Whether or not you believe that local professional sports teams actually compete amongst each other for entertainment dollars spent by San Diegans, it’s clear the Padres have become the entertainment giant in America’s eighth-largest city.
The ballclub’s start to the 2025 season Thursday afternoon unleashed another wave of baseball Mardis Gras in the East Village.
Late Thursday morning, a festive cheer prevailed among tens of thousands of folks downtown.
“Best Day of the Year,” read a homemade poster that a man displayed from a residential balcony overlooking the ballpark.
The San Diego coastal locale remains a vibrant draw, affirming the vision of out-of-town arrivals John Moores and Larry Lucchino when they took control of the ballclub in late 1994.
Just being near San Diego Bay on most mornings or afternoons lifts one’s spirits. Sea breezes and soft sunlight reprised their winning combination Thursday. The 66-degree weather felt perfect.
Padres stars’ popularity have played a large role in small-market San Diego finishing second and third in attendance among the 30 major league teams the past two years. Further solidifying this year’s season-ticket base is homegrown center fielder Jackson Merrill, a second-year standout at age 21.
Don’t overlook the team’s smart, if belated, decision six years ago to make brown and gold its primary colors.
The color scheme stands as unique to Major League Baseball, while also serving to reconnect older fans to the franchise big-league roots.
In sports, such a stylish uniqueness prints money.
Fans are wearing Padres attire to the ballpark more so than in any other Padres era. Brown-and-gold apparel was the choice of some 40,000 fans Thursday. Good luck to any of the other sports ventures in town, if they ever do have to compete with the Padres for local sports fans’ dollars.
A new player on the local sports scene is San Diego FC.
Saturday night, the men’s soccer team will play its third home game.
SDFC has its own niche, for sure, but would love for Padres fans to swing by Snapdragon Stadium if there’s time after the Padres wrap up their third home game. Smartly, SDFC’s lead investor enlisted Padres star Manny Machado when expanding the club’s investment within MLS’ single-entity structure.
Nevertheless, everything about SDFC’s sales job is tougher than that of the Padres.
Where MLB indisputably stands as the world’s top-caliber baseball league, soccer experts place MLS between eighth and 12th among the world’s men’s soccer leagues.
The fan appeal of MLS uniforms is constrained by the financially-driven necessity of allowing a corporate sponsor to have the largest logo. SDFC’s broadcasts are aired on a streaming service, Apple TV. Other than the Argentine great Lionel Messi, who plays for the Miami franchise, MLS teams tend to lack the star power to move the needle outside of each squad’s market.
Snapdragon Stadium in east Mission Valley is a fine place to watch soccer. But it’s not the Petco Park of MLS. So as I’ve belabored, SDFC will have to nail a lot of challenging details to distinguish itself.
Playing an attacking style of soccer seemed imperative, and coach Mike Varas’ club in fact has established one of the league’s better ball-control games.
Giving SDFC an entertainment boost, left wing Hirving “Chucky” Lozano was cleared this week to play Saturday night. He hasn’t played since exiting the home opener, March 1, with a leg injury, about two hourse into his whole season.
The best is yet to come, said a former MLS standout.
“Chucky can make that that nobody else sees,” former league MVP Diego Valeri, a retired midfielder/forward from Argentina, said by phone last week. “He can make that dribble that nobody can do. He can make that goal that nobody expected. That’s what Chucky can do. Because of the experiences and the capacities that he has.”
Sports franchises need memorable moments to grow.
SDFC (2-1-2) provided a big one in its inaugural match, getting two goals from Danish wing Anders Dreyer in the road victory against LA Galaxy, the Carson-based defending champion
The “true” L.A. team — LAFC, which plays in L.A. proper, near the Coliseum — will be the opponent Saturday.
How’s this for moving the needle? Lozano comes off the bench to score or create a decisive goal. Among the cheering fans are Machado and his Padres teammates.
Perhaps there is enough room in San Diego for several sports clubs to fare well, and one franchise benefits another. For now, Lozano will try to kick things into a faster gear.
