SoFi Stadium

SoFi Stadium ( SOH-fy) is an indoor-outdoor multi-purpose stadium in Inglewood, California, U.S., a suburb of Los Angeles. SoFi occupies the former site of the Hollywood Park Racetrack and neighbors the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome.

Opened in September 2020, the stadium has a capacity of 70,240, expandable to over 100,000 for major events, and a translucent roof made of ETFE panels allowing for sunlight and climate control. It is home to the National Football League (NFL)'s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, as well as the annual LA Bowl in college football. The stadium hosted Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship, WrestleMania 39, and the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup final. It is scheduled to host eight matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Super Bowl LXI in 2027, and the opening ceremony and swimming events for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

SoFi Stadium is one of two stadiums currently shared by a pair of NFL teams, the other being MetLife Stadium shared by the New York Giants and New York Jets. It is the first stadium complex outside of the New York metropolitan area to host two NFL teams concurrently. The stadium lies within the Hollywood Park complex, a mixed-use neighborhood on the site of the former racetrack. Hollywood Park Casino re-opened in a new building on the property in October 2016, becoming the development's first establishment to open.

Design

SoFi Stadium was designed by HKS and consists of the stadium itself, a pedestrian plaza, and a performance venue. Above the stadium is an independently supported translucent canopy which covers the stadium proper, the adjacent pedestrian plaza, and the attached performance venue. The million-square-foot canopy is made up of 302 ETFE panels, 46 of which can be opened to provide ventilation, supported by a cable net. The canopy has 27,000 embedded LED pucks, which can display images and video that can also be seen from airplanes flying into Los Angeles International Airport. The stadium bowl has open sides and seats 70,240 spectators for most events, with the ability to expand by 30,000 seats for larger events. Despite the roof, the open sides of the stadium still make it vulnerable to lightning delays, with the first such delay in an NFL game between the Chargers and the Las Vegas Raiders on October 4, 2021. The attached music and theatre venue, known as YouTube Theater, has a capacity of 6,000 seats. The stadium and performance center are considered to be separate facilities under one roof.

Another component of the stadium's design is the Infinity Screen by Samsung, an ovular, double-sided 4K HDR video board, the first of its kind, that is suspended from the roof over the field. Formerly known as "the Oculus" before a name change, the structure weighs 2.2 million pounds (1,000 t) and displays 80 million pixels. The Infinity Screen also houses the stadium's 260-speaker audio system, as well as 56 5G wireless antennas.

Outdoor sports in California are usually played on grass due to the state's highly favorable climate. However, a grass field is very difficult to maintain to an acceptable standard when it is used by more than one gridiron football team. Because SoFi Stadium was intended from the outset to be used by two NFL teams, the designers opted not to install a natural playing surface. The stadium joined California Memorial Stadium and Valley Children's Stadium as the only major sports facilities in California currently in use to have artificial turf installed.

Awards

SoFi Stadium has won a number of industry awards for its design, including, but not limited to:

• "Stadium of the Year" in StadiumDB's Jury Award.
• "Outstanding Architectural Engineering Project" of 2021 by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
• The "Excellence in Action" Award to West Basin Municipal Water District (West Basin), the City of Inglewood, and other project partners for the SoFi Stadium Recycled Water Project.
• Steel Winner in Tekla's North America BIM Awards

History

Background

The stadium site was previously home to Hollywood Park, later sold and referred to as Betfair Hollywood Park, which was a thoroughbred race course from 1938 until it was shut down for racing and training in December 2013. Most of the complex was demolished in 2014 to make way for new construction with the rest demolished in late 2016 after the Hollywood Park Casino, which remained open after the track itself closed, moved to a new building. The current stadium was not the first stadium proposed for the site. The site was almost home to an NFL stadium two decades earlier. In May 1995, after the departure of the Rams for St. Louis, the NFL team owners approved, by a 27–1 vote with two abstentions, a resolution supporting a plan to build a $200 million, privately funded stadium on property owned by Hollywood Park for the Los Angeles Raiders. Al Davis, who was then the Raiders owner, balked and refused the deal over a stipulation that he would have had to accept a second team at the stadium.

On January 31, 2014, the Los Angeles Times reported that Stan Kroenke, owner of the St. Louis Rams, purchased a 60-acre (24 ha) parcel of land just north of the Hollywood Park site in the area that had been studied by the NFL in the past for the 1995 Raiders proposal and that the league at one point attempted to purchase. This set off immediate speculation as to what Kroenke's intentions were for the site: After the site's former Hollywood Park owners gave up on getting an NFL stadium for the site in the mid-2000s it was sold and planned to be a Walmart Supercenter; however, in 2014, most of the speculation centered on the site as a possible stadium site or training facility for the Rams. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell represented that Kroenke informed the league of the purchase. As an NFL owner, any purchase of land in which a potential stadium could be built must be disclosed to the league. Speculation about the Rams' returning to their home of nearly fifty years had already been discussed when Kroenke was one of the finalists in bidding for ownership in the Los Angeles Dodgers, but speculation increased when the news broke that the Rams owner had a possible stadium site in hand.

Nearly a year went by without a word from Kroenke about his intentions for the land, as he failed to ever address the St. Louis media, or the Hollywood Park Land Company, about what the site may be used for. There was, however, speculation about the future of the Rams franchise until it was reported that the National Football League would not be allowing any franchise relocation for the 2015 season.

On January 5, 2015, Stockbridge Capital Group, the owners of the Hollywood Park Land Company, announced that it had partnered with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment to add the northern 60-acre (24 ha) parcel to the rest of the development project and build a multi-purpose 70,240-seat stadium designed for the NFL. The project would include the stadium and a performance arts venue attached to the stadium with up to 6,000 seats. The previously approved Hollywood Park development was reconfigured to fit the stadium, and included plans for up to 900,000 square feet (84,000 m²) of retail, 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²) of office space, 2,500 new residential units, a luxury hotel with over 300 rooms, 25 acres (10 ha) of public parks, playgrounds, open space, a lake, and pedestrian, bicycle, and mass-transit access for future services. On February 24, 2015, the Inglewood City Council approved plans with a 5–0 unanimous vote to combine the 60-acre (24 ha) plot of land with the larger Hollywood Park development and rezone the area to include sports and entertainment capabilities. This essentially cleared the way for developers to begin construction on the venue as planned in December 2015.

It was reported in early February 2015, that "earth was being moved" and the site was being graded in preparation for the construction that would begin later in the year.

The project was competing directly with a rival proposal. On February 19, 2015, the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers announced plans for a privately financed $1.85 billion stadium that the two teams would have built in Carson if they were to move to the Los Angeles market. The project was, like the Inglewood project, also approved to move forward and cleared for development. The two projects spent the remainder of 2015 jockeying for the right to get approved by the NFL.

Financing

The stadium was built privately, but as of 2015, the developer was seeking significant tax breaks from Inglewood. At the commencement of construction, the cost of the stadium was estimated at $2.66 billion. But internal league documents, produced by the NFL in March 2018, indicated a need to raise the debt ceiling for the stadium and facility to a total of $4.963 billion. Team owners voted to approve this new debt ceiling at a meeting that same month. Another $500 million in loans was approved by the NFL in May 2020, putting the total cost at $5.5 billion and making it the most expensive stadium ever built.