Inside The Intuit Dome, Where Basketball Meets Technology And Entertainment

The Intuit Dome isn’t just the NBA’s newest playground. It’s a strategic basketball and entertainment sanctuary, automatically setting a lofty standard that might be unattainable for others.

Located in Inglewood, less than five miles from Los Angeles International Airport, is the Clippers’ impressive $2 billion venue that will kick off its inaugural season this Wednesday, October 23.

From the groundbreaking to ribbon-cutting, it took just under 37 months to construct and finalize before opening for concerts in mid-August. Before the Intuit Dome even hosts a full-capacity game, it’s clear this building will become a trailblazer for blending advanced technology with human interaction.

Last week, ahead of the Clippers’ first preseason game, I took a private tour of the arena, concourse, and outdoor plaza to get a better idea of the tech, features, and design story.

After the tour, I sat down exclusively with Clippers owner and chairman Steve Ballmer, along with Gillian Zucker, who serves as the team’s president of business operations.

Ballmer, the wealthiest owner in professional sports with a net worth exceeding $120 billion, purchased the LA Clippers in 2014 with no plans to build an arena.

In fact, Zucker was the first hire Ballmer made 10 years ago, and one of the first things he told her was this wouldn’t be the job to have if her eyes were set on a new venue. But with Zucker’s past experience as the president of Auto Club Speedway, if there was ever someone to help him plan for one, it would be her.

It didn’t take long for Ballmer to recognize the unbalance between his Clippers and the hallway rival, Los Angeles Lakers, before he green lit a new facility. Armed with a passionate and loyal fanbase, he believed the Clippers deserved their own location. Their own training center. And a fair shake at preferred schedule dates, which they didn’t have as co-tenants.

Now, a decade later, his dream is finally realized. But even he is still adjusting.

As Ballmer pulls up a chair and sits down, he gives a quick anecdote about life in the new building … and trying to track down his head coach, Ty Lue.

“Everybody is still figuring things out,” Ballmer said. “I have a ritual. I go see Ty before each game and wish him luck. Now I’m like, okay … where is he going to be? In his office? Where is he going to be now? It’s like getting a new house and figuring out how you’re going to use it!”

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From the moment Intuit Dome became an official project, everyone quickly learned Ballmer’s vocabulary. More specifically, they realized the one phrase that’s completely off limits around him.

“We can’t.”

From architects to engineers and tech gurus, Ballmer stretched their capabilities. The most prominent example is the design of Intuit Dome’s lower bowl, which became a non-negotiable once his team decided how it should look and feel.

To create a playoff intensity, the arena bowl had to be tight and intimate. If the design was too wide or separated by too many suites, it wouldn’t meet the objective of crunchtime chaos that Ballmer loves.

He wanted Clippers games to have the same college vibe you sense when small-market teams such as the Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz are hosting playoff series.

Those two arenas, Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and Delta Center in Salt Lake City, were Ballmer’s favorite bowl designs. Both crowds feel like they’re hugging the court. Road players are within earshot of the fans and often get rattled in big moments.

If he could make LA basketball get that rowdy, no obstacle would get in his way.

But the fan experience mattered, too. The seats also had to be thicker and more comfortable than other NBA venues, while also providing extra legroom within the aisle. He wouldn’t budge there, either.

As Zucker tells it, the engineers would absorb these requests and let Ballmer know he shouldn’t get his hopes up. Even in this technologically-advanced era, it seems impossible to have a condensed bowl with superior seats. How do you achieve both?

“This is an either-or proposition,” Zucker recalls people telling him. “You cannot have both.”

It’s not that Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s more about his personality of thinking outside the box and empowering those around him.

“Yes I can,” he’d respond. “Because I have you.”

Given the time and resources being poured into this arena’s formation, including the hundreds of visits Zucker and Ballmer made to study other facilities, everything needed to be world-class.

And since Ballmer has a unique way of blending his competitive fire with a friendly attitude that’s purely optimistic, everyone took it as a challenge.

“I think it’s one of the most incredible things about Steve,” Zucker said. “The way he brings out in people this ability to accomplish things that they couldn’t imagine accomplishing themselves without that extra push.”

The Clippers estimate over 500,000 engineering man-hours were dedicated to the lower bowl, which satisfied Ballmer in the end.

But when the venue opened this summer, it was the striking visuals hovering over the court that truly blew him away.

Daktronics, a South Dakota-based electronics company, is responsible for the Intuit Dome’s esteemed Halo Board that will impress every person who attends a game – guaranteed.

Epic in size and prolific in capabilities, the Halo Board will serve as the defining characteristic of the building. It’s a mammoth that transforms Intuit Dome from a basketball arena to an entertainment palace.

The double-sided display is comprised of 38,375 square feet of digital canvas and more than 230 million LEDs. Trying to contextualize the Halo Board is a mind-boggling exercise.

If you wanted to fill the entire display with 60-inch televisions, you would need almost 3,600 of them.

Or, how about this? If you rolled the board out flat, it’s three-times the size of the famous Hollywood Sign.

The view shown above — but in a packed house — is precisely what Zucker and the Clippers want their players to experience on game days. When they hit the floor, it’s an overwhelming introduction to their basketball mecca.

This clip from GQ Sports demonstrates the Halo Board during live action, with a glimpse of the interactive buttons featured on every seat in the house:

That’s right. Fans will have four buttons on their armrest, in a similar placement as the “X, A, B, and Y” on an Xbox controller. Each chair also has lights that can change colors, creating a cool visual effect in the arena.

During timeouts or intermissions, the Halo Board will feature mini-games and activities for the audience. With everyone having interactive buttons, it allows the Clippers to pinpoint exactly who selected what, along with how fast they did responded.

During the first preseason game, fans were invited to play a few rounds of “The Mentalist,” a color-guessing activity. After each selection, fans that guessed incorrectly were eliminated. The lights on the seat would indicate whether you were still alive. In the final round, the quickest fan to pick the correct answer won a prize. And that’s the crazy part: Gone are the days of an entire row being recognized. Now, the Clippers can reward individual fans for winning a game, or even cheering the loudest during certain moments.

After seeing this in action, my first thought was simple. The idea is to make Intuit Dome an entertainment hub, not just a basketball site.

While that was partly confirmed by Ballmer, he brought up a fascinating point. The bottom line is keeping people’s butts in those seats and finding different avenues to incentivize it.

“Some arenas, you go into the suites and they have a golf simulator, but I didn’t want to do stuff like that,” he said. “I wanted to orient toward the bowl and the action. So, you put the video-game controller (on the seat) and it’s interacting. It’s in the bowl. It’s not like, hey let’s go outside to do something.”

Ballmer is a businessman, but he’s still rational. He knows not everyone attending the game will be a lifelong fan with their eyes glued to a James Harden pick-and-roll. Therefore, you have to mix it up with activities and giveaways.

“Of course, I want everybody to be this hardcore basketball fan,” Ballmer laughed. “But it doesn’t work that way. We wanted to have fun things for kids, too.”

With the Halo Board illuminating the court, another major feature the players will see during play is “The Wall,” what the Clippers are calling the 51 uninterrupted rows behind the far baseline.

Located adjacent to opponent’s bench, The Wall is a steep and intimidating section reserved for only the diehards who purchased the “Ultimate Wall Pass” before the season began. During one of their countless visits to international venues, the Clippers were inspired by Signal Iduna Park in Germany, where Borussia Dortmund fans pack “The Yellow Wall” to create an unforgettable environment.

After learning every game in Dortmund feels like a cup final, Ballmer wanted to bring some of that energy to Los Angeles.

As Zucker explains, the impact is two-sided. The opponents will feel more pressure when they’re running offensive sets near The Wall. But the idea is for the Clippers to benefit from the adrenaline of a true homecourt advantage.

“You’re coming down through this tunnel, you come out under the basket stanchion, and you’re facing that Halo Board, and The Wall is right there in front of you,” Zucker expressed. “If you’re a player, that has to fire you up. I feel like that is the job and focus of the building. Can we give players that little teeny extra edge?”

Point guard Kris Dunn, who the Clippers acquired this summer, is already impressed by the Intuit Dome’s perks and the season hasn’t officially started.

“It was unreal,” Dunn said after a preseason game. “The technology in there was insane. Just from the bench, the seats were even different where we were sitting. The fans were more engaged. Actually, it felt like we were in college again with our fans doing all of the antics. And the jumbotron and everything. It’s just unreal what the organization has done to make it a home atmosphere for us and the fans. It’s been unbelievable.”

The high-tech vibe isn’t limited to the court. It also extends to the concourse and merchandise store.

By partnering with AiFi, an AI-powered shopping platform, the Clippers have over 40 checkout-free concession stands around Intuit Dome.

Fans can easily download an app, create an account, and set up their payment method before arriving to the game. Facial recognition allows them to enter a food market, take any item off the shelf, and walk out instantly. They get charged for what they take, but without standing in line or getting out their debit card.

The same goes for the Clippers’ new flagship store. You can enter, try on a hat you like, and exit within seconds.

“I think people are a bit concerned they just walked out and stole something,” Zucker said. “We’re like, no, you’re good!”

Regarding the food choices, the Clippers were intentional about their offerings and wanted to ensure everything is cooked as fresh as possible.

Your typical NBA arena has an average of six kitchens supplying all of the food to the various concession spots. But at the Intuit Dome, every single market has a kitchen attached to it. There are 31 total kitchens spread throughout the arena, more than five times the average.

Ballmer is a fan of the burgers, hot dogs, and empanadas they chose to serve. He also had to bring in a popcorn connoisseur to determine which company to use.

That popcorn expert was four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry, who helped the rival Clippers by choosing between five different popcorn vendors. Considering he ranked the Staples Center popcorn as the worst in the NBA a few years ago, Ballmer wanted to give Los Angeles a better name.

Another idea the Clippers had was to adorn the concourse walls with basketball jerseys from every high school in California. Not just Los Angeles. The entire state.

According to the Clippers PR staff, the final tally was 1,560 high school jerseys lined up across eight walls. Just stroll along the second level of the concourse for a delightful view of the Intuit Dome’s masterpiece. For a basketball venue focused on stimulating fandom and shining a spotlight on the game’s rich history, it’s the only artwork necessary.

“That is really about creating a feeling,” Zucker said. “You know why you’re here.”

Without question, the neatest part of this showcase is a fans’ ability to walk around and find their alma mater’s threads hanging proudly on the walls.

Oh, and it’s easier than you think — simply find one of these ‘United by Passion’ jerseys in the concourse, tap your smartphone at the bottom, and begin typing the name of your school. You’ll see exactly which wall and section your school is located in:

Not only is that a clever nugget of the display to shave off some time, but it’s also a way the Clippers held themselves accountable to personally contact every high school in the state.

Additionally, they used wood from local basketball courts as part of the concourse walls and floors. This played directly into Zucker’s idea of giving Intuit Dome its “own personality,” which they discovered was an important staple of other arenas.

“We toured 23 or 24 of the NBA arenas, and there’s good ideas and bad ideas that we got from looking at all of them,” Ballmer said. “I won’t share what the bad ones were. I loved the lobby in Milwaukee and wanted to get some of the dramatic effect of that lobby.”

Entering the bowl from the top level of the concourse, I was asked to sit down in the first seat we came by. This is the view fans will have from the ‘worst seat in the house,’ located on the upper deck:

There were two chief concerns for Ballmer before signing off on the arena’s design. The bowl had be fierce and analogous to a college atmosphere. But each game also had to be a lively, entertaining, and affordable adventure for the fans who might only be able to secure upper-level tickets.

Tickets to get in the building are still manageable despite it being a new venue, and the highest view is monumentally better than other basketball arenas.

For instance, the view shown above is 55 feet closer to the court than the furthest seat in the house at Crypto.com Arena, formerly known as Staples Center, where the Clippers and Lakers shared a home for 25 years.

Inside the Clippers’ locker room — indisputably the largest I’ve seen around the league — each player is greeted with an LED nameplate and their birthplace underneath. They have their own sneaker shelves, cubbyholes for their essentials, and giant mirrors featuring the team’s logo. It’s no longer a cramped space like they had to deal with in the previous building:

Attached is a walkway that leads directly to their stunning new practice facility, graced with natural lighting that immediately enlivens the building. When players step on the floor and see sunny Los Angeles gleaming through the windows, accentuating the newly-adopted red color scheme and script lettering, they feel valued at work. But they also feel at home:

Ballmer’s office overlooks the courts pictured above.

Altogether, Intuit Dome has 86,000 square feet of training facilities and medical support centers. It’s more than double the size of the Honey Training Center in Playa Vista, where the Clippers used to practice and get their treatment.

They didn’t just prioritize the home team, though.

Visiting squads have their own “campus,” which is unprecedented in a professional sports venue. On the other side of the building, opponents have access to everything the Clippers have.

Their locker room is massive — three times as large as most visiting locker rooms in the league. Opponents have their own cold plunges, hot tubs, and a weight training center they don’t have to share. There are designated spaces and offices and for the coaches, including a separate room for women on the staff.

Plus, something you’ve also never seen in an NBA arena: When the visitors enter Intuit Dome, they walk down a hall that’s decorated with LED signage of their team logo and wordmark:

This is an example of what opponents will see as they get off their bus and walk to the locker room:

It’s the first instance of a team going out of its way to welcome an opponent — at least to this degree.

Then again, perhaps Ballmer is taking the long-term approach. State-of-the-art facilities are one way to impress future free agents. A more effective way is for a leader to show how much they care about the sport as a whole. If you’re an opponent and see how advanced things are on this side … what is it like to play for them?

After all, that’s how a strategic businessman would think. Right?

Make no mistake, though — when it’s gametime, the Clippers won’t be so nice.

When the opponents leave their locker room and assemble to take the court, they inevitably pass a titanic-sized board warning them of rough waters ahead.

Whether the players believe it’s corny or shrewd, the message is crystal clear. There’s a storm coming and only the strongest ships will survive.

The organization has fully leaned into the rebrand that was announced last February, which was sorely needed from a cultural and marketing standpoint.

Many of Intuit Dome’s components are tailored to the Clippers’ nautical history. This includes the “Make Waves” slogan, a ship located in the outdoor plaza with backboards serving as the flags, and the progression of an ocean storm that appears on the Halo Board before the third quarter.

Opposing players are going to be overwhelmed by the Halo Board, even during pregame warmups. This is how it looks standing on the baseline, with Klay Thompson going through his routine:

Only two months old, Intuit Dome is still going through its infancy stage. There will be hiccups along the way. At the same time, it was overdue for them to move further into their own identity.

Regardless of the team’s performance, which is frankly up in the air, the new location will help strengthen the culture.

The Vegas odds weren’t in the Clippers favor before the season, putting their over-under at 40.5 wins. That was before the latest news on Kawhi Leonard, who still doesn’t have a timetable as he continues rehabbing his right knee.

Still, Ballmer is looking through a positive lens.

“I think our team can be very good,” he said. “I’m not unaware of the fact we’re not picked highly. But if we’re healthy, we should be a very good team. I wouldn’t even set expectations because we could be good, very good. I mean, when you get Kawhi healthy, James Harden, Zubac, and a bunch of hard-playing, tough defenders. A couple of scorers like Norm Powell. I think we’ll surprise people.”

Some of the most thrilling Clippers seasons and entertaining rosters have come when expectations are put on hold, most notably the year before Leonard joined in free agency.

Ballmer wants to win. He’s eager to succeed in the team’s new palace. If you think you’ve seen his excitement before, don’t let the 2025 Clippers snag a playoff spot.

“It’s not like anybody is going to write us down and say these are the favorites to win the championship,” Ballmer added. “We’ve had some of that (in the past) as one of the top three or four teams. We’ve had our shots. In the bubble, we had a shot. When we got to the conference finals, but we didn’t have Kawhi by then. So yeah, we’re in a little different place in the sense that we don’t come in as one of those top five teams. But guess what? I’d be happy to surprise a bunch of people.”

The Clippers will begin their season against the Phoenix Suns on October 23. The Intuit Dome will also officially host 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend.

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