The 2026 NBA All-Star Game will take place at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. With the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers set to open in August, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the All-Star game will be held in “basketball heaven.”
“It is such an honor for us to be able to host an All-Star Game,” said L.A. Clippers Chairman Steve Ballmer. “I was giddy when I heard it was possible.”
The 2026 All-Star Game is projected to bring in over $250 million in revenue and basketball fans from around the world. Events planned for that weekend include fashion shows, social justice forums and concerts.
Inglewood Mayor James Butts said the influx of sporting venues like the Intuit Dome and SoFi Stadium and sporting events like the All-Star Game and Super Bowl have benefited the city.
He said when he took office (in 2010), unemployment rates in the city were 17.5%. Today, unemployment is down to less than 5%. He added that property values have since tripled in the city of Inglewood.
The city also recently received federal funding for the Inglewood Transit Connector, a 1.6-mile, three station, “automated people mover” that will connect people from Metro’s K Line to venues such as the Kia Forum, SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theater and the Intuit Dome.
However, the project will not be completed in time for All-Star Weekend.
“I think anything else would be hopelessly optimistic, and I'm a hopeless optimist, but our goal right now is to beat the Olympics,” Butts said.
The Olympics is slated to be held in Los Angeles in 2028, with another international sporting event also happening in the city in 2026: the FIFA World Cup. SoFi Stadium will host the Super Bowl in 2027.
The major sporting events, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, will bring in an influx of visitors to the city, “tens of thousands of people.”
Bass said Los Angeles will be encouraging visitors to use public transit: “Take Metro, the trains, the buses, the connectors."
The Taylor Swift concert, she said, increased Metro ridership and showed concertgoers “how easy it is to ride Metro, how quick and stress-free it is.”
Bass also said visitors to the city will be looking “to be entertained beyond the game, they want places to eat, they want places to shop.”
These activities will help the surrounding communities, she said.
“The spillover effect, I think, will be quite profound,” Bass added.
With major sporting events on the horizon, she said, she wants to “address some of the beautification issues in our city, the graffiti, the trash, city services, the sidewalks and in addition, of course, our number one problem, and that is the tens of thousands of people that are unhoused."
Bass, who is headed to Washington D.C. for the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting, starting Wednesday, said the “central point” in her meetings at the conference will be addressing “the resources that we need for these events.”
