Nations Group is an owner’s representation and program management firm specializing in athletic and event venue capital projects, with offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Charlotte, North Carolina. It works for the owner rather than the builder, which on a stadium program means sitting between the athletic department or municipality and the design and construction team from feasibility through close-out.
The firm structures engagements in two phases. The first covers project development and finance: venue assessment, premium seating market study, revenue identification, financial plan, project budget, entitlement and government relations. The second covers delivery: budget management, design management, consultant contract management, construction management, furniture and equipment procurement, and close-out. Its client roster spans college and university athletics, professional teams and arenas, municipal venues and K-12 districts across more than twenty states and Manitoba. Nations Group is owner’s representative on Penn State’s Beaver Stadium revitalization, and has worked on Oregon State’s Reser Stadium west side, the Air Force Academy’s Falcon Stadium and Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg.
The project map is wider than the headline stadiums. Collegiate work includes Doak Campbell Stadium at Florida State, Gampel Pavilion at Connecticut, Williams-Brice Stadium at South Carolina, Ross-Ade Stadium at Purdue, Vaught-Hemingway at Ole Miss, Memorial Stadium and the Anderson Family Football Complex at Kansas, Memorial Stadium at Indiana, Spartan Stadium at Michigan State, Bobcat Stadium at Montana State, Health Stadium at UC Davis and Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. Smaller-budget and West Coast assignments include the Leavey Events Center at Santa Clara, Blair Field for Long Beach State, Bulldog Stadium at Fresno State, an on-campus arena study for Loyola Marymount, an arena feasibility study for Utah State, the Laurie-Walton Family Basketball Center at Memphis, the student-athlete high performance center at Northern Arizona, the Matador Achievement Center at Cal State Northridge, the Icardo Center plaza at Cal State Bakersfield, a football operations center at Southern Utah, a football stadium renovation at Northern Illinois and the multipurpose center at Vermont.
Off campus, the same team takes on municipal arenas and convention centers: the New Augusta Arena in Georgia, Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, Mountain America Center in Idaho Falls, the Terre Haute Convention Center in Vigo County, the Cedar Rapids Convention Center Complex, the Mountain Line Downtown Convention Center in Flagstaff, Maryvale Baseball Park for the City of Phoenix, and a youth and amateur multi-sport complex for Visit Mesa. Professional work includes the Arizona Cardinals training facility for the City of Tempe. K-12 clients include Phoenix Elementary School District, Mountain View High School in the Mesa district and five campuses for Washington Elementary School District.
The firm is compact by headcount and layered by title, roughly twenty people carrying project executive, project director, senior project manager, project manager and assistant project manager roles, with separate vice presidents for project design, construction and operations and a controller in house. In September 2025 Legends Global acquired Nations Group, which was founded in 2008, and named founder Chris Nations president of owner’s representation for Legends; the firm continues to operate under its own name. Live construction cameras are published for the Penn State and Florida State jobs, and the Scottsdale office sits at 7144 E. Stetson Drive, Suite 410.
