Asp.Net ListView's Items property is always empty - asp.net

Question

Good day
I have a user control that contains a ListView which is being used to display tabs.
I am databinding the ListView and on the OnItemDataBound event adding the tab elements.
However the Items property never contains anything and is always empty (on PostBack and on ItemDataBound).
Markup:
<asp:ListView ID="SaleTabsListView" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="SaleTabsListView_OnItemDataBound" ItemPlaceholderID="SaleTabsPlaceHolder" EnableViewState="true">
<LayoutTemplate>
<div class="tabs">
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="SaleTabsPlaceHolder" />
</div>
</LayoutTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="ItemPlaceHolder" />
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:ListView>
Code behind:
protected void SaleTabsListView_OnItemDataBound(object sender, ListViewItemEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Item.ItemType == ListViewItemType.DataItem)
{
var saleTab = ((ListViewDataItem)e.Item).DataItem as SalesTab;
if (saleTab != null)
{
var placeHolder = e.Item.FindControl("ItemPlaceHolder") as PlaceHolder;
var htmlAnchor = new HtmlAnchor();
htmlAnchor.Attributes.Add("id", saleTab.Id);
htmlAnchor.Attributes.Add("class", saleTab.IsCurrent ? currentTabClass : string.Empty);
var emptyLabel = new Label();
var label = new Label {Text = saleTab.Title};
label.Attributes.Add("id", saleTab.Id + "Label");
label.Attributes.Add("class", saleTab.IsComplete ? completeClass : incompleteClass);
emptyLabel.Controls.Add(label);
htmlAnchor.Controls.Add(emptyLabel);
placeHolder.Controls.Add(htmlAnchor);
}
}
}
So my question is: is the binding I'm doing somehow screwing with the Items property?
Thanks