Intuit Dome v. Crypto.com Arena
Last week I checked out two basketball games in LA: Clippers v. Pelicans and Lakers v. Warriors.
They were wildly different experiences.
Yours truly is a Pelicans fan and has never been to the Intuit Dome, so I was curious what the newest, SOTA arena would be like.
It started by onboarding onto the LA Clippers + Intuit Dome app which has a whopping 1.5 ⭐️ rating on the App Store. Onboarding is rough, but it mostly pays off once completed. Walking in without having to show my ticket at all (cameras were watching me) was as frictionless as it gets. Concessions could be better: selection was poor and looking into a waist-high camera to prove my identity at a concession stand was clunky. Grab-and-go, once inside a concession stand, did work well, though.
If the goal of Intuit Dome, which has the most toilets in the league, is to keep you in your seat watching basketball, it’s successful. Its scoreboard is impressive and huge, and I also liked the interactive buttons for on-screen games during timeouts. There was only one opportunity to play along with trivia. The Clippers should think about adding more chances to participate. Lastly, LEDs on each chair make for fun light shows throughout the game.
The game itself? Not so great, but through no fault of the Clippers. My Pels rolled out a starting lineup of Jose Alvarado, Yves Missi, Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Antonio Reeves. It was a competitive contest, but the Clippers ultimately prevailed 114-98. All in all, the fan experience at Intuit Dome was novel and compelling, even if the basketball wasn’t.
The next night, at the 25-year-old Crypto.com Arena (fka Staples Center), was an entirely different setting. The scoreboard is maybe a fifth of the size of the Intuit Dome’s, someone checked my ticket in, and buying a drink required standing in a line.
But it doesn’t get more exciting than LeBron v. Steph, especially when you throw in Luka Doncic, Jimmy Butler, and Brandon Podziemski, who hit eight threes! This was by no means a unique basketball viewing atmosphere, except that the crowd was absolutely on fire, the game was meaningful, and I was locked in.
The takeaway for me is: bells and whistles are nice, but even the most futuristic accoutrements don’t outweigh an amazing core product.
Follow me on Twitter