LA offers a glimpse into the future for the sports industry as the city prepares for a starring role at the 2026 Fifa World Cup and 2028 Olympics, finds Frank Dalleres.
Arriving at the Intuit Dome by driverless taxi and then using facial recognition technology to enter the home of the NBA’s LA Clippers (mobile tickets are so 2010s) as well as help myself to refreshments and merch from the arena’s “frictionless” concessions, it dawned that Los Angeles might just be the future of sports consumption.
Add in the fact that a few hundred metres to the north lies the most expensive venue in the world, the gleaming, sprawling SoFi Stadium, as well as the far smaller but no less dazzling immersive sports viewing space Cosm, and the conclusion was unavoidable: the US, and in particular LA, simply does this stuff on another level.
Sadiq Khan likes to boast that London is the sports capital of the world, and not without some justification. But LA is coming for that crown, with eight games at the men’s Fifa World Cup this summer, next year’s Super Bowl LXI and, in 2028, a third Olympic Games set to catapult California to the front of our minds in the coming months.
It is no coincidence that, downstate from Silicon Valley and in the home of Hollywood, LA is leveraging tech to further blur the lines between sports and entertainment, provide new experiences for spectators and, not insignificantly, generate yet more revenue from those willing to pay to get up close to the action.
SoFi Stadium
The first thing that strikes you about the SoFi Stadium is the dizzying scale of the $5.5bn home of the NFL’s two LA-based teams, the Chargers and the Rams. Resembling a spaceship that has landed in Hollywood Park (the Inglewood development that is twice the size of the Vatican City), its vast canopy covers not just the 70,000-seater bowl but also a plaza and so many retail and food/drink outlets that walking into the SoFi feels like entering a giant mall.
The SoFi Stadium is the world’s most expensive sports venue and home to two NFL teams (Image: Jeff Lewis)
A walk around the SoFi during a Chargers game underlines the sheer commercial effort being made. Among its 260 luxury suites include some with their own bar breakout area, complete with live DJ, while there are a further 13,000 premium seating options. Even those in regular admission will feel compelled to spend – even without facial recognition payment – as wandering drinks vendors prowl the concourse, and those $20 beers don’t come cheap.
It’s not difficult to see why the SoFi is still seen as the standard-bearer for live venues globally, even more than five years on from its 2020 opening. Since then, alongside its staple sports schedule, the stadium and its trend-setting, 80m-pixel dual-sided “halo” scoreboard have hosted a Super Bowl, WrestleMania and concerts by the likes of Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar and the Rolling Stones.
This year the SoFi will be the main West Coast venue for the World Cup, with five group games and three knockout ties, although it was (somewhat contentiously) overlooked for the final in favour of the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. At LA 2028 it will co-stage the opening ceremony and become the world’s largest aquatics centre to host the swimming and diving events.
The SoFi will stage eight games at the 2026 Fifa World Cup
Intuit Dome
If the SoFi wows you with its sheer size, the nearby Intuit Dome stands out for its smarts – no surprise, given that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers, was instrumental in its conception and design. He was the driving force behind the GameFace ID tech created specifically for the venue’s opening in 2024 and which allows attendees to park, enter the venue and pay for anything from drinks to hoodies effortlessly.
The Intuit Dome offers ‘frictionless’ entry and purchases via its GameFace ID tech
It didn’t work perfectly every single time on my visit but was reliable on the majority of occasions and, due to the volume of guests using it, virtually eliminated queuing. Any concerns that surveillance-squeamish fans might be slow to embrace facial recognition have been largely quashed, with the tech’s developer Globant reporting that it has achieved a staggering 75 per cent adoption rate among visitors to the Intuit Dome.
Ballmer also insisted on the incorporation of The Wall, 51 uninterrupted rows of steeply banked seating behind one of the ends of the court, a concept borrowed from Borussia Dortmund’s iconic terrace and also replicated at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. At its base, in a standing-only section, are Clippers’ hardcore following, whose deliberately distracting antics put off visiting teams during free throws.
The Intuit Dome cost $2bn to build, making it the most expensive indoor arena in absolute terms, and boasts a smaller version of the So-Fi’s halo board, replicas of which are quickly becoming de rigeur in venue builds across world sport. It has been chosen as the venue for the basketball at the 2028 Olympics, ahead of the Crypto.com Arena, home of their more celebrated crosstown rivals the Lakers, as well as this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend.
Cosm
Nestled between the So-Fi and Intuit Dome is Cosm LA and, while it can’t compete in terms of scale, it is mind-boggling in its own way. Like an Imax cinema, it offers an immersive experience that its creators term “shared reality” for its ability to make you feel like you are not just watching a game on a big screen but actually at the stadium.
To do this it uses a curved, 84ft-wide floor-to-ceiling 12K+ LED screen that doesn’t just take the usual broadcast feed but its own specific pictures from specially positioned cameras at, for instance, Premier League grounds. The result is the next best thing to being at the match – or even better, if you prefer a sofa and table service for food and drinks.
The immersive screen at Cosm during a Premier League match
The US is indisputably the most advanced commercial market for sports and LA might just be its bleeding edge. While Americans certainly treat sports more like entertainment than a tribal experience compared with Europeans, the fact that most of the industry’s innovations tend to make their way across the Atlantic, coupled with the growing influence of US money over here, mean it is a matter of when not if we are sampling this giddying stuff too.
Need to know
Fly: Return flights with Virgin Atlantic from London Heathrow to Los Angeles start at £451 per person, including food, drink, and inflight entertainment. The airline also has a swanky new Clubhouse at LAX worth checking out. For further information visit www.virginatlantic.com or call 0344 8747 747. Prices correct on 7 January and subject to change.
Stay: Culver City, in between West Hollywood and Venice, is an ideal jumping-off point for visiting the SoFi, Intuit Dome and Cosm, as well as many of LA’s best-known attractions. The Shay marries style, comfort and on-trend cuisine, with rooms from $325 (£249) per night.
Do: Explore the Hollywood Hills (and the iconic sign) with an e-bike tour from Bikes & Hikes, take a peek behind the curtain on a studio tour, such as Sony Pictures’ in Culver City, or see the Petersen Automotive Museum’s priceless car collection (including a Batmobile). For more inspiration, visit discoverlosangeles.com.