Momentous, Meet Miami

Readers of this column know the thesis by heart: the district around the venue has become the asset. It is where value is created, where communities gather, and where the hardest development questions get answered. What the industry has never had is a rigorous, independent way to measure any of it. Capital is moving into sports-anchored districts faster than the research can keep up.

Today that changes. Momentous Sports and the University of Miami School of Architecture are launching the Momentous Sports Urbanism Research Fund (M-SURF), the first university-based research initiative dedicated to sports urbanism: the study of how stadiums, arenas, and university athletic venues anchor mixed-use districts and shape real estate value, public space, and community outcomes.

The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index taught investors how to think about franchise valuations. Nothing comparable exists for the districts being built around the venues: no credible, objective source the whole market can point to. Our goal is to create the standard: for that to happen, we needed an academic partner that could bring real rigor to the study of these places.

We looked at several major universities and landed on Miami's Master of Real Estate Development + Urbanism program for its rare combination of real estate development, finance, urban design, and the placemaking expertise that brings these districts to life, and because the Miami market itself, with several active mixed-use projects, is worth studying on its own.

M-SURF will support faculty-guided and student research, national case studies, public programming, and publications, including a Sports Urbanism Performance Index, a first-of-its-kind framework for measuring how venue-anchored districts perform. Research begins this month under Professor Mark Troen, FRICS, lead faculty advisor to the UM Real Estate Research Initiative, examining financial performance, urban design and walkability, venue utilization, public-private partnerships, and community value across professional and collegiate districts nationwide. The first white paper is expected this fall, with findings presented at the Real Estate Impact Conference on February 26, 2027 in Miami.

I have built my career around these places. Every issue of this column has, in one way or another, been an argument that they deserve to be studied as seriously as they are financed. A discipline needs three things: a body of evidence, a shared vocabulary, and an institution willing to hold both to a standard. M-SURF is our commitment to all three.

As an investor in these districts, we see an opportunity not only to help create them, but to broaden access to an exciting and rapidly emerging real estate asset class, and to give everyone, from mayors to athletic directors to allocators, a stronger foundation for evaluating where and how these districts create lasting value.

I'm excited to work with the University of Miami and help turn sports urbanism into a true discipline.

You'll hear more from me as the research takes shape. The first white paper lands this fall, and I'll walk through the early findings in these pages. In the meantime, the full announcement is out today, with coverage in Sports Business Journal.

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Not investment advice. From the Desk Of is a personal column produced by Momentous Sports for educational purposes only. It reflects the author's personal views and is not an offer to sell or solicitation to buy securities; any offering by Momentous Sports will be made solely to verified accredited investors under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D and only through formal offering documents. Consult your own advisors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The Momentous Sports Urbanism Research Fund (M-SURF) is a philanthropic research commitment administered by the Dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture; it is not an investment fund and is not an offering of securities. Momentous Sports, the founding donor, will be disclosed in all public research outputs. Disclosure: Momentous Sports Group actively invests in sports-anchored real estate.

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