Los Angeles

<p>SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, opened its doors in 2020 as the most expensive stadium ever constructed anywhere on Earth — a $5.5 billion engineering and aesthetic statement that redefines what a sports venue can be. For FIFA World Cup 2026, it hosts 8 matches including the USA's opening game against Paraguay on June 12, making it the site of what will almost certainly be the most-watched single match in American sports history up to that point.</p><p>The engineering achievements here are genuinely staggering. The translucent ETFE roof features 46 openable panels that allow the 70,240-seat bowl to function as either a fully enclosed indoor venue in extreme weather or an open-air stadium on perfect Southern California days — the first true indoor-outdoor stadium ever built. The 360-degree dual-sided Infinity Screen rises 122 feet and stretches 120 yards wide, visible not just from every seat but reportedly from aircraft on approach to nearby LAX. The stadium's 3.1 million square feet of total building area makes it one of the largest in the world by floor space, encompassing retail, offices, and event spaces across multiple levels. At night, 27,000 embedded LED pucks in the building's exterior create a visual spectacle visible from miles away.</p><p>Access is genuinely multimodal: the Metro C Line and K Line both serve the stadium, connecting directly to downtown LA and LAX. For the tournament's opening weekend, an LA Fan Festival at the Memorial Coliseum runs June 11-14, with 39 days of World Cup-themed activations spread across the city's beach communities, Hollywood, and downtown core.</p><p>The broader Los Angeles cultural offer — Getty Center, Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, Hollywood studios, and the city's extraordinary culinary diversity — ensures that non-match days are as richly scheduled as the football itself. SoFi is the newest stadium in the tournament, and by most measurable technical criteria, the most advanced.</p>