Currently, there is no NFL, NBA, or NHL team in the San Diego metropolitan area. San Diego is the largest American city not to have won a championship in a "Big Four"[a] major professional league. The city does have one major league title to its name: the 1963 American Football League (AFL) Championship won by the San Diego Chargers, when the AFL was an independent entity prior to the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. Due to its lackluster record on winning professional championships, and in some cases retaining professional teams, some San Diego sports fans believe there is a curse on professional sports in the city.[2]
The Padres joined MLB in 1969 as an expansion team. The team originated as a Minor League Baseball (MiLB) team in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), where they played from 1936 through 1968 before joining Major League Baseball. As a PCL team, the Padres were based at Lane Field (now the site of the InterContinental Hotel San Diego) in downtown's Columbia neighborhood from 1936 through 1957, and Westgate Park in Mission Valley (now the site of Fashion Valley Mall) from 1958 through 1967. Their final season as a minor league team, 1968, was also their first at San Diego Stadium.
San Diego has hosted the MLB All-Star Game three times: 1978 and 1992 at San Diego Stadium, and 2016 at Petco Park. The 2016 edition was the final All-Star game to determine home field advantage in the World Series.
Petco Park has hosted the World Baseball Classic three times: 2006, the inaugural tournament (for which San Diego hosted the championship), 2009, and 2017.
The city does not currently host a National Football League (NFL) team, though it previously hosted the San Diego Chargers, who were based in San Diego from 1961 through the 2016 season. The Chargers began play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL), and spent its first season in Los Angeles where it struggled to garner a following before moving to San Diego in 1961.[17] The Chargers joined the NFL as result of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970, and played their home games initially at Balboa Stadium, then at San Diego Stadium from 1967 until relocating to Los Angeles in 2017. The team moved to Los Angeles following a request by owner Dean Spanos to relocate the team to SoFi Stadium, a new stadium constructed by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, where the Chargers would be a tenant and share the new stadium with the Rams. They are now known as the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers' relocation left San Diego without a professional football team for the first time since 1961.[18]
On May 29, 2018, the Alliance of American Football (AAF) announced they would start a franchise in San Diego, the San Diego Fleet. The team played their home games at SDCCU Stadium, while San Diego native and former St. Louis Rams head coach Mike Martz was the head coach. The league suspended operations before it could complete its inaugural season.
San Diego has no current professional basketball representation, but the city has a significant history hosting professional basketball, nearly all encompassed within an 18-year period from 1967 to 1984.
The San Diego Rockets, a National Basketball Association (NBA)expansion team, played from 1967 to 1971. The franchise was founded and owned by local sports booster Robert Breitbard, who also founded and owned the original San Diego Gulls hockey franchise of the Western Hockey League and developed the San Diego Sports Arena (initially known as the San Diego International Sports Center), where the Rockets played. In 1971, the Rockets were sold and relocated to Houston after Breitbard encountered financial distress due to tax-assessment issues surrounding the sports arena, which ultimately prevented sale of the team to another local owner. The tax issues also led to Breitbard relinquishing control of the arena to Canadian millionaire Peter Graham, whose alleged mismanagement of the arena hampered future sports tenants. The franchise is now known as the Houston Rockets.
The 1971 NBA All-Star Game was held at the San Diego Sports Arena, hosted by the Rockets just months prior to the team's sale and relocation.
During the 1971–72 NBA season, San Diego was the part-time home of the Golden State Warriors for six home games (one each month of the season). The Warriors notably changed their name from "San Francisco" to "Golden State" prior to the season as the team was searching for a new home arena and looked to make a play for the San Diego market (as well as Oakland) following the departure of the Rockets to Houston. The team ultimately stayed in the San Francisco Bay Area, settling full time in Oakland at Oakland Arena the following season.
From 1972 to 1975, San Diego was home to the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association (ABA), the league's first (and ultimately only) expansion team. Known as the Conquistadors (a.k.a. "The Q's") for its first three seasons, the team name was changed to the San Diego Sails following a change in ownership for the 1975–76 season. The franchise was folded 11 games into that season after ownership learned that the team was to be shut out of the upcoming ABA–NBA merger, reportedly at the insistence of then-Los Angeles Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke. Cooke was upset that the San Diego franchise had signed former Lakers star Wilt Chamberlain away from his franchise two years prior (Lakers ownership successfully sued Chamberlain over the contract, ultimately preventing Chamberlain from playing with the Conquistadors, relegating him to coaching duties) and also expressed unwillingness of allowing another team in Southern California.[19] The Conquistadors/Sails played at Peterson Gymnasium for the 1972–73 season and Golden Hall for the 1973–74 season before ownership was permitted to base the team at the San Diego Sports Arena, where it played the remainder of its games.
Professional basketball returned from 1978 to 1984, in the form of the NBA's San Diego Clippers, the relocated successor to the Buffalo Braves franchise. The team was based at the San Diego Sports Arena. In 1981, the Clippers were bought by Los Angeles-area real estate developer Donald Sterling. Sterling attempted to move the team the following year in 1982 to his home of Los Angeles, but his request was denied by the NBA, which investigated Sterling's alleged widespread mismanagement of the franchise the same year. The investigation report recommended the termination of Sterling's ownership of the Clippers on the basis that he had failed to pay creditors and players on time. Days before a scheduled vote to terminate his ownership, he announced he would sell the team, prompting the league to cancel the scheduled vote. Sterling ultimately remained owner, satisfying league officials by instead relinquishing operational duties of the franchise. In 1984, Sterling again applied to relocate the team to Los Angeles, and despite again being denied permission to do so from the NBA, moved the team to Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Lawsuits followed, but Sterling ultimately prevailed and was able to keep the team in Los Angeles, also in part due to his close personal friendship with then-Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who welcomed sharing the Los Angeles market with Sterling's franchise.[20] The franchise is now known as the Los Angeles Clippers. San Diego has not hosted major professional basketball since.
On March 11, 2024, it was announced that the NBA G League minor league affiliate of the Los Angeles Clippers, the Ontario Clippers, would be relocating to the San Diego area city of Oceanside's newly constructed Frontwave Arena ahead of the 2024–25 season and rebranding as the San Diego Clippers, using its NBA affiliate's former identity from 1978 to 1984.[21]
The Gulls ceased operations in 1974 to give way for the relocated San Diego Mariners of the upstart World Hockey Association (WHA), which at the time was the NHL's rival league. The Mariners relocated to San Diego after spending their first two seasons of operation in New York City and New Jersey. The WHA's financial instability caused the Mariners to fold upon the failed NHL-WHA merger of 1977. Two years later, the successful NHL-WHA merger of 1979 occurred, with four WHA franchises being accepted into the NHL. The Mariners were one of several teams to fold in 1977 after the NHL indicated it planned to only take four teams instead of six in absorbing the WHA.
San Diego was involved when the NHL expanded in the early 1990s from 22 teams to 26. Following the December 1989 announcement by the NHL of its intent to expand the league, 11 bids from 10 cities (two from San Diego) were submitted for an NHL expansion franchise.[24] The two separate bids for a San Diego franchise included one by local entrepreneurs Harry Cooper and Richard Esquinas (lease-holders of the San Diego Sports Arena), and one by Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Neither bid advanced with any serious traction. Cooper and Esquinas's bid relied on a future new arena that their group would plan to build, but only if they were awarded an expansion team first. Buss's bid meanwhile quickly shifted focus to Anaheim instead. Cooper and Esquinas's bid ultimately gave way to a new proposal by local developer Ron Hahn, who made a similar commitment to build a new arena, but only if an NHL or NBA franchise was secured first.[25] In 1993, the NHL awarded a team to The Walt Disney Company in Anaheim, to be known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now Anaheim Ducks). In contrast to the efforts in San Diego, Anaheim chose to build a new arena without commitments from any franchise, and were subsequently awarded a team.[26]
At the college level, there are currently ice hockey teams at the club level of each of the major universities and in the area, though NCAA ice hockey has no presence west of Colorado (excluding Alaska) with Arizona State Sun Devils men's ice hockey, which began play in 2015 and competes as an NCAA Division I independent, being the only exception.
On September 29, 2023, San Diego hosted an exhibition matchup at Pechanga Arena between the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, the first NHL hockey game played in San Diego since a previous exhibition game in 1994. The Kings won the game 4–3 in front of 11,044 fans.[27]
On May 18, 2023, MLS announced that it would expand to San Diego, adding the city as the league's 30th team.[1] The team, named San Diego FC, is set to begin play in 2025 at Snapdragon Stadium with an ownership group headlined by Egyptian businessman Mohamed Mansour and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.
The city also hosts the San Diego Sockers of the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL), the highest level of professional indoor soccer. The current version of the Sockers follows a lineage of other professional soccer teams which have used the San Diego Sockers name.
On June 19, 2019, it was announced that Landon Donovan would be bringing a new USL Championship team to San Diego. The club, San Diego Loyal SC, began play during the 2020 USL Championship season.[32] However, the team folded in October 2023.
The San Diego region is home to 72 golf courses in total.[34]
Lacrosse
On August 30, 2017, the National Lacrosse League (NLL), the world's top box lacrosse league, awarded an expansion franchise to the city of San Diego and owner Joseph Tsai. On October 24, the NLL and San Diego owners unveiled the San Diego Seals identity. Also revealed were the colors, purple, gold, gray, and black, and the team logo. The team began play in December 2018 at Pechanga Arena and earned the second overall playoff seed in the West Division after a successful 10–8 regular season. Home game attendance during the inaugural season averaged 7,769 fans per contest.
In 2024, the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL), the highest level professional field lacrosse league, transitioned to having teams based in home markets after playing its first five seasons with all nomadic teams in a touring-only model. The California Redwoods, a charter member of the league which played its first five seasons known as Redwoods Lacrosse Club, were announced to be making San Diego their home in 2024.
The Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF), the highest level of women's professional volleyball, announced a San Diego team in 2023 (ultimately named the San Diego Mojo) as one of the league's charter members, began play within the league's first season in 2024. USA Volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings was announced as the new team's lead owner.[36] In June 2023, former olympian Tayyiba Haneef-Park was named the team's first head coach.[37]
In 2022, San Diego received an expansion team in the National Volleyball Association (NVA), the highest level of men's professional volleyball, which would begin play in the 2023 NVA season. The team, which became known as the San Diego Wild, reached the 2023 NVA Championship Cup Finals in its first season, ultimately finishing runner-up after falling to the Orange County Stunners 3–0 on July 30, 2023.
In women's rugby, the San Diego Surfers have competed in the 10-team Women's Premier League (WPL), the highest level of domestic women's rugby union, since 2011. Initially founded in 1975 as an amateur team, the club has won the WPL national title twice, in 2016 and 2018, in addition to four national championships in USA Rugby Club 7s.
The San Diego Open is a WTA 500 tournament held at the Barnes Tennis Centre. In August 2021, after the cancellation of the Asia Swing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Barnes Tennis Centre San Diego was allocated a two-year ATP 250 tournament license.
San Diego has had two previous WTT franchises. The San Diego Friars were a WTT expansion franchise that began play in 1975. They used the San Diego Sports Arena (now Pechanga Arena) as their primary home venue but played some home matches at the Anaheim Convention Center between 1975 and 1977, before Anaheim got its own team in 1978. After missing the playoffs their first two seasons, the Friars qualified in 1977 and 1978, and were the 1978 Western Division champions, but lost in the quarterfinals. The team folded after the 1978 season. International Tennis Hall of FamersRod Laver and Dennis Ralston played for the Friars.
In 1981, the Friars returned as an expansion franchise as WTT resumed operations rebranded as TeamTennis after a hiatus. After three seasons as the Friars, the team was renamed the San Diego Buds before the 1984 season. The Buds won both the 1984 and 1985 TeamTennis championships but folded following the 1985 season. Hall of Famer Rosie Casals was the Friars player-coach in 1983.
San Diego is represented at the highest professional level of men's ultimate in the Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) by the San Diego Growlers. The team began play in 2015. The UFA (formerly the AUDL) officially announced the Growlers as an expansion team in October 2014.
A women's highest-level team in the Western Ultimate League (WUL), the San Diego Super Bloom, was launched in 2020 as one of the league's founding franchises, formerly known as the San Diego Wolfpack. The team competes as a member of the Southwest Division of the league.
Sailing
San Diego Yacht Club is a yacht club located in San Diego Bay. The club is one of the oldest in the United States, founded in 1886. It is located in Point Loma across from a spit of land known as Shelter Island. San Diego Yacht Club won the America's Cup in 1987, 1988, and 1992, hosting the event in 1988, 1992, and 1995. The club boasts one of the largest and oldest junior sailing programs in the country.
The Atlético Tlecoyotes de San Diego compete in the Mesoamerican Ballgame Association USA, also known as AJUPEME USA, the main sports organization for Ulama in the United States. The team became one of the first in the league in 2023.[43] The region is becoming a center for the revival of the Mesoamerican ball game as the team hosts Ulama events across the county.[44] AJUPEME USA plays Ulama de Cadera, or hip ulama, meaning it plays the iteration of Ulama with hips.
Owner Donald Sterling relocated franchise to Los Angeles, successfully utilizing lawsuits to do so, after twice being denied official permission from the NBA (in both 1982 & 1984) to move.[46]
Franchise folded after ownership learned it was to be excluded from the upcoming ABA–NBA merger (occurred 6 months later), reportedly at the insistence of Los Angeles Lakers then-ownership.[47][48]
^Team began play in 2019 as Redwoods Lacrosse Club, a charter member of the PLL, which was a touring-only league of nomadic teams for its first five seasons. The league assigned teams to home markets beginning in 2024, with San Diego's Torero Stadium becoming the home of the Redwoods
^2016, 2018
In addition to WPL championships, the team was won several club championships: D1: 3 (2009, 2010, 2023) USA Rugby Club 7s: 4 (2012, 2014, 2018, 2019)
^Franchise was founded in 1995 in New York City, relocated to San Diego in 2014
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