Optimism was the theme that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer emphasized as he talked about the team’s new arena project with Jabari Young of CNBC. A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday for the $1.8 billion facility, which will be located in Inglewood and called the Intuit Dome. It will become the new home for the franchise in three years.
The Clippers are looking forward to establishing their own identity after years of sharing the Staples Center with the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings. Ballmer notes that it took a lot of faith to embark on the project, which the franchise started without any land to build on. The team had to pay $66.2MM to Inglewood for the site where the facility will be located and $400MM to purchase the nearby Forum from the Madison Square Garden Company.
“This stadium is about being optimistic about our team,” Ballmer said. “It’s about being optimistic about our fans. Get in the building, pump up, make energy. Your energy can feed our team to greater success.”
The 18,000-seat arena will include a lot of high-tech features as Ballmer hopes to create a unique experience for paying customers. It will have a halo-shaped video board with 44,000 square feet of LED lights, along with technology that will enable fans to purchase concessions from their seats without the need for cash or credit cards. The Clippers will also have four cabanas at courtside that Ballmer compares to end-zone suites in the NFL.
The arena won’t host hockey games, so it will be built with “basketball geometry” that’s tailored for the best NBA viewing experience. The team will move its business operations and its practice facility to the Intuit Dome, and Ballmer estimates that the arena will create $260MM in economic activity for Inglewood and will result in more than 7,000 new full-time and part-time jobs.
“It’s a big market,” Ballmer said. “There’s plenty of fans that can be fans of the Clippers and Lakers. But we want to tell you who we are. I think there are many folks in L.A. who identify with this notion of being the underdog, the person who strides. It’s almost two L.A.s. It’s not all showtime and movie business. Our fans are grinders.”
As a former CEO of Microsoft, Ballmer is still relatively new to the sports world, buying the Clippers in 2014 after former owner Donald Sterling was banned from the league. Along with having seasons affected by injuries, Ballmer said the most challenging thing about adapting to the sports environment is “judgment and understanding of where and how I should be involved on the basketball side.” Still, he has been able to take some of the lessons he learned from the business world and apply them to the NBA.
“You don’t blink,” he said. “We’re not blinking on the Clippers. We’re going to consistently invest and making our team as good as it can be. And in this new building, we’re going to invest.”
you officially called it the igloo arthur hill.lol.
Sterling didn’t have the vision or the decency. For this venture. Definitely not the basketballs to put up the Féria. Clippers deserve their own place. Long time coming. Looks like it’s going to be state-of-the-art arena. You catch how much Dolan made.
I’m not sure I buy into the feel-good narrative. It’s a business move.
Who will still be on the team when it’s completed?
The footage from the launch party was cringey as heck. Kawhi and PG trying to look interested as a terrible band played to a room full of middle aged millionaires.
Yes it will be good to have their own arena, but the first, second and third priority is profit.
Of course it’s about profit.
But doesn’t mean it can’t also be about building a franchise and momentum for the team, as they have long been the dirty step child of Lakers.
Ballmer will make sure this place is state of the art and a place people want to go to.
Getting your own arena is LONG overdue. Playing at the Lakers home arena. Just made it that much worse. Therefore a great move, Finally. If you are just finding out Pro Sports is a business. Then I guess, it’s about time.
Basketball is not a game you can share an arena. Ballmer is best thing that could happen to Clippers. Atleast he doesn’t go to city and ask for freebies. Like most other owners.
The “Inuit” Dome? Pretty sure that’s a typo.
That makes it an igloo.
Clubber Lang said it best… prediction: Pain
10 years after the opening they may have a first round pick.
I love when they show his purple face and then they lose.
He may or may not have asked the city for freebies. I do remember he campaigned to raise our taxes for a proposition that would have financially benefited him. The igloo/arena is fine. It’s just too bad it’s not being built in Seattle. Go Lakers!
You realize the Climate Pledge Arena is finalizing renovations now for the Kraken and in the future for the return of the Sonics right?
The rumors off the Grapevine are saying that both ticket and concession prices will be ultra expensive due to the lack of any public financing as well as the cost to acquire the land and the Forum.
Even fervent fans are referring to the new arena as the
CLIP JOINT !!
No championship banners in the rafters though.
Lakers own all of those in the Staples center.