![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-2177779124-scaled-e1728971259655-1568x883.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Intuit Dome in Los Angeles\u2019 Inglewood neighborhood opened for a preseason preview on Monday.<\/p>\n
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) \u2014 The flashy new Intuit Dome opened its doors to basketball fans for the first time Monday night as the Los Angeles Clippers hosted a preseason game against the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n
The arena has been hosting concerts since August, but this is the first game in the more than $2 billion vision of Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Fans streamed in through doors using facial recognition. A double-sided halo board showed photos, videos, statistics and more.<\/p>\n
The Clippers were one of three tenants of the crypto.com Arena, sharing space with the Lakers and the Kings. Now they\u2019ve got their own address.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great feeling to have a place to call home. Guys are very excited about it,\u201d Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. \u201cOur whole organization is excited about it. Tonight our fans get the chance to see a part of it. You have a chance to have our own place we call home. You can leave your shoes in the locker room and come back tomorrow and they\u2019ll be there. We have our own place and own building and everything is secure.\u201d<\/p>\n
On \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d\u00a0which aired Sunday<\/a>, Ballmer showed off his new building, which he hopes will give his NBA team a boost.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything in my instinct says it will help our team, our basketball team, if our crowd team can really get into it and give them energy,\u201d Ballmer said.<\/p>\n As fans entered the arena, they found an 80,000-square-foot outdoor plaza with a basketball court that\u2019s open to the public.<\/p>\n Patricia Blakemore was jumping up and down when she arrived in the arena.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so high tech,\u201d said Blakemore, who lives in nearby Manhattan Beach. \u201cI have to say one of the things that makes me exceptionally happy is that from the moment we parked our car to get in here, the staff has been very helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked how long he\u2019s been a Clippers fan, Eric Swallow said since Monday. He just bought season tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a new stadium and it\u2019s close to Manhattan Beach,\u201d Swallow said. That was all it took for the Clippers to gain a new fan.<\/p>\n Estelle Talleu and Matteo Decarlini came from France to visit Los Angeles and go to the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI love basketball, and I wanted to see L.A. and this atmosphere,\u201d Decarlini said. \u201cIn France, it\u2019s not the same. There\u2019s nothing like this. This arena is so big.\u201d<\/p>\n Talleu loved the halo board: \u201cIt\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n She was taking lots of videos, as were many fans in the nearly 18,000-seat arena.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also an abundance of bathrooms, and Ballmer boasted about the 1,400 toilets on \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d There\u2019s good reason.<\/p>\n \u201cI really hate it when people wait in line,\u201d Ballmer told \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d \u201cWaiting in line for toilets, I think is \u2014 it stops people from getting back into the game. People get frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n The Intuit Dome is in an area that\u2019s exploding with sports and entertainment. It\u2019s less than a mile from Sofi Stadium \u2014 where the NFL\u2019s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers call home \u2014 and The Kia Forum, which hosts concerts and used to be home to the Lakers.<\/p>\n The arena is carbon-free and cashless and has all the bells and whistles.<\/p>\n Juvenal Martinez, who is 14, came to the game with his uncle.<\/p>\n \u201cThe arena is good. I like it. I like all the technology and the facial scan to get in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ballmer\u00a0broke ground on the arena in 2021<\/a>\u00a0and it opened its doors in August. It is schedule to host many big events, including\u00a0the 2026 All-Star Game<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0basketball for the 2028 Olympics<\/a>\u00a0in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is beautiful,\u201d Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. \u201cTo be able to practice here (Sunday) and have shootaround here, they did an incredible job. I think Clippers fans should be happy. When you look at fan experience it will be like no other. It will be exciting to be the first visiting team to experience that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Intuit Dome in Los Angeles\u2019 Inglewood neighborhood opened for a preseason preview on Monday. INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,11029,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-101519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-intuit-dome","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-clippers","13":"tag-laclippers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesclippers","18":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114690624679206592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}