Richmond Flying Squirrels x CARMAX Park
Selling a stadium before it existed
Overview
When the Richmond minor league baseball team, the Flying Squirrels needed to drive premium-suite sales before their new CarMax Park stadium opened, traditional tools weren’t enough. Renderings explained the vision, but they didn’t create belief.
We transformed a two-bedroom apartment into an immersive Preview Center designed to simulate suite culture, hospitality, and game-day energy, giving prospects a tangible reason to say yes sooner.
Role:
Creative Brand Manager
ProjectType:
Experiential Sales Environment
Client:
Richmond Flying Squirrels
Timeline:
Summer 2025
Selling premium experiences for a stadium that didn’t exist yet required more than information, it required belief.
The Challenge
The Insight
When the product isn’t built, confidence becomes the product.
Transform an ordinary apartment into an immersive Preview Center that made the future feel undeniably real.
The Idea
From This
To This
My Role
• Partnered directly with Flying Squirrels leadership to identify key pain points, operational constraints, and non-negotiables shaping the Preview Center experience.
• Led a research phase analyzing successful stadium preview environments (including SoFi Stadium and Nissan Stadium) to understand how immersive spaces accelerate premium sales successfully.
• Used AI-driven visual exploration to rapidly prototype spatial concepts and experiential moments. (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini)
• Partnered with an experience designer to translate strategy into tangible design directions, providing the client with a clear framework to guide the buildout of the space.
The CARMAX Park Preview Center became the bridge, converting an empty apartment into a tangible vision of premium baseball in Richmond.
Explaining the Future isn’t “Easy”
Existing tools could outline the vision, but they rarely gave buyers the confidence to move forward. People were being asked to invest in something they couldn’t stand inside yet.
How can we help people see the Brands Vision?
I centered the work around one question:
What creates genuine readiness in a buyer?
In sports, it isn’t information, in this case it’s emotional certainty. Harvard Business Review notes that emotionally connected consumers are 52% more valuable than those who are simply satisfied.
By replacing static data with immersive moments, we shifted the experience from “I understand it” to
“I’m ready for it.”
Making Immersion Make Sense to Leadership
This work was directly tied to premium sales performance, and skepticism was fair. I had to translate experiential thinking into business logic, showing how immersion could shorten conversations and reduce hesitation more effectively than any other brochure ever could. All without losing the existing brand legacy the Squirrels had built for decades.
Industry benchmarks from premium seating consultancies (e.g., Legends, Advent) indicate that immersive sales centers drive a 22–34% increase in premium sales.
Once leadership aligned around the strategy, the next step was translating emotional certainty into a physical environment. Every decision inside the Preview Center was designed to help buyers imagine themselves inside the future stadium.
Designing For Belief
The entry hallway immediately established the emotional tone. Lighting, messaging, and spatial compression were used to build anticipation before a single sales conversation began. The space also featured a wall where fans could etch their mark in history by signing custom acorn tags, which would later be installed in the new CarMax Park upon completion
Setting the tone from the first step
Consultation rooms were designed to mirror the behavior of a premium suite experience. Seating layouts, sightlines, and digital displays helped buyers imagine hosting clients, bringing family, and experiencing the stadium from their own seats.
A scaled model further grounded the experience, allowing customers to locate their exact seats, visualize their sightlines, and simultaneously look out toward the real-time construction of the ballpark itself.
Turning Conversation Into Conviction
Historic memorabilia, and subtle brand cues grounded the experience in Richmond’s baseball history, ensuring the new stadium felt like a continuation rather than a replacement.
Actual seats that will be installed throughout CarMax Park (from general admission to premium seating) were placed inside the apartment, allowing prospective buyers to physically see and experience the same seating they will encounter in the finished ballpark.
Connecting the future to the Squirrels’ Legacy
Premium sales rarely close in the room. Buyers leave, think, talk with partners, and revisit the decision later.
We ideated premium leave-behinds that extended the Preview Center experience beyond the visit, giving prospects a tangible reminder of the future they had just stepped into.
The Experience Didn’t End When Buyers Left
Where Experience meets Business Impact
Drives Revenue Growth
Increases revenue per seat through personalized sales and tiered offerings.
Enables data-driven upselling of premium experiences.
Reduces churn and build long-term loyalty.
Elevates the Fan Experience
Fosters emotional connection and engagement with the team's vision.
Cultivates transparency and trust in the sales process.
Differentiates the Flying Squirrels in a competitive market. (MiLB)
Capitalizes on Opportunities
Leverages the Diamond District redevelopment to reach new audiences.
Expands community integration and corporate partnerships.
Targets new demographics and enhances the brands value.