Surrounding SoFi Stadium is Hollywood Park – a 300-acre sports and entertainment destination that will offer never-before-seen levels of visitor experiences thanks to the use of big data, which allows its owners to understand and optimize every aspect of the complex.
Being developed by Rams owner E. Stanley Kroenke, Hollywood Park has enlisted the services of Willow, a provider of digital twin technology.
The agreement stretches across SoFi Stadium, which will be the first major stadium to implement digital twin technology in the US. Using big data gathered from every aspect of the stadium and surrounding development, Willow will create a virtual copy of the facility to deliver an unprecedented level of analytical insight to create a truly world-class fan, resident and guest experience along with optimized levels of sustainability and future-proofing.
Digital twins, first developed by NASA for space exploration, are a bleeding-edge technology that converts all quantifiable aspects of physical buildings into living, learning and evolving virtual replicas. It is the most intuitive way to store, organize and access the incredible amount of data generated by complex smart buildings, allowing owners, facility managers and built environment professionals real-time insights to strategize and optimize every aspect of a building’s operations. Importantly, the system becomes more robust over time with the addition of new data.
“Our goal is to deliver a new type of fan and visitor experience, and to do that, we need a comprehensive, data-driven view into how all the pieces of this project connect,” said Jason Gannon, managing director, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park. “For such a large-scale and complex asset like a stadium, this is a pivotal undertaking. Willow’s Digital Twin will enable us to collect and analyze real-time big data across the lifecycle of the development, from construction to ongoing operations.”
SoFi Stadium is setting a new bar for smart buildings in the sports and entertainment sector. Designed to be a sustainable, future-forward facility for years to come, the venue will be the new, joint home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams and will also host a variety of events throughout the year. Willow’s comprehensive solution, used by some of the world’s most prominent real estate owners, will enable SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park’s operators to gain complete transparency and a single source of truth on data from across the facility’s complex systems. By accessing this data, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park will be able to solve problems before they happen, manage risk and identify previously impossible integrated strategies.
“By accessing data that was once lost between project phases or in multiple systems, Willow can assist SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park in identifying opportunities they never knew they had,” said Shaun Klann, President and Global Head of Real Estate at Willow. “Stadiums are an amazing opportunity to apply the lessons we have learned in commercial real estate, but on a much larger scale. It’s an incredibly exciting project and we are honored to partner with the ambitious and innovative team at SoFi Stadium.”
At present, SoFi Stadium is slated to host Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the College Football Championship Game in 2023 and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2028 Summer Olympics. Located on the site of a former racetrack, the approximately 70,000-seat stadium will serve as the centerpiece of the state-of-the-art, reimagined Hollywood Park, featuring a full live-work-play experience, from retail, offices, hospitality, residential units and outdoor park spaces.
