While both the Chargers and the Rams recently announced that fans would be unable to attend games until further notice due to the pandemic, NBC 7 got an inside look at pro football's newest stadium.
Sadly, no fans will sit beneath the approximately 1 million square-foot roof of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on Sept. 13, when the Los Angeles Rams will host the Dallas Cowboys or the following week when the Kansas City Chiefs, the reigning Super Bowl champions, face off against the Los Angeles Chargers.
"After careful consideration and discussion with state and local health officials, the Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams and SoFi Stadium have announced that Rams and Chargers games will be held without fans in attendance until further notice," the teams announced in a joint statement released last week.
Fortunately, though, the stadium folks have shared some videos with NBC7.com of all the progress being made at the stadium, which is 97 percent complete.
Here's some fun facts:
- The complex the stadium sits in is called Hollywood Park, the name of a racetrack formally on the site
- Hollywood Park is made up of 298 contiguous acres
- Events scheduled for Sofi Stadium include Super Bowl LVI (February 2022), the 2023 College Football National Championship and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Olympic Games
- SoFi Stadium is the largest in the NFL (3.1 million square feet)
- The stadium has a seating capacity of about 70,000 (expandable to 100,000)
- There are 260 luxury suites
- Hollywood Park is 3.5 times the size of Disneyland and twice as big as Vatican City
- The gridiron is 100 feet below grade level
- 7 million cubic yards of dirt were excavated from the stadium bowl so it would be below grade level
- Nearly 100,000 tons of steel and cable were used in construction
- 144,000 cubic yards of concrete (enough to fill 44 Olympic-sized pools)
- 17,000-plus workers overall
- 12 million man-hours in construction
- Largest videoboard ever (2.2. million pounds, 70,000 square feet of digital LED)
- Largest panel is about four stories tall
- 120 yards long
- 80 million pixels
- More than seven miles of loudspeaker cable wound throughout
- 23 elevators
- 50 escalators
- 2,638 doors
- 12.5 miles of plumbing
