Sports in San Antonio

Sports in San Antonio includes a number of professional major and minor league sports teams. The American city of San Antonio, Texas also has college, high school, and other amateur or semi-pro sports teams.

The city's only top-level professional sports team, and consequently the team most San Antonians follow, is the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association. The Spurs have been playing in San Antonio since 1973 and have won five NBA Championships (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014). Previously, the Spurs played at the Alamodome, which was built for football, and before that the HemisFair Arena, but the Spurs built – with public money – and moved into the SBC Center in 2002, since renamed the AT&T Center, following the merger of SBC and AT&T.

The AT&T Center is also home to the San Antonio Rampage of the American Hockey League and the San Antonio Stars of the WNBA, both owned by the Spurs. San Antonio is home to the Double-A Minor League affiliate of the San Diego Padres, the San Antonio Missions who play at Nelson Wolff Stadium on the west side of the city. (San Antonio is the largest city in the country with neither a Major League nor AAA baseball team.) San Antonio hosts the NCAA football Alamo Bowl each December. San Antonio has two rugby union teams, the Alamo City Rugby Football Club, and San Antonio Rugby Football Club.

The University of Texas at San Antonio fields San Antonio's only NCAA Division I athletic teams known as the UTSA Roadrunners. The University recently added football, hiring former University of Miami coach Larry Coker as its initial head coach. Roadrunner football began playing in 2011.

The AT&T Center is home to the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, as well as the San Antonio Rampage and the San Antonio Stars.

Professional sports

San Antonio is home to one major league professional sports team: the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs. San Antonio is also home to minor league professional sports teams in soccer, baseball, basketball, and hockey.

San Antonio is also occasionally home to international professional sports events. The April 15, 2014 soccer match at the Alamodome between the United States and Mexico sold a record 65,000 tickets, with tickets sold out over two months in advance.^[1] This beat the city's previous record for a soccer match of 54,313, set in January 2014 for a friendly between Mexico and South Korea.^[2]

Notes:

• The Spurs were formerly the Dallas Chaparrals (1967-1970, 1971-1973), formerly the Texas Chaparrals (1970-1971)
• The Stars were formerly San Antonio Silver Stars (name change in 2014)
• The Missions won league championships in: 1897, 1903, 1908, 1933, 1950, 1961, 1964, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2013
• The Rampage were formerly the Adirondack Red Wings (1979-1999), formerly the Tidewater Red Wings (1971-1972)

NCAA college football

NCAA college basketball

Note:

• The Trinity Tigers appeared in the post-season tournament in: 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Motorsports

San Antonio Raceway is a 1/4 mile drag strip with a 1/2 Mile of shutdown space. It has a seating capacity of 13,000. The Raceway is an IHRA Member Track and also hosts IHRA Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series and the IHRA Summit Junior Super Series.

Current non-professional teams

High school

San Antonio is home of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl,^[3] played annually in the Alamodome and televised live on NBC. The Bowl is an East versus West showdown featuring the nation's top 90 high school senior football players. The game has featured NFL stars Reggie Bush, Vince Young, Adrian Peterson, and many other college and NFL stars. The U.S. Army All-American Bowl also includes the U.S. Army All-American Marching Band, the U.S. Army National Combine, and the U.S. Army Coaches Academy, all of which take place in San Antonio during the week leading up to the game itself.

The U.S. Army All-American Marching Band features 91 of the nation's top high school senior marching musicians who perform during halftime of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. The U.S. Army National Combine features 500 of the nation's top high school underclassman football players. The U.S. Army Coaches Academy features 100 of the nation's top high school football coaches, including the coaches of each U.S. Army All-American.

Club teams

San Antonio is also home to the San Antonio Gaelic Athletic Club which was established in early 2011. The SAGAC plays in a Texas League with teams from Austin, Dallas, and Houston. The season ranges from April to the end of August where the team competes at the North American Gaelic Athletic Association tournament every Labor Day Weekend. The club also has two inter-squad teams the San Patricios and the I.C.A (Irish Citizen Army) that compete in a pub league in the fall.

History

The city served as a temporary home for the New Orleans Saints for the 2005 NFL season due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The Saints set up practice facilities in San Antonio for the season, and played a split home schedule between the Alamodome and Baton Rouge, Louisiana's Tiger Stadium during the 2005 season. After the final game in San Antonio, the Saints committed to moving back to New Orleans for the 2006 season. City officials are said to be attempting to lure the National Football League permanently to San Antonio and have also said that a strong showing at the Alamodome for the three local Saints games was vital to showing that San Antonio can support an NFL franchise. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stated San Antonio was successful in hosting the team, and that the city would be on the short list for any future NFL expansions. The city has also hosted the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers preseason camps in the past, and they signed a contract with the Cowboys in which the Cowboys practiced in San Antonio through 2011.^[4] Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has acknowledged his support for the city's efforts to become home to an NFL franchise.^[5] Although it is the second largest city in the United States without an NFL team (after Los Angeles), San Antonio's smaller metropolitan population has so far contributed to its lack of landing an NFL, MLB, or NHL team.

In March 2006, the city made an offer to build a stadium for the struggling Florida Marlins baseball franchise. However, the Marlins and Major League Baseball, declined the offer.

In 2005 the city approached Major League Soccer with an interest in placing a soccer franchise in the vacant Alamodome. Both the city and the league seemed to be in harmony, with the council voting 9-2 in favor of the new San Antonio team, citing that it would reduce the financial burden of the stadium on the city by providing it with a permanent tenant without extra financial costs as the necessary upgrading of facilities at the dome would have to take place regardless of a team moving in or not. The following week an 8-3 vote carried the second part of the plan, which would see a major new youth soccer complex being built in the city to compete for what was described as the lucrative Texas youth soccer event market. At the time it was stated that San Antonio had only a fraction of the youth soccer facilities available in other Texan cities of Dallas, Houston and Austin. All seemed to be in place and plans on course until a media campaign against the soccer proposals exposing that the team would only be leased with the Alamodome for three years. After three years the team would have to vacate to a soccer-specific stadium. After Hurricane Katrina, the city set their goal of earning an NFL franchise. The prospects for the franchise were further hindered when it became a political football during the election for Mayor, which was won by Phil Hardberger who instantly distanced the city from any deal with MLS. MLS meanwhile released a statement claiming that they had planned to withdraw before the election but did not wish to comment until afterwards in order to "respect the electoral process in San Antonio." The deal died with both sides blaming each other for its demise.

Former teams

Professional athletes from San Antonio

See also

List of baseball parks in San Antonio
List of defunct Texas sports teams
List of Texas sports teams

References