Sports in San Antonio facts for kids

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.

San Antonio is home to the Double-A Minor League Baseball affiliate of the San Diego Padres, the San Antonio Missions, who play at Nelson Wolff Stadium on the west side of the city.

The University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of the Incarnate Word fields San Antonio's two college athletic teams.

The AT&T Center is home to the NBA's San Antonio Spurs.

Two United States Air Force sergeants in an amateur boxing match at Kelly Air Force Base during the late twentieth century.

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

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. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has acknowledged his support for the city's efforts to become home to an NFL franchise. Although it is the largest city in the United States without an NFL team, 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."

Former teams

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 baseball, basketball, and soccer.

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. 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.

Notes:

• The Spurs were formerly the Dallas Chaparrals (1967-1970, 1971-1973), formerly the Texas Chaparrals (1970-1971)
• The current AAA team San Antonio Missions moved from Colorado Springs for the Milwaukee Brewers
• The San Antonio Missions were AA Team in the Texas League and moved to Amarillo in 2018 at which time San Antonio got an AAA team, which maintained the same name.
• The Missions moved to Amarillo as a AA team and were renamed the Amarillo Sod Poodles
• The Missions have 14 total championship titles, 1 in the Dixie series and 13 in the Texas League.
• The San Antonio Missions were part of AAA ball from 2019-2020, but went back to AA in 2021 with the shuffling of teams within the league