Tackling a New HQ

When Major League Soccer (MLS) began planning a new global headquarters in the heart of New York City, the goal was never just to build a bigger office. With the league expanding rapidly, as evidenced by early 2026 viewership up 62% year over year and 4.8 million fans attending matches through the first three months of this year's season, MLS leadership wanted a space that showcased how far the league has come while supporting its surging growth.

"It was a little bit about the right time and right place with the growth of the league,” said John Sullivan, CIO for MLS.

Through an ambitious integration of AV technology, live data, and innovative architecture, the new headquarters fosters collaboration among MLS employees, both in-office and in the field, and delivers unique experiences for visitors while using the footprint as a branding touchpoint for MLS.

"We need a place that feels like home, feels like soccer," added Sullivan. "It needs to be soccer-centric. We need collaboration. We need space for a lot of people and future-proofing growth. Technology needs to be seamlessly integrated throughout the space."

Collaboration and Innovation

The 126,000-square-foot space spans two floors and features more than 80 meeting and collaboration spaces, a Match Day Center Operations Hub, interactive digital environments, and a workplace that adopts an “office as a stadium” approach. That's evident in the tunnel-inspired entrance, the DetaiLED three-panel LED installation behind the reception desk, and ribbon LED displays that wrap around the central staircase spanning the two floors, similar to those that wrap around sports stadiums and arenas. These displays feature matchup scores and information, league news, and other MLS-branded content.

DetaiLED also supplied a large-format LED wall adjacent to the reception area, internally known as the Cup Wall. The wall displays rotating themed content celebrating MLS competitions, clubs, players, and pivotal league moments.

Another notable space is the Match Day Center Operations Hub, which serves as a centralized command center for the league. It features multiple displays that allow league staff to monitor and support all MLS operations by bringing together league operations, real-time sports data, and live camera feeds in a single location.

"We're managing games at the league level, but looking at games across the league, and they're able to manage them from one central location,” added Sullivan. The space is also equipped with Zoom capabilities, so if a venue has an issue, they can dial directly into a Zoom that is always on to get immediate support.

To bring this vision to life, MLS collaborated with technology consultant and experience designer TAD, integrator TRITECH, and immersive experience platform provider Zenapptic.ai.

TAD was brought on board due to its extensive experience designing headquarters for professional sports organizations and expertise in content design and immersive storytelling. "They knew that we had a strong background in conference spaces, but this project required bringing a sense of energy, gamesmanship, and the future of MLS through digital storytelling and an overarching technology experience, which made it the perfect job for us," said James Utterback, partner at TAD.

TAD’s approach is not to view the AV technology as a collection of independent elements, but to see that every component can work together to strengthen the league’s brand identity within the space. "TAD played a major role in designing the AV and kind of connecting the AV with the content plan and making sure the physical worked with the digital in a really kind of clean way,” added Sullivan.

This approach extended throughout the headquarters, with conference rooms, executive spaces, public gathering areas, and collaboration environments all emphasizing the league’s brand identity while remaining highly functional. "Every display is an opportunity to do both," Utterback explained, referring to balancing collaboration with storytelling.

Vision to Integration

TRITECH was engaged as the integration partner to manage the various technology components while ensuring a consistent user experience. But TRITECH’s role extended beyond basic installation.

"TRITECH's role spanned the lifecycle of the project," said Mark Vitt, EVP at TRITECH. "It included systems engineering, infrastructure adaptation, procurement and project management, on-site installation and hardware integration, long-term maintenance, and continuing operational support."

The large-scale technology ecosystem throughout the headquarters includes Apple TV, Neat conferencing bars, Samsung commercial displays, DetaiLED displays, Sharp NEC video walls, Shure ceiling microphones, BrightSign media players, and additional equipment from Q-SYS, AVPro Edge, Extron, Lightware, NETGEAR, and Yealink.

A consistent experience was prioritized, regardless of room size or function. This philosophy carried over into the integration. "Systems are programmed to respond identically, regardless of room type," Vitt explained. "For example, the rate of audio volume on the touchpanel is the same whether in a large, multi-purpose room or in a small conference room. Speaker, camera, microphone, and display placement are similar or identical within each room." This provides a standardized interface that reduces training time and supports functionality within these spaces.

As the technology was being installed, the team needed to solve several sophisticated engineering challenges, with three of the most challenging occurring at the Boardroom, Stadium Rings, and Match Day Center Operations Hub. "The Boardroom contains voice lift, auto framing, a large video wall, and a simple user control system," Vitt said. "Multi-use spaces with simple GUIs can be complex at times."

For the Stadium Rings, extensive coordination was required among multiple trades, given the location across multiple floors and the mirrored ceiling. Unlike a conventional video wall, the Stadium Rings had to be built into the architecture, and careful consideration was required to ensure precise alignment and proper sightlines. Given the mirrored ceiling, careful attention had to be paid to reflections and display positioning to ensure a proper viewing experience.

TAD and TRITECH also considered future-proofing the space, with TRITECH sharing best practices from its engineering and installation teams, including additional infrastructure beyond project requirements. "TRITECH had the foresight to add additional category cable in critical places, although unspecified and at no cost to MLS,” Vitt added.

Integrated Content

For immersive content, Zenapptic.ai was brought in to help integrate content from multiple MLS sources, enabling visuals to update automatically throughout the network. The system continuously refreshes league information, rosters, schedules, branding, and other content across headquarters.

"We were tied into four, five or six different sources of content controlled by MLS," said Dave Fitzgerald, head of business development at Zenapptic.ai. "Somebody could have been traded from Denver to Chicago overnight, and that would be reflected ... almost immediately as soon as they made the update."

Fitzgerald estimates that 80-90% of the content is real time, with only welcome messaging and targeted campaign takeovers using scheduled content.

The framework relies on reusable templates populated with existing league data rather than requiring new creative for each update. "All of the concepts we put forth were drawing on the vast databases of information that they're already putting out," Utterback explained.

And because MLS owns all the underlying data, the league can easily control the content itself. "They have a very easy interface to be able to drag and drop new information and link new data up to any of the screens that are in the facility,” said Fitzgerald.

For MLS, the success of this new headquarters, now and in the future, won’t be measured by the number of displays or the volume of data flowing throughout the building. The most important factor is how employees engage with it on a daily basis.

The guiding principle throughout the project was ensuring that everything works seamlessly together. "You want the technology to become invisible. That's when you know technology works," Sullivan said. "The biggest thing is that it all just works. And that makes me proud."