Immersive Sound Is Logical Next Step for Sports Venues

Sound-systems suppliers are sanguine, but the market has its challenges

Updated Tuesday, January 6, 2026 – 9:11 am 

It may be a dad joke to suggest that immersive sound is all around us, but the fact is that the format, in its various incarnations and iterations, is on the rise. The overall market size of the category was $92.6 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $661.1 billion by 2032, growing at a robust rate of 24.5% over the forecast period from 2024 to 2032, according to market-research firm SNS Insider.

The live-sports market is one of the more fertile fields for that expansion, say the sound-systems suppliers, especially as Dolby Atmos and other systems continue to penetrate the broadcast side of immersive sound. However, that market has its own particular requirements.

No Cookie-Cutter Solution

Live sports will inevitably have to integrate immersive sound to some degree, simply to maintain parity with sports on television and stay even with the advanced video in the venues, according to John McMahon, SVP, Meyer Sound Labs. The company’s recently upgraded Panther line-array system at Benchmark International Arena, home to the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, now features Meyer’s Spacemap Go spatial sound-design and mixing tool for immersive audio.

The NHL’s Benchmark Arena in Tampa, FL, boasts a Meyer Sound Labs Spacemap Go and Constellation immersive system.

“I certainly believe that audio for sporting events needs to up its game and maintain the pace of development that has happened in the video space,” he says. “There is a demand there, and there’s an expectation. It’s a big topic these days.”

Although consumer interest in immersive sound is driving the format, McMahon says the actual interest is coming from venue production teams — specifically from arenas, which are enclosed spaces more readily adapted to multiple-speaker configurations that allow sound from the sides, the rear, and overhead.

Those environments do have some acoustical challenges, but the real one is scale, he says: getting the effect to as many seats as possible as evenly as possible.

“You need to get installation locations that are behind people or to the side of people,” he explains, noting that arenas “are more challenging given the geometries of these spaces. We’re not talking about a cookie-cutter solution here: the range of applications can vary from pretty simple but still immersive to extremely elaborate with all the bells and whistles.”

Immersive, McMahon adds, can add 30% or more to the cost of a conventional sound system, which already can cost more than $1 million for a large arena. That’s not due to immersive’s complexity — a typical system is still basically a distributed-type design — but rather to its scale, requiring many more speakers and their processing.

“We’re not as concerned about the venue acoustics as long as we’re able to get devices in the right spots,” he says. “It’s more the scale challenge.”

A Way To Make the Venue Stand Out

Sports venues are looking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market in which sports and entertainment are converging.

L-Acoustics’ Ross Brett: “Once the sound is as immersive as the video, they fuel each other. Immersive sound adds a lot of new possibilities.”

“It has been more about stadiums and arenas wanting to be the next big thing,” suggests Ross Brett, application project manager, sport facilities, L-Acoustics, which has been marketing its L-ISA immersive system for a variety of applications. “How can they push the boundaries into the next innovative thing? That’s what has been driving it from the stadium and arena side. Years ago, the innovation was to have line arrays, full-range concert sound, and rider-friendly performance systems; I’d say that’s now the norm. The next innovation is to push things into an immersive experience whereby you can move sound around to engage the fans and augment their experience.”

The France-based company, he says, is developing an adaptation of its L-ISA 360-degree immersive system, which has been used for music touring by Bon Iver and Lorde, for Katy Perry’s Las Vegas residency, and for special events, such as a Dua Lipa pop-up store. Sports venues are a logical next step, but getting there will require compromise with definitions of “true” immersiveness.

“It can be done,” Brett says, “but I would say that we use the word immersive a bit more guardedly, because it’s not your true immersive experience, like in a cinema or a sound production. There, we try to create this sweet spot that covers as much of the audience as possible so that everyone within that audience gets the same experience. When we take that to a stadium or an arena bowl, we change that completely: you don’t have a single sweet spot in front of the arrays and, instead, are doing some kind of spatialization or object-based movement.”

That said, he considers immersive audio of some kind an inevitable step for sound in live sports production: “the next logical step for sports sound.”

Not Everyone’s on Board

Clair Global’s Demetrius Palavos: “To make an immersive impact requires a very large number of high-powered loudspeakers to make it work, adding that many speakers is going to double the budget.”

However, enthusiasm for immersive prospects in sports venues is not universal. “I’m skeptical,” says Demetrius Palavos, VP, sports integration special projects, Clair Global, his skepticism stemming from doubt that a useful immersive effect can be created in venues as large as major-league arenas or stadiums.

“To make an immersive impact requires a very large number of high-powered loudspeakers to make it work,” he says. “If an arena [sound system] is going to cost you $3 million, adding that many speakers to create an immersive-sound system is going to double the budget.”

In addition to the capital outlay, Palavos adds that creating content to take advantage of an immersive soundfield — sound effects, music, etc. — is another ongoing cost, as well as an additional creative burden on a production staff already trying to fill massive LED screens and moving ribbon boards with engaging video. He notes the 38,000+-sq.-ft. halo board at the LA Clippers’ Intuit Dome, which he says ran the same complex game-intro content all season because of the production costs.

“If you go to a concert, it’s a one-time experience,” he points out. “But season-ticket holders are not going to want to have the same [content] experience every time they’re there. It would be the same for an immersive-sound system. [Content production] becomes an ongoing cost.”

An Opportunity To Sync Sound and Visuals

Sports venues in recent years may have focused on visual media at the expense of sonic possibilities.

“Because humans are visual creatures,” observes Nick Malgieri, director, immersive enablement, d&b audiotechnik, “it’s easier to pour resources into expanded video systems, augmented reality, drone shows, and interactive elements like wearable technology.” The Germany-based manufacturer’s flagship immersive Soundscape system is installed at the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks’ Lumen Field Stadium. Although such elements as line arrays and cardioid subwoofers have already been integrated into venues, he says, “the typical sports venue doesn’t yet have a full picture of how much the fan experience can be improved [with audio].”

The NFL’s Seattle Seahawks’ Lumen Field Stadium features a d&b audiotechnik immersive Soundscape system.

Malgieri acknowledges the content issue raised by Palavos as real but also as an opportunity. “Content providers can’t simply send normal stereo signal into Soundscape and expect it to benefit from the new capabilities,” Malgieri explains. “Content creators must produce audio content that goes beyond a simple stereo mix,” which he believes will be helped by the growing experience of immersive sound in cinema and theater.

L-Acoustics’ Brett suggests several examples of how immersive sound can be used to enhance existing venue video deployments, such as by providing synchronized sound for images. Ribbon boards, already used to create a sense of envelopment as images race around a stadium or arena, would be especially well-suited.

“Maybe they’ve got a BMW advert and a BMW driving down the ribbon board on one side of the arena,” he suggests. “You could use the immersive arrays on the other side to do the engine noise. Once the sound is as immersive as the video, they fuel each other. Immersive sound adds a lot of new possibilities.”

Manipulating Emotions

One interesting aspect of immersive live-sound systems is that, like their cinematic counterparts, they can be used to shape audience emotions. In the past, NFL stadiums have been the subject of investigations about the use of sound systems to disadvantage visiting teams, amping up crowd volume to blur opposing-quarterback cadences, such as the notorious Atlanta Falcons’ “Noisegate” contretemps in 2015. In fact, says Meyer Labs’ McMahon, that was a point raised by the NBA when his company was outlining a possible new immersive system for the Oracle Arena in San Francisco several years ago.

“The NBA had to sign off on everything we were doing,” he says, noting that the system was ultimately not implemented. “They wanted to make sure we weren’t providing an unfair advantage.”

But the upside for this capability is considerable, potentially enabling manipulation of fan emotions at a near cinematic level.

“Audio cues like thunder, chants, or music can now be orchestrated to move around the venue,” explains Justo Gutierrez, principal, sports and live experiential, Diversified, a system integrator. “This envelops the crowd in the moment to enhance emotional depth and intensity to the experience. From kickoff to halftime to overtime, immersive sound helps tell the story of the event.”