Atlanta United Gains More Space for Productions, Creative Projects at New Emory Healthcare Studio in MariettaThree separate rooms are a major upgrade at the club's training facilityBy Kristian Hern ndez, Senior Editor Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - 11:57 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The 2025 Major League Soccer season is winding down, but Atlanta United is ending the year on a high note with the opening of its new Emory Healthcare Studio at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground in Marietta, GA. The new production space, with system integration by Alpha, will significantly expand the club's preexisting footprint and feature three rooms for live shoots on its digital platforms, still photography, and podcasting.
Emory Healthcare Studio is located at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground in Marietta, GA. (All photos: Atlanta United FC)
What we're going from to what we have now is a whole new world, says Matt Moore, director, broadcast and video production, Atlanta United. The capabilities are endless, and, with this technology, we can do pretty much anything and everything that people are asking for.
Much-Needed Upgrade: Club Aims To Grow Setup for Enhanced ContentWith MLS's increased popularity, creative content and production crews are looking to capitalize on an uptick in viewership. In a soccer-crazed town like Atlanta, giving supporters of Atlanta United the content they crave is a top priority for the organization. Having to meet those needs is a year-long task, so creating a specific home for the effort was critical to Moore and his crew. Without a permanent home, Atlanta United's previous setup wasn't particularly conducive to the material that they were looking to produce.
We did a lot with the little room that was given to us when we first moved into this facility, says Moore. We did a lot of interviews and photo shoots in there, but it was very cramped and not ideal for how we're trying to innovate.
Many professional clubs' production crews working in the digital space experience the same dilemma, but the paradigm is shifting as ownership groups find more value in content created away from the stadium. AMB Sports Entertainment, the parent of Atlanta United and the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, is bullish on bolstering non-game-day operations. Owner Arthur M. Blank; Chief Business Officer Skate Noftsinger; SVP, Strategy, Dimitrios Efstathiou, and other executives in the organization were all-in on the project.
This world-class facility, says Noftsinger, showcases Arthur's commitment to Atlanta United as the gold standard in MLS by raising the bar for player health and wellbeing, youth development, and content production, while giving us the ability to host international clubs and federations ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and beyond. This expansion gives our players and associates the resources they need to perform at their best and to bring an unmatched soccer experience to the entire Atlanta community.
The entrance to Emory Healthcare Studio
With this backing, Moore and company had to find a partner to execute their vision. After Atlanta Falcons Senior Director, Video and Broadcast, Austin Hittel and Studio Production Manager/Producer Sam Larsen partnered with Alpha to open Ticketmaster Studios at that team's training facility in Flowery Branch, GA, in 2023, the Atlanta United team didn't need to look too far.
Atlanta United saw what we did for the Falcons and loved it, says Jeff Volk, EVP, strategic accounts, sports and live events, Alpha. With the Blank Family of Businesses wanting to establish Atlanta as a hub for soccer in the U.S., we're looking for a way to capitalize on that and be a leader, not just in MLS but a global leader.
A model of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium Halo Board sits above the studio space.
While busy working with the Falcons, Alpha was also helping Atlanta United conceive what would eventually become this real-world facility. When the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup was announced and Atlanta was named one of the host cities in North America, there was greater urgency to complete the studio project before next summer's international tournament. Volk and his team entered the in-depth planning and design-development phases last summer before getting to today's formal ribbon-cutting ceremony.
They have been really great partners, setting up multiple meetings to show us what would work best, says Moore. We shared with them what we thought we would like, based on our design layout. It has been a nice process.
Tariffs and Tech: Price Changes Present a ChallengeProjects of this magnitude always come with last-minute hiccups or unavoidable obstacles along the way. Fortunately, few unforeseen issues popped up, because the club took time to achieve the desired result over a long period of time. The only issue that did occur impacted financial decisions rather than physical or stylistic choices: the state of global economics and the implementation of tariffs by the current presidential administration threw a bit of a wrench in their plans.
We had to manage price changes and availability of products, Volk explains. This had a dramatic impact on projects from budgeting, scheduling, and integration perspectives. We would order something in March that wasn't delivered until the end of August. We initially thought that the video wall was going to arrive in early to mid July, and our timeline to build the rest of the scenic was substantially different when it arrived six weeks later. We initially had plenty of time, but scheduling conundrums and needing to fit all these pieces of the puzzle together became increasingly challenging.
The main studio will be reserved for live original series, match coverage and analysis, and spec
