The war between Inglewood and the companies behind SoFi Stadium has taken a dramatic turn, with a judge declaring the decade-old $400 million deal void.
The Sept. 1 decision from Superior Court Judge David Reinert hands the city a major victory in its legal fight with firms tied to Rams owner Stan Kroenke and leaves the financial relationship surrounding the massive Hollywood Park development in limbo.
Hollywood Park argues Inglewood owes about $400 million for infrastructure and other investments made under the agreement, while the city maintains the contract cannot be enforced, according to LA Local.
The stadium companies sued Inglewood in December 2025 after the city challenged the deal’s validity.
“This decision has huge repercussions for the 300-acre SoFi Stadium/Hollywood Park development,” Skip Miller, lead counsel for Inglewood, said in a press release.
“It means that without a valid development agreement, Hollywood Park/SoFi Stadium no longer has vested rights and that the City has no further obligations under the 2015 Development Agreement.”
Hollywood Park is pushing back and weighing a possible appeal. “We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling,” a spokesman told LA Local.
“Hollywood Park has fulfilled every one of its commitments under an agreement that the City unanimously adopted, described as ‘the best [stadium deal] ever’, and benefited from for more than a decade.
“We remain hopeful that the City and its leadership will reverse course from their unilateral decision to abandon their commitments under the agreement and will honor their part of the deal.”
The court fight threatens to unravel an arrangement that helped transform the former Hollywood Park Racetrack into the sprawling complex that now includes SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theater and other real estate development.
Under the 2015 deal, Kroenke’s companies agreed to cover infrastructure costs upfront and be reimbursed by Inglewood later.
The city’s payments were not supposed to begin until Hollywood Park generated $25 million in tax revenue for Inglewood in a single year.
The companies say that happened in 2022 and that the development has cleared the threshold every year since.
But the agreement that created those obligations is now at the center of the fight.
Inglewood argued that the process used to secure approval for the development did not produce an enforceable agreement.
More than 22,000 signatures were gathered in support of the project before the City Council unanimously approved the stadium development in February 2015, per LA Local.
The process allowed the project to move forward without the series of hearings, reviews and voter approval that public projects of that stature typically face.
Reinert found that California courts had already invalidated similar development agreements connected to the initiative process dating back to the 1990s.
“Therefore, here too, the Development Agreement must be set aside,” he wrote.
The ruling comes after relations between Kroenke and Inglewood Mayor James Butts—once allies in bringing the NFL back to the area—became increasingly contentious.
Hollywood Park’s attorneys have accused the city of changing its position only after the project was built and began delivering financial benefits.
Butts said Inglewood did not know about the potential legal problems surrounding the agreement when it was approved in 2015.
“This is the ruling right now, and we agree with it,” he said. Still, the mayor has signaled he wants the partnership to continue despite the courtroom battle.
“I look forward to talking with them and seeing what we can do to move forward as partners,” Butts said.
Hollywood Park is considering an appeal, and if Reinert’s decision stands, the two sides will have to determine whether another arrangement replaces the one that governed the development for more than a decade.
SoFi Stadium is scheduled to host the 2027 Super Bowl before taking another global spotlight as the site of the Opening Ceremony for the 2028 Olympics.
