SoFi Stadium ready to bring Hollywood opulence to Super Bowl

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Super Bowl will come as a culmination of sorts for the NFL’s return to the Los Angeles area, a game featuring the home team that will bring Hollywood glamor to a superstar stadium in Inglewood, where Lakers, Kings and thoroughbreds once thrilled crowds. “I can’t wait to see how the NFL, the world stage, the global stage and the fans that are fortunate enough to come and see this building, experience it and the spectacle around it.” SoFi, which opened mid-pandemic in 2020 and has only had one season of full fan capacity, is staggeringly big — the NFL’s largest stadium in pure size at 3.1 million square feet — while seating more than 70,000, with the ability to accommodate up to 100,000. After his first visit, one famous fan, the Lakers’ LeBron James, called it “the best stadium in the world.” It will be the eighth Super Bowl in the LA area, which hosted the first one at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. To many, Inglewood was then best known as the place that Dr. Dre, who will perform during the Super Bowl halftime, declared was “always up to no good” in 1999′s “California Love.” The city of about 100,000 people just south of Los Angeles is the site of the Forum, home to the NBA’s Lakers in their 1980s heyday, and to the NHL’s Kings before both moved to Staples Center.