Stan Kroenke didn’t just build a football stadium. The Rams owner and billionaire developer solved a puzzle that had confounded the NFL for two decades. He found a way to bring together the number one sports league in the country and the number two market in the country.
In the process, Kroenke moved the rams of St. Louis and built a downward spiral, $5 billion sports and entertainment complex in Hollywood Park that changed the landscape of Los Angeles and shifted the center of gravity of professional football to the west coast.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who could have made that happen other than Stan Kroenke, because of the situation he was in,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. “He owned an NFL franchise that was struggling in its current market. He understood how to put together a development project, he had that vision. And he had the capital to be able to do it.”
Kroenke, whose stadium also houses the Chargers, took a huge risk to make that vision a reality. That earned him a lot of respect from some of the NFL’s most influential owners, including Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots.
“Robert toured the site when it was just a hole in the ground,” said Kroenke, 76. “He said it took a lot of guts. I said, ‘Well, this is all good, but when I’m sitting on a street corner in a few years, will you buy me a cup of coffee?'”
‘I owned an NFL franchise that was struggling in its current market. He understood how to put together a development project, he had that vision.’
Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner
In the years since, SoFi Stadium has hosted a number of big events, none more exciting for Kroenke than his Rams. win Super Bowl LVI on their home field in February 2022. That Lombardi Trophy launched a 18 month stretch during which two of Kroenke’s other franchises, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, also won championships.
“You talk about the movie business,” Kroenke said. “Well, you could write that script and no one would believe it.”
SoFi Stadium was also home to college football national championship game early 2023. Expanded tour stops last summer Beyonce and Taylor Swift, whose “Tour of Eras” The film was filmed over the course of two dates at the Inglewood venue: it elevated SoFi beyond football to a 3.1 million-square-foot symbol of the massive reach of Los Angeles’ cultural power.
“I knew SoFi Stadium would become the eighth wonder of the world,” said Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, the online personal finance company. “But I’d be lying if I told you I knew I’d be a movie star, too.”
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.