---
title: "Inglewood voters will decide on stadium taxes and a billboard ban in November"
description: "Two measures headed to Inglewood's November ballot pit the city's giant venues against a billboard company, and the city's budget against its skyline. One lifts the cap on SoFi Stadium's ticket tax and adds a new levy on the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum. The other bans commercial ads on video billboards built on city land."
category: "Los Angeles"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/los-angeles
author: "Lucía Fuentes"
published: 2026-07-24T16:44:00.000Z
updated: 2026-07-24T16:44:00.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/inglewood-voters-will-decide-on-stadium-taxes-and-a-billboard-ban-in-november
tags: ["inglewood", "sofi-stadium", "ballot-measures", "taxes", "billboards"]
---
# Inglewood voters will decide on stadium taxes and a billboard ban in November

Two measures headed to Inglewood's November ballot pit the city's giant venues against a billboard company, and the city's budget against its skyline. One lifts the cap on SoFi Stadium's ticket tax and adds a new levy on the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum. The other bans commercial ads on video billboards built on city land.

Inglewood, the small city that has become one of the country's densest concentrations of big-league venues, will ask its voters in November to settle two fights over what those venues owe and what the city should look like, [LAist reports](https://laist.com/news/politics/billboard-ads-and-stadium-taxes-head-to-inglewood-voters-this-november).

## The ticket-tax measure

The first measure is about money, and it is aimed squarely at the venues. It would remove the annual cap on Inglewood's 10 percent ticket tax for arenas seating more than 22,000, which in practice means SoFi Stadium, and add a new 2.5 percent tax on venues seating 10,000 to 22,000, which captures the Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum.

The stakes for the city budget are real. Inglewood expects roughly $21.7 million from these venue taxes this fiscal year, about 9 percent of its general fund, so how the ticket tax is structured is not a side issue but a meaningful share of what pays for city services. The City Council voted 4-0 to place it on the ballot, with one member absent, and backers say they gathered about 7,200 verified signatures. "Who is actually carrying the costs for this glory?" asked Bishop Johnny Young, one of the measure's supporters, framing it as a question of whether the venues pay their fair share for the city that hosts them.

Opponents warn the cost does not stay with the venues. "When a government increases costs, (venues) have to absorb, pass to consumers or reduce expenses," said John Shallman, a consultant working against the measure, an argument that higher taxes land on ticket-buyers, not owners.

## The billboard measure

The second measure is about the skyline, and it has scrambled the usual alliances. It would ban commercial advertising on video billboards built on city land. Residents behind it frame it as a fight against "billboard blight." "I'd kinda like them all rubbed out," said one, Diane Sambrano.

The money behind each side is the tell. The campaign supporting the ban, Neighbors for Beautiful Inglewood, has been funded substantially by the stadiums and arenas themselves, with about $1 million in contributions, while a billboard company, WOW Media, has put more than $400,000 into fighting it. City officials, for their part, oppose the ban and have signaled a court challenge, with one description accusing SoFi Stadium owner Stan Kroenke of "avaricious puppeteering"; a lawsuit was filed in March to keep the measure off the ballot. The billboards at issue are not trivial to the city either: they have generated between $1.6 million and $7.5 million a year since 2018.

## What is really being decided

Strip away the specifics and both measures are versions of the same question Inglewood keeps facing since the venues arrived: who benefits from becoming a stadium town, and who pays. The ticket tax asks whether the arenas should send more to the city. The billboard fight asks whether the visual cost of all this development is worth the revenue it throws off, and pits residents and venue owners on one side against a billboard firm and, notably, the city's own officials on the other.

The Herald will report the campaigns as they develop and the results in November, when Inglewood's voters, not its stadiums, get the last word.

## Sources

- [Billboard ads and stadium taxes head to Inglewood voters this November](https://laist.com/news/politics/billboard-ads-and-stadium-taxes-head-to-inglewood-voters-this-november)