This is a moment in San Diego sports, and another big step as the club prepares for its debut in Major League Soccer’s 2025 season. Partnering with Adidas, the team’s new kit is minimalist in design, but big in meaning. They’re ocean views with a side of sunshine. The team’s official colors—chrome and azul—dominate the new threads, with rainbow side stripes adding a splash of energy. DIRECTV, the club’s first front-of-kit sponsor, takes center stage.

“This kit embodies the spirit of our Club and the pride of our city,” SDFC CEO Tom Penn said in the team’s press release. “Few moments are as special as the unveiling of a football club’s inaugural kit.”

April 19, 2024

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The team says the jersey’s dark blue base (which the team calls azul) draws inspiration from San Diego’s iconic coastal views of sky meeting the ocean, while the chrome (technically not a color but a type of metallic finish) accents reflect the city’s dynamic communities. The gradient side stripes are said to incorporate the club’s community colors, and symbolize San Diego’s diversity.

As SDFC steps into the MLS spotlight, this jersey marks a significant milestone. The unveiling comes ahead of a weekend of celebrations, culminating in the Chrome Ball Cup at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 15, featuring 5 vs. 5 tournaments with cash prizes for the winners.

Fans eager to get their hands on the new jersey can head to Eighteen Threads, the SDFC retail shop at Mission Valley Mall, or hit MLSStore.com. Special limited-edition jerseys featuring an “Inaugural Season” tag and commemorative box are available in-store only.

The post San Diego FC’s First-Ever Jerseys are Here appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Friday, May 10 | 6:40 p.m. | Petco Park

Watch: Padres.TV

Few things are as cathartic as chanting “Beat L.A.” with 45,000 of your closest friends, and the Padres will need all the help they can get from their fans when they face the Dodgers at Petco Park this month. The Pads’ offense this season has been fine enough, with rookies like center fielder Jackson Merrill pulling their weight and established stars like third baseman Manny Machado turning in solid, if unspectacular seasons.

But being fine enough at the plate doesn’t cut it when the pitching is among the worst in baseball. Only seven teams have a worse earned run average. That combination has led to a frustrating start for the Padres, who as of this writing sit three games under .500 and look up at five teams in the playoff standings. With their divisional rivals in town, the Padres have a chance to get back in the playoff race. 

San Diego Wave Women in Sports Panel

Wednesday, May 8 | 5:00 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

In what might be the best deal in town this month, the San Diego chapter of Women in Sports and Events (WISE) is hosting a panel on the business of sports before the Wave’s game against the Utah Royals. Announced panelists include Jessi Miley-Dyer, commissioner of the World Surf League; Danielle Nuzzo, head of communications with Wave FC partner, Trust and Will; and Karla Thompson, executive director of performance and development with the Wave. For $40, attendees receive a “seat at the game, access to the pre-match panel discussion and post-discussion networking, and a donation to WISE San Diego,” as well as lite bites and a drink voucher, according to the nonprofit.

Locally, the Wave’s game attendance is among the best in American soccer and the Mojo starting play this year represents the growth of women’s indoor volleyball. Nationally, Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark is everywhere. Women’s sports are rightfully more popular than ever, and WISE plays their part by empowering “women in the business of sports with the tools to reach their career goals.”

San Diego Wave vs. NY/NJ Gotham FC

Sunday, May 12 | 4:30 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

Watch: NSWL+

The Wave and Gotham FC will both look to get back on track when they face off in a Sunday matinee at Snapdragon Stadium. The Wave are eighth in the league table and are clinging to the last playoff spot based on goal differential. Gotham FC are eleventh, closer to the bottom of the table than the top. It’s a far cry from last year, when the Wave were the NWSL’s best regular season team and Gotham FC survived the playoffs and won the championship. To prove who was better, the two heavyweights faced each other in March in the NWSL’s Challenge Cup.

The Wave won an entertaining slugfest 1-0, thanks to an 88th-minute header off a corner kick from star forward Alex Morgan. Since then, neither team has maintained their 2023 form. Up for grabs in San Diego is a win and three crucial points in the standings that could determine whether either team gets to compete in next year’s Challenge Cup.

San Diego Padres vs. New York Yankees

Friday, May 24 | 6:40 p.m. | Petco Park

Watch: Padres.TV

The unofficial start of summer means the Evil Empire is in town. It’s a rare visit to San Diego for the New York Yankees, as they’ve played here just three times in the last 22 years. (Let’s not acknowledge the 1998 World Series, in which the Yankees completed a four-game sweep at Qualcomm Stadium.) It also means a familiar face returns to right field. Former Padres star Juan Soto was traded to New York in the offseason and is off to a monster start for the Bronx Bombers, batting .325 with eight home runs and has an absurd .438 on-base percentage.

Before being shipped out of town, Soto helped the Padres get to the National League Championship Series in 2022 and was a bright spot in a disappointing 2023 season. If the Friar Faithful are nice to him during his return, then maybe, just maybe, Soto considers a return to San Diego as a free agent after the season. 

West Coast Sevens Gaelic Games

Saturday, May 25 | 9:00 a.m. | Southwestern College

What do San Diego and Ireland have in common? If you guessed a commitment to unique and ancient sports, then you might be a participant in the annual West Coast Sevens Gaelic Games at Southwestern College. Teams from around the world fly into San Diego for Memorial Day weekend to play traditional Irish field sports, including Gaelic football, which is like putting basketball, soccer, and rugby into a blender, and Camogie, a stick-and-ball game for women that resembles field hockey, baseball, and lacrosse.

While Gaelic games are foreign to most Americans, they are among Ireland’s most popular sports–the Gaelic Athletic Association is Ireland’s largest sports organization, according to The Guardian–and the Irish Times recently reported on the games’ surging popularity in Asia. For San Diegans, it’s a bit of culture that doesn’t require travel or even money. According to West Coast Sevens’ Instagram account, admission is free, parking is free, and fun is free.

The post The 5 Best Lineups in San Diego Sports: May 2024 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Penn’s been busy since Major League Soccer announced in May last year that it had awarded an expansion franchise to San Diego. The team gave itself a name, established its headquarters in Little Italy, signed their first three players, and is staging events in each of the county’s 18 cities to introduce itself to potential fans.

But the foundation of the new club, which starts play in February, is its player development system, known as Right to Dream. To Penn and the club, it’s “our differentiator. It’s our special sauce. It’s our identity.”

Right to Dream is an international network of professional teams and development academies, unified under common ownership around a common goal: to identify and nurture soccer talent. In addition to San Diego FC and its academy, Right to Dream includes top Danish clubs FC Nordsjaelland on the men’s side and Kvindeliga on the women’s, Egyptian club TUT FC, and an academy in Ghana. 

Per the team, the local Right to Dream Academy will be integrated into the club’s 28-acre training facility, which is under construction outside of El Cajon on the Sycuan Reservation. (The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation is a part-owner of San Diego FC, marking “only the second time in our nation’s history that a Native American tribe will have an ownership stake in a major league sports franchise,” according to the Sycuan Tribe.)

The academy is so important to the club, it even contemplated how the first team and developing players will eat together. “A cultural focal point of the facility,” San Diego FC shared in a statement, “is the second-floor dining room and communal hub, overlooking the training fields, which fosters engagement between the academy players, coaches, teachers and professional players.”

To longtime and international soccer fans, Right to Dream may represent an enviable investment. Some of the most successful clubs in world football, from Manchester City in the English Premier League to AC Milan in Italy’s Serie A, employ this “multi-club model.” To casual and prospective fans in San Diego, it may sound like gibberish. To help translate, I asked Penn what San Diegans will feel because of Right to Dream.

“We intend to home-grow the best players from this region, and then from North America and Mexico,” he said. “When you home-grow talent, there is so much pride within the fanbase.” The Athletic’s MLS reporter Tom Bogert thinks Penn is onto something.

Southern California, generally, and San Diego, specifically, are some of “the most fertile markets for talent,” Bogert said, before rattling off a list of local soccer stars who drifted elsewhere–U.S. national team member Haji Wright, Spanish side Las Palmas’ Julián Araujo, and FC Dallas’ Paul Arriola, to name a few.

But for all the trophies LAFC and LA Galaxy have won over the years, Southern California’s extant MLS teams have yet to crack the code on developing a pipeline of local talent. Bogert believes it’s one of the reasons why San Diego FC’s ownership group was so attracted to the binational market. Their being able to implement the Right to Dream system immediately in a soccer hotbed gives it a potential competitive advantage over its soon-to-be rivals. 

Of course, it takes years to develop teenagers into top professionals, and San Diego FC needs players and team executives now. Their first game is in nine months.

In an example of Right to Dream at work, two of their first three players in defensive midfielder Jeppe Tverskov and forward Marcus Ingvartsen come from sister club FC Nordsjaelland. “We intend to have this pipeline of aspiring, young super-talent from all parts of the world launching their careers in San Diego,” Penn said.

There are also hints that San Diego FC will make a splash with at least one big-name signing. In a podcast interview, Penn noted the importance of a “signature player” to an expansion franchise, and in our conversation he said San Diego FC are going to sign “significant players.” 

For the front office, the team hired Tyler Heaps from AS Monaco, a premier club in France’s Ligue 1, as well as Sean Howe, formerly D.C. United’s director of scouting. The most important position is the sporting director, soccer’s version of the general manager. For that, the club is targeting AS Monaco’s Carlos Aviña Ibarrola, according to Bogert. 

I was skeptical of MLS coming to town. San Diego supports only one men’s major league franchise in the Padres, and even a rabid, grassroots fanbase couldn’t prevent the second-tier San Diego Loyal SC from folding last year. And for most of its history, MLS seemed like a major-ish league, perennially coming in a distant fifth to the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL. The league recruiting fading stars like David Beckham in 2007 and Thierry Henry in 2010 came off more as gimmicks to juice revenues than investments in product quality.

It’s also questionable that, per the terms of their lease, San Diego FC receive scheduling priority at Snapdragon Stadium. The San Diego Wave were the venue’s first major tenant, and in 2022 they shattered a women’s single-game attendance record. The Wave were the best regular season team in their second year. They’ve never finished a season without making the National Women’s Soccer League semifinals, and they feature a global superstar in Alex Morgan, plus plenty of rising young talent. San Diego FC will get a chance to win the city’s first major championship in generations only if the Wave don’t win the NWSL title first.

This isn’t lost on Luis Montero-Adams. He was a regular at Loyal matches and owns San Diego Wave season tickets. He’s exactly who San Diego FC wants to appeal to–a soccer fanatic who grew up crossing the border everyday—though he’s unsure about buying San Diego FC season tickets, particularly at the team’s asking price. “My three Wave seats plus parking equals one San Diego FC seat in the exact same chair,” he said. “I’ve come to really enjoy the Wave, and I want to love San Diego FC,” but he’s still searching for a reason to buy in.

The hesitancy toward a soccer club that has three players and half a front office is understandable, and a cynic could consider San Diego FC as corporate interlopers. Young talent in American sports often means cheap talent, which often means losing.

But pop open the hood and San Diegans could possibly find world-class infrastructure for a world-class team in the world’s most popular sport. San Diego FC is backed by deep-pocketed owners, has access to a renowned international player development system, and the team will play in a prime market in the like-new Snapdragon Stadium. They’ll train in a state-of-the-art facility. Management says they’re committed to signing quality players and it’s poaching executives from top-flight club teams. 

To Tom Penn, this is all happening during a golden age for the sport in the US MLS is growing, Lionel Messi playing Stateside is a phenomenon, and the next iterations of the Club World Cup, the men’s World Cup, and the Olympics will be held here. Snapdragon Stadium is a soccer destination unto itself. “All eyes are on American soccer,” Penn said, “and we’re the bright, shiny new entry into that.” This shine will dull quickly if the club sells to local fans what San Diego teams have been for decades: a mirage on the horizon that never gets closer.

The post Is San Diego FC The City’s Next Championship Team? appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

April 5-7 | Crown Point Shores

Where to Watch: YouTube Live

The San Diego Crew Classic started in 1973 as a three-hour collegiate regatta. It’s now a three-day festival of rowing with a Jumbotron and a beer garden. As the first major event of the spring racing season, the Crew Classic still draws the top collegiate crews. The two-time defending national champs Cal Golden Bears are mainstays and they won last year’s prestigious Copley Cup. But there are now divisions for high school, alumni, masters, and mixed crews. There are brunch and VIP food options to take in the action, and fans unable to make it to Mission Bay can stream the event online.

San Diego Padres vs. Toronto Blue Jays

Friday, April 19 | 6:40 p.m. | Petco Park

Where to Watch: Padres.TV

The Toronto Blue visiting San Diego this month marks the first interleague series for either the Jay or the Pads, both of whom should be postseason contenders. The Blue Jays core featuring the dynamic duo of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette will try to get past the American League wild card round, where their season has ended three of the last four years. And the Padres so far have gone toe-to-toe with divisional foes Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, with new pitcher Yuki Matsui a revelation out of the bullpen and infielders Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts getting out to hot starts. The Blue Jays coming into town also marks the return of Out at the Park, the Padres’ annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. Co-hosted by San Diego Pride, it’s one of the city’s great civic events. 

Street League Skateboarding

Saturday, April 20 | 12:00 p.m. | Viejas Arena

Where to Watch: Rumble

San Diego is integral to the history of skateboarding, and no one plays a bigger role in that history than local legend Tony Hawk. He basically invented the business of skateboarding and the competitive sport as we know it. It’s fitting, then, that Street League Skateboarding brings its Championship Tour to Viejas Arena on April 20. Founded by professional skateboarder and “Rob & Big” star Rob Dyrdek, the SLS Championship Tour is the world’s premier street skateboarding competition and boasts a $1.8 million purse—not bad for athletes despised by property owners and their security guards. 

San Diego Wave vs. Bay FC

Saturday, April 27 | 7:00 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

Where to Watch: Ion

The Wave scored early in their first game of the season, then took their foot off the gas, allowing the KC Current to draw even and eventually win the game. The Wave avenged that disappointing loss in their next match against the Seattle Reign. The Wave had “been hungry all week in training,” midfielder Emily van Egmond said after netting her game-winning, last-minute goal. It’s early in the 2024 season, with the team still finding its identity, so it’s an open question of what version of the Wave will show up for their April 27 rematch with the Bay FC. Will it be the uninspired team that dropped points to an inferior side, or the persistent one that vanquished a rival?

San Diego Strike Force vs. Bay Area Panthers

Sunday, April 28 | 3:05 p.m. | Pechanga Sports Arena

Several leagues have come and gone to fulfill America’s insatiable appetite for football during the NFL’s offseason, but the Indoor Football League endures. It’s the country’s longest continuously operating indoor football league, and last month the San Diego Strike Force kicked off its fifth campaign in the IFL. It looks like the Strike Force’s most promising season yet. The team beat the Duke City Gladiators 32-26 in its first game of the 16-game season. In their final home game in April, the Strike Force take on upstate rivals and defending IFL champions Bay Area Panthers. Professional football didn’t leave San Diego. Only the Chargers did. 

The post The 5 Best Lineups in San Diego Sports: April 2024 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Friday, March 8 | 7:00 p.m. | Viejas Arena

Where to Watch: FS1

The top of the Mountain West Conference standings are more jammed than the 805 during rush hour. After play on February 27, there are five teams—No. 20 SDSU, No. 22 Utah State, Boise State, UNLV, and Nevada—within a game of each other. This means the regular season conference title could be up for grabs when the Aztecs take on Boise State in the last home game of the year.

It will also be Senior Night at Viejas Arena, where fans will bid adieu to the 2024 senior class, already the most accomplished in school history. SDSU heads to the Mountain West postseason tournament next, and regardless of how they do there they are locked to make the NCAA tournament. With one more postseason run ahead of them, Lamont Butler, Jaedon LeDee, and their fellow seniors could add even more banners to the rafters. 

Concacaf Women’s Gold Cup final

Sunday, March 10 | 5:15 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

Where to Watch: CBS | Paramount+ | ESPN

The U.S. women’s national team was expected to compete for the first-ever W Gold Cup trophy at Snapdragon Stadium. The question was who would join them in the final. Then Mexico pulled off a 2-0 upset over the U.S. in group play and all bets are off. Will either Brazil or Colombia, who battled in group play in San Diego, make it to the final? How about the Canadian team currently ranked top-10 in the world? And who can discount the Mexican team now? Whichever teams survive the knockout rounds, the San Diegans at the final match will be the soundtrack and backdrop to soccer history. 

San Diego Legion vs. RFC Los Angeles

Saturday, March 16 | 7:00 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

Where to Watch: The Rugby Network

In researching this piece, I found that the San Diego Legion lost last year’s Major League Rugby championship game by a single point. Then I looked up whether a point is called a point in rugby. (It is.) Then I looked up who the Legion’s best players are.

Tomas Aoake, Christian Poidevin, and Mikey Te’o all made the 2023 All-MLR First Team. But this much I know: rugby is growing in the U.S., and San Diego has a particular interest in it. So much so, two of the best rugby teams in the world in Fiji and the All Blacks of New Zealand will play at Snapdragon Stadium in July. Before then, the Legion will take the field, er, pitch, on March 16 to begin their defense of the Western Conference crown.

San Diego Wave vs. Kansas City Current

Saturday, March 23 | 7:00 p.m. | Snapdragon Stadium

Where to Watch: Ion

In the Wave’s inaugural season in 2022, the team broke a single-game women’s soccer attendance record and reached the NWSL semifinal. In their second season, the Wave won the NWSL Shield as the best regular season team and again reached the semifinal. In the offseason, the Wave traded for forward Elyse Bennet and signed midfielder Savannah McCaskill to complement a core featuring star forward Alex Morgan and goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan.

In the 2024 home opener, the Wave should make quick work of the Kansas City Current, who are trying to find their footing in the NWSL. More importantly, it’s the first opportunity for fans to see if the Wave have what it takes to win not only the franchise’s first title, but also San Diego’s first major sports championship since 1963.

San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants

Thursday, March 28 | 1:10 p.m. | Petco Park

Where to Watch: Mountain West Network

The Padres lost the 2023 season opener to a listless Colorado Rockies team, portending a season of frustration and disappointment. In the first spring training game of 2024, the Pads lost 14-1 on national TV to their bitter rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers. They’ll look to turn things around on Opening Day, when hopes are high, pessimism is low, and every team is 0-0. Well, except this year.

The Padres start their regular season on March 20 in South Korea with a two-game series against the Dodgers, then they return to the States, play a few more exhibitions, and restart the regular season at home against the San Francisco Giants. It’s a scheduling oddity that might just bring them good fortune. After all, they can’t possibly have worse luck than last year, when they outscored their opponents by 104 runs, but went 9-23 in games decided by one run and 2-12 in games decided in extra innings. 

That hasn’t deterred Padres fans, as there are few seats available for the home opener. It reminds me of the quote attributed to baseball Hall of Famer Roger Hornsby: “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

The post The 5 Best Lineups in San Diego Sports: March 2024 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

February 21, 24, 27 | Snapdragon Stadium

In Group B of the inaugural W Gold Cup, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and either Haiti or Puerto Rico will face off in a slate of games that affirms Snapdragon Stadium as a destination for world-class soccer. “The vision […] from the very beginning was that this facility would be a focal point for the entire San Diego community,” Snapdragon Stadium general manager Adam Millar told San Diego Magazine in November, when Concacaf announced that the city would host the first-ever W Gold Cup final. Tickets for the group stage start at $18, and that’s for seats three rows from the pitch. Grab yours before the rest of San Diego realizes some of the best soccer on the planet is happening in their backyard.

SDSU Women’s Basketball vs. Air Force

Wednesday, February 21 | 6:00 p.m. | Viejas Arena

Watch: Mountain West Network

Led by Adryana Quezada’s 15 points per game, the 14-9 SDSU women’s basketball team is having a fine season, one they hope ends next month in a deep run in the Mountain West Conference championship tournament. Before then, the Aztecs have four more home games, including their matchup against Air Force on February 21 that serves as their annual Black History Month celebration.

Women basketball players have long been at the forefront of “collective activism addressing racism, policing, gender pay equity, LGBTQ+ issues, voting, and reproductive rights,” as Shamira Ibrahim writes for Harper’s Bazaar. The Aztecs’ celebration of Black history reminds us of that struggle, but also of how Black culture and identities enrich American life and sport. 

Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

Thursday, February 22 | 12:10 p.m. | Peoria Sports Complex, AZ

Yes, this matchup occurs in the middle of a weekday, and yes, by the third inning you likely won’t be familiar with a single player on the field, but the Padres’ first spring training game means baseball is officially and emphatically back. For the 2024 season, the Pads return one of baseball’s best infields, led by perennial MVP candidate Manny Machado, and Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and Michael King would form a top-flight playoff rotation, but they have to get there first.

It’s the team’s depth that might hold them back. How will new manager Mike Shildt fill the Juan Soto-sized hole in the lineup? Will new relievers Woo-Suk Go, Yuki Matsui, and Wandy Peralta stabilize a thin bullpen? Who’s joining Fernando Tatis in the outfield, and who’s filling out the starting rotation? The answers will get sorted out over the team’s six weeks in Arizona, and soon we’ll be settling into the rhythms of another summer at Petco Park.

San Diego Mojo vs. Grand Rapids Rise

February 23 | 7:00 p.m. | Viejas Arena

Watch: Bally Live

Owned by beach volleyball legend Kerri Walsh Jennings, the Mojo played their first match in the Pro Volleyball Federation last Thursday, a 3-0 defeat to the Atlanta Vibe, and are one of seven teams in the new league trying to capitalize on indoor volleyball’s surging popularity. Currently, it’s played more than basketball among girl high school athletes, college volleyball viewership and attendance is skyrocketing, and it’s now an Olympic sport.

After one more away match against the Vegas Thrill, the Mojo bring that excitement to their home debut on February 23. Fans even have a couple of locals to cheer for—Bonsall’s Kendra Dahlke picks up her career after playing professionally overseas from 2018 to 2022, and Carlsbad’s Morgan Lewis transitions to the pros after a standout collegiate career at the University of Oregon.

Cymbiotika San Diego Open

February 24-March 3, 2024 | Barnes Tennis Center

Before pickleball left its inventor’s yard, before the Padres had a winning season, and before top-flight soccer barely existed in the United States, San Diego was a tennis mecca. Billie Jean King, one of the most revered women athletes ever, won the first Southern California Open, now known as the San Diego Open. Fifty-three years later, the Open returns to the Barnes Tennis Center in Ocean Beach with a new sponsor. The field isn’t set yet, but as an official stop on the WTA 500 tour San Diegans will again get to watch some of the sport’s rising stars.

The post The 5 Best Lineups in San Diego Sports: February 2024 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.