Reflections on Evolv’s Role at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™
With the completion of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ last Sunday, here at Evolv we can finally catch our breath and reflect on a major accomplishment.
Like millions of fans, we were of course a bit winded from cheering on Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea FC in the Final – and congratulations to Chelsea on an impressive victory. But beyond fandom, what really had us Evolvers out of breath was the 90-day sprint we ran to supply concealed weapons detection systems for the tournament. After Evolv Express®, our flagship product, was selected by FIFA through a comprehensive Request For Proposals process, we designed, implemented, and managed an integrated security screening solution for 63 games over 30 days across 12 host stadiums, almost 20 additional sites where teams trained between matches, and more than 100 total Express systems.
Now that the tournament is over, it’s worth reflecting on what we did, how we did it – and what it means for where we are and where we’re headed as a company.
But first, a bit of background to set the stage. The FIFA Club World Cup™ is a new property for global football. (Rest easy, MLS friends … as of Monday we’re officially back to calling it “soccer.”) In fact, in some ways the 2025 tournament was the inaugural edition, since it was the first in a significantly expanded and modified format. Now a quadrennial event, it is contested by professional club teams rather the national teams that play in the FIFA World Cup™. For 2025, 32 teams representing the six FIFA confederations (Asia; Africa; Europe; North America, Central America, and Caribbean; Oceania; and South America) qualified. These teams were divided into eight 4-team groups that played an initial set of round-robin games at 12 stadiums across the United States. After this “group stage,” the top performers advanced to a knockout stage that eventually yielded the Finals showdown between Chelsea FC from London and Paris Saint-Germain played in front of an announced 81,118 fans at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. In addition to global bragging rights, 2025 champion Chelsea claimed a reported monetary prize of nearly $125 million. In total, the 32 teams split a purse that media reports valued at $1 billion.
What We Did
FIFA selected Evolv to provide an advanced concealed weapons detection system at points of entry to stadiums and team training sites. The Evolv Express provides high-throughput screening that enables security staff to quickly confirm the individual who alerted and the location of the potential threat on their person. It is intuitive for security personnel with a range of experience, and operational expertise.
We furnished more than 100 Express units, all of which were fully commissioned and set-up at each venue. Our team supported FIFA and each location with the following:
- “Trained the trainers” at all sites so that local staff could operate the systems
- On-site support throughout the event
- Remote command center to continuously monitored system conditions and performance remotely from our Boston-area headquarters
- Finally, once the games were completed at a venue, we performed a just-in-time decommissioning and return shipment
We’re pleased to report, in some cases the venue elected to retain the units and continue using them after the tournament
According to Anil Chitkara, Evolv’s co-founder and Chief Growth Officer “We appreciate the trust and confidence FIFA showed in our products and our company. We mission-align with our customers as part of their overall security program, helping them manage risk in support of their security plan. Global events are unique in their complexity and we put forward significant attention to support them.”
How We Did It
Just like the key to winning soccer on the pitch, our success came from great teamwork and sustained effort. It started last spring with our European team who had deep experience in the security requirements for these types of major multi-day, multi-site global events. The European office passed the ball to our dedicated sports team in the U.S., which had relationships with most of the tournament’s host venues, several of which were already Evolv customers. Working together, these groups assembled a winning proposal for FIFA that combined the best global practices and standards for major event ingress security with the necessary local knowledge and experience.
Once awarded the business, we assembled a multi-disciplinary project team of experts from across the company, covering all the necessary skills to deliver on our ambitious commitments. We then spent 90 days with FIFA staff to understand their operational plan, training schedule, and other logistics for each of the more than 30 deployment sites. Meanwhile, in parallel, we were also ensuring over 100 Express units were built, tested and ready to ship out across the U.S. from coast to coast.
While reflecting on the accomplishment, Scott Cullimore, Evolv’s International Channel Director, noted that “efficiency was a key FIFA requirement for this project, from both a financial and a sustainability perspective. They needed solutions that would easily integrate into their planned infrastructure, and meet their security, operational and fan experience objectives. With the flexibility, mobility, and durability of Express, we were able to deliver that for ingress security screening.”
What It Means
Evolv and Evolv Express were already well established in sports in the U.S. and around the world. Even before the FIFA Club World Cup™ began, we served almost 100 sports teams and venues, and that number continues to grow. We’re also proud of our more than 50 official team and venue marketing partnerships.
But the successful FIFA Club World Cup™ deployment does seem to position our sports business for another level of growth. Major events are a big part of what makes sports so popular and important around the world. Because they’re temporary, even the biggest events have characteristics and requirements that differ from permanent deployments at stadiums and arenas. These can range from the specific details like the location of fan activation areas, all the way to the major strategic issues like funding for an event that might only last a matter of day at a given site. This summer, hopefully we’ve proven that we can deliver our premium security screening solutions within these unique environments … in sports and also beyond. For every major sporting event there are dozens of other large public assemblies that have – or should have – similar security requirements Fireworks shows, parades, and street festivals are just three examples. The FIFA Club World Cup™ has probably expanded our understanding of what is possible operationally, logistically, and financially for these one-time events, which is hopefully good news for us, our industry, and major event organizers across the country.
Where We’re Headed
Sports fans will know that the FIFA Club World Cup™ was just the first of what will be an extraordinary run of major global sporting events hosted in the United States in the coming years. Next year, of course, FIFA will return for the FIFA World Cup 26™. Two years later, Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympics. There’s also a Rugby World Cup in 2031, and the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2034. And, of course, we hope we’ve elevated our profile with organizers of major events, where we’d be thrilled to be of service!
In the meantime, as our Vice President of Sports & Entertainment John Baier notes, “there are still plenty of opportunities to bring Express (and our other products like eXpedite) to stadiums, ballparks, and arenas, so we’ll stay focused on that even as we aspire for more. Stay tuned for exciting announcements to come!”
Forward-Looking Statements
This blog contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Evolv Technology intends for such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements in this blog, other than that are historical facts, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including statements made by the President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as statements regarding the Company’s strategy, financial and operational performance and growth, and efforts to create value for stakeholders. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause actual results and actions to be materially different from any future results or actions expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under the caption “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the SEC on April 28, 2025 , as well as any such factors that may be updated from time to time in our other filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements in this blog are based upon information available to us as of the date hereof, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, it may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain, and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.
Except as required by applicable law, we do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this blog, whether as a result of any new information, future events or otherwise.
