The doors open Aug. 1 on the fresh 5,000-square-foot Los Angeles Clippers flagship retail store located steps from the sparkling new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. Opening the team’s solo flagship isn’t about unlocking a door but represents a three-year process where the Clippers took a decidedly independent approach to NBA merchandise.
After spending more than two decades sharing a home court—and thus a retail presence—with two other professional sports franchises, the Clippers move to the Intuit Dome offered the team a real opportunity to start from scratch.
So, they did.
“The fans who were here [for a pre-opening event] were blown away,” Gillian Zucker, CEO Halo Sports & Entertainment, tells me. “They were saying, ‘This is our shop?’ That is the reaction I hope we will see. We have spent three years building it.”
While the flagship retail location has a few modern points of intrigue—the 5-foot-by-6-foot oversized New Era Clippers cap offers a true social media moment for fans and the Creation Station will keep visitors plenty busy—it’s the approach to filling the store (and the Intuit Dome shops) with specialized product that sets apart the strategy.
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The first step in the process involved the Clippers buying a license from the NBA to create their own line of product. That launches with the Courtside Supply label, allowing the Clippers to not only work with existing NBA partners, but then go and explore additional partnerships and create in-house designs.
An exclusive limited online launch of Courtside Supply sold out immediately, Sarah Jackson, General Manager of Retail for the Clippers, tells me. The flagship will continually stock new Courtside Supply merchandise, all focused on keeping the Clippers on trend.
Zucker says that by working in-house on merchandise, the team can embrace groups traditionally underserved in the NBA retail space, including youth, women and even pets. Claudia Calderon, CMO LA Clippers & Intuit Dome, tells me having their own label also allows the team to ensure price points remain accessible while keeping decisions on products in Inglewood.
The strategy, which launches fully Aug. 1, features Courtside Supply, a bevy of traditional NBA sponsors—think plenty of Nike product and an impressive display of New Era caps that includes a full line for youth—but also collaborations with other on-trend suppliers, such as Clippers-themed Lululemon product and mugs reminiscent of Stanley.
“We have seen a great response,” Jackson says, with Zucker adding they can quickly pivot as the season goes to capitalize on the most recent trends.
The products can change within the store, just like the store itself, with LED boards able to show content on the screens. “We wanted to surprise and delight fans as they come in,” Calderon says. “There are different things to engage the fan. It makes you stop, and it feels a little different.”
The exclusivity of the shop takes an individualistic turn with the Creation Station, complete with two jersey presses, an embroidery and patch station for caps (blank caps offer full customization), the league’s first-ever laser-engraving ball press for leather Wilson balls (fans can watch their ball be engraved as it happens) and direct-to-garment printers that give the team flexibility to create game-exclusive products or use pre-loaded imagery for fully one-off customization. Fans can order in the app or in-store and then get notifications when the product is ready for pick-up.
“We are giving customers what they want with the jersey customization,” Calderon says, “but we are also giving them the next level.”
The flagship opens to the public daily in the plaza or closes off to be part of the ticketed space for fans during games. Just like the four Clips Shops peppered throughout the Intuit Dome and the four additional retail options, all mapped to a fans’ journey through the venue— by working with Levy on concessions, the Clippers also have merchandise sprinkled throughout concessions locations—all shopping is enabled with frictionless grab-and-go technology.
“You can put a cap on your head and just walk out with it,” Zucker says.
The flagship opening comes just two weeks before the official Aug. 15 opening of the Intuit Dome, the new 17,800-seat purpose-built and privately funded arena and practice facility designed by AECOM for Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer’s dream was always to make the site basketball-focused, a dome filled with all things Clippers and basketball. “I like the concept of the dome,” Ballmer previously told me. “It feels sort of more unique, more energetic. We are trying to build a basketball mecca here and I wanted to make a certain kind of statement and that is why we went dome.”
Highlights of the Intuit Dome
• The first NBA arena to have a true soccer-style supporters section, the venue features The Wall, an uninterrupted 51-row section for supporters of the club—to buy a ticket a fan must be a verified supporter—to host around 5,000 fans in what the Clippers hope will be an intimidatingly loud home-court advantage positioned at one end of the arena near the visitors’ bench. About 400 of those seats are safe-standing seats. “Yes, there was a decibel analysis and all that,” Ballmer says, “but I think just the visual presence will be intimidating and a home court advantage.”
• Roughly 60% of fans will enter through the main doors closest to the main parking and pedestrian bridge and enter through the plaza into an indoor-outdoor space that leads inside the dome. “We want to create a sense of place,” Zucker says. “We want this statement.”
• The bowl design brings fans closer to the court than they previously were. Row 20 of The Wall, for example, is 45 feet closer—almost a complete NBA half-court—than a fan sitting at the same height along the baseline in the team’s previous downtown venue. The last row in the Intuit Dome is 70 feet closer to the court than the top seat downtown. “The view of the game and comfort of the seat is what we spent the most care and time on,” Zucker says. “That is why fans are here.”
• Fan comfort was paramount throughout, with the Intuit Dome providing the most leg room of any NBA team—every seat is the same in comfort and leg room—and testing of foams was done to provide a comfortable seat. Each seat also has power to it to charge phones, an LED light that can be used as part of activations and buttons akin to a video game controller to allow fans to interact with games on the Halo Board.
• The Halo Board is a 44,000-square-foot double-sided board encircling the interior of the dome. The Clippers have plenty of digitized plans to engage fans.
• The Clippers placed 199 countdown clocks outside the seating bowl so fans know when the game tips.
• At every step in the process, the Clippers spoke to the end user of a space to get feedback. That led to the referees’ room including a conference room to house pre-game security meetings, kitchens in each concession stand, natural light in the adjacent practice facility and the players’ locker room featuring custom-built shoe racks so that each locker can hold 24 pairs of shoes.
• The Clippers practice facility is just steps from the main court, likely the closest proximity between practice courts to the competition court of any NBA team. The practice facility features state-of-the-art training and recovery spaces, along with lounges and a barber’s chair.
• The top request from players for the practice facility was natural light, so even though the space dips two floors deep it includes a sunk-in garden to allow California sunlight to stream onto the two regulation-sized practice floors. Basketball operations offices and family spaces line the courts in two levels.
• Fans in the main entry lobby have a view onto the practice floors.
• The Intuit Dome features three premium clubs on the club level and three additional lounges on the floor level, including the Lexus Lounge that the players walk through on their way to the court.
• The visiting team compound includes a room for the visiting owners and encapsulated space to house all the needs of a visiting team. A sign upon entry reading “Rough Waters Ahead” welcomes teams and reminds them the Intuit Dome is the home court of the Clippers.
• Court B off the main concourse offers a full-sized regulation court but is also designed with acoustics and hidden wooden bleachers (wooden bleachers aren’t made any longer, so the Clippers had to get them custom-made) so the space can host anything from a sponsor activation to a wedding or a basketball game to a car reveal. Court B can be separated from the concourse so it can host a separate event, if needed, allowing bookings of Court B to run independently of the Clippers game-day schedule.
• The Clippers tracked down a jersey from all girls and boys high school basketball teams in the state and displayed them on the concourse walls. That’s 1,546 in all, searchable with a phone so fans can find their favorite school.
• The venue features eight green rooms that include lounge space, changing areas and more, ideal for concerts and entertainment events.
• The Intuit Dome features a keg storage room for empty kegs, an often-overlooked idea that saves space and keeps the smelly kegs from other areas.
• In the partnership with Levy, the team created 310 Provisions for concessions. The team tested 11 hot dogs and 25 pizzas to find the right selection. “We want items people crave,” Zucker says. The Clippers will sell a bottomless souvenir cup fans can fill at any concession location. The Clippers are also allowing fans to bring empty water bottles to be filled at water stations.
• The 80,000-square-foot plaza can open to the public or be ticketed on game days. It features bars, restaurants, art installations (including a large digital screen featuring Refik Anadol’s ever-adapting display) and a regulation-sized basketball court for public use.
• The Intuit Dome’s solar panels combine with on-site battery storage to generate enough power and storage to run an NBA Finals game off-the-grid.
