of live game activations at NBA and NHL stadiums for a hit streaming series of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge for example, showed how a well‑designed experience can turn a mid‑game timeout into a centerpiece of the franchise story.

Why immersive experiences matters now

Today’s fans expect more than a pre‑roll spot before the main event, they want to step inside a world that feels connected to the content they love. Immersive experiences whether in‑arena, at fan fests, or in‑home, blend physical space, digital layers, and narrative to create something that feels like a “universe” rather than an ad. Designed and developed correctly, they turn viewers into players, season‑ticket holders into co‑creators, and casual streamers into superfans.

For entertainment and sports brands, this is a play for emotional equity. Fans are far more likely to remember how it felt when their entire section “won” a challenge or appeared on the jumbotron than the specifics of a tagline. That’s why we are seeing more concert‑style premieres, stadium takeovers, and game‑driven activations that treat live moments as extensions of the content itself.

How to design for participation, not just spectacle

The most effective experiences share a core principle that move from “watch this” to “do this.” Instead of asking fans to sit back and consume a promo, leading entertainment and sports marketers are turning arenas, concourses, and even city blocks into playable environments.

One recent sports‑arena activation, transformed multiple pro‑game venues into live “challenge zones” based on the season two premiere of Squid Games. Fans were invited to participate in a timed game projected on the main screen, with entire sections competing for prizes and seeing the results play out in real time. The mechanics were simple with clear rules, visible stakes, and instant feedback. Yet the impact was powerful, turning a short break in the game into something people pulled out their phones to film and share.

Behind the scenes, an experienced design team orchestrated everything from crowd prompts and on‑screen graphics to in‑venue character appearances and concourse interactions. Agencies that specialize in immersive work often play the role of conductor and ensure that story, staging, and technology all reinforce the same emotional beat without overwhelming the live event. In the finished experience, the fans remember the feeling of being part of the game.

Marketers need to ask this question: What small action can fans take that mirrors the core of the story or sport, how will success and failure be visible in real time, and what physical or digital props can make that fiction feel real in‑venue?

Bridging the arena and the algorithm

Immersive experiences thrive at the intersection of “in real life” and “in device.” In the arena example above, the team didn’t just rely on crowd energy; they used existing infrastructure including scoreboards, sound, lighting, and connectivity to layer a digital challenge over the live game. Fans might press a physical buzzer, scan a QR code, or respond to a time‑based prompt, but the payoff is a synchronized, building‑wide moment that feels bigger than any single ad unit.

For marketers, the lesson is to treat the venue as a canvas, not just inventory. In a stadium, that might mean syncing content beats with in‑game breaks, integrating AR or projection mapping into player intros, or extending a series storyline into pre‑game and halftime. In and around the venue, it could be using geofenced content, fan apps, or QR‑triggered mini‑games that let fans “collect” parts of a story before, during, and after the event.

Creative and production teams routinely work with “digital twins” of arenas and theaters to prototype lighting, camera angles, and audience flow before a single fan walks through the doors. That kind of pre‑visualization is what lets experiential teams build and test complex activations, like multi‑arena challenges for streaming franchises in tight timelines, often in a matter of weeks.

Story first, technology second

In both entertainment and sports, it’s tempting to chase the latest tech buzz of AR, VR, volumetric capture, you name it. But the immersive experiences that truly stick are anchored in story, not software. The arena takeover worked because it echoed the series’ core tension and stakes; the technology simply made that feeling tactile for tens of thousands of people at once.

Effective immersive design in this space starts with three questions: What story are we telling, what emotion do we want fans to feel, and what behavior do we want them to repeat afterward?

From there, teams choose the right tools which can be projection mapping on the ice, data‑driven visualizations on the jumbotron, gamified trivia in a league app, or simple, time‑boxed challenges with real‑world rewards.

Agencies can build immersive practices that combine creative storytelling with live production, “twin” environments, and AI‑powered personalization so experiences can scale across arenas, markets, and seasons. For marketers, the takeaway is to resist building experiences around tech for its own sake. A low‑friction, high‑story moment that every fan understands will beat a complex setup that only a few people figure out.

Measuring the fan impact

Unlike a traditional 30‑second spot, immersive experiences generate rich, behavior‑level signals and participation rates by section, dwell time in an activation zone, UGC volume, and sentiment on social before and after a game. While many public case studies still foreground the creative concept over hard numbers, the underlying structures including game‑based participation, visible progression, and instant rewards make it easier to track what actually moved fans.

For marketing leaders, the metric conversation should start early. Define what success looks like. Is it higher tune‑in for a premiere or game, increased time in‑app on game days, lift in in‑venue merch sales, or growth in season‑long engagement among specific fan cohorts? Immersive experiences become most powerful when they’re tied to these business outcomes, not just awareness or “buzz.”

Ultimately, immersive design is a way of respecting fans’ time. When marketers invite them into the story, whether that’s a league narrative, a franchise universe, or a streaming world, marketers are signaling that they’re not just an audience, but a crucial part of the show. As arena‑scale activations around franchises and live events continue to evolve, the brands that win won’t necessarily be the ones with the biggest screens or budgets, but the ones that can consistently turn those screens into invitations to play.

About Skyler Mattson

Skyler is the Chief Executive Officer of WongDoody. She is passionate about helping organizations grow, transform, and create meaningful impact at the intersection of creativity, technology, AI, and customer experience.