On May 6, a crowd of 17,000 people packed into San Francisco’s Chase Center to see some professional basketball. Not for the Golden State Warriors — they were in Minnesota for a tough playoff battle — but to cheer on a different home team: the Golden State Valkyries.
The huge preseason crowd, just short of the arena’s 18,000-plus basketball capacity, was no mirage. The WNBA expansion team has started the regular season with five sellouts, a league record. All those fans are great news for nearby restaurants and bars, hotels hosting out-of-town fans, public transit, and other civic indicators.
Zach Bowman, general manager at Gott’s Roadside, a burger joint next to Chase Center, says sales double on Warrior game days. So far, Valkyries fans are bringing him just as much business, although he says the atmosphere is different. “You get more families and lots of people in costumes — helmets and swords. It’s been great.”
The Valkyries will play 17 more home games, and perhaps playoffs too. (One can dream. For an expansion team, they’re not bad.) That’s hundreds of thousands more visitors, often happy to spend money on their way in or out of the game.
The Warriors commissioned a 2024 study that shows Chase Center crowds boost local sales within two miles by 15 percent to 40 percent on event days, especially when it’s basketball. The city doesn’t have its own numbers, but SF chief economist Ted Egan said Chase’s numbers seem “reasonable.”
“I would generally agree that public events like sports have a spillover benefit for local businesses,” Egan said.
With no sign of office workers returning en masse and downtown retail still suffering, SF officials are trying to boost economic and social activity in every other way possible, from downtown raves and art festivals to new entertainment districts and night markets. Sports might not be SF’s ticket to full recovery, but rooting for the home team could be part of its comeback.
A few minutes north of Chase Center, the Giants are back in vogue, with a chance to draw 3 million fans for the first time since 2018. That’s potentially a million extra bodies on city streets from April to October.
Even below the elite pro ranks, there are signs of a post-pandemic sports revival.
Chase Center often hosts high school and college hoops to accommodate bigger crowds. In Golden Gate Park, Kezar Stadium could be a second center of sports gravity, with added benefit for neighborhood businesses in the Haight, Cole Valley, and Inner Sunset. A local amateur soccer club just drew 1,500 fans to its home opener.
In a year or two, a nascent minor-league soccer team will make Kezar its home base. The team owner has also agreed to bankroll a $10 million renovation. That deal might not sit well with some of Kezar’s current tenants, but it’s one the city won’t refuse.
Bragging rights
Even with a fast-growing population, Mission Bay has been what Gott’s Roadside manager Bowman calls a “commuter” neighborhood. He and other local businesses get customers from nearby tech and biotech companies and the UCSF campus. That all changes when Chase Center hosts events, especially games, a trend he’s seen since the Warriors’ first season in SF in 2019.
The Warriors’ economic report says Chase Center visitors have spent an average of $713 outside the venue. That figure is boosted by out-of-towners staying in hotels; lower-key events (like high school hoops) won’t generate nearly the same. But locals still grab burritos and beers and ride transit.
City economist Egan also notes that event organizers pay for security and police overtime, which means the extra cost of managing crowds doesn’t fall upon the city.
Along with big-name concerts, Chase has begun hosting sporting events with a more local audience. In January, the annual Bruce-Mahoney basketball games (boys and girls varsity) between crosstown high school rivals Sacred Heart Cathedral and St. Ignatius tipped off for the first time at the waterfront arena. School officials said the doubleheader event was outgrowing the 3,000-seat War Memorial Gym at the University of San Francisco.
A month later, SF’s public schools held high school basketball championship games at Chase for the first time. The 2,500-seat Kezar Pavilion, next to Kezar Stadium, “tended to fill up,” said Lowell High School girls varsity head coach Matt Magsanay.
At Chase, even with just three sections of the lower bowl open, fans made plenty of noise. It was “an experience all our players will remember,” said Magsanay. “Some still brag about scoring buckets on the same floor as the Warriors.”
These games bring good local vibes. Larger events bring business. With the Valkyries, restaurants, bars, and other venues can count on 22 more regular season games a year to attract customers.
City leaders have even floated the idea of adding another major venue: a soccer stadium to replace the nearly empty SF City Centre on Market Street. Mayor London Breed proposed it in 2023 to offset the retail exodus, and the Chamber of Commerce recently revisited the proposal.
In the meantime, San Francisco wants to revamp an old favorite.
Kezar in demand
Before Chase Center and Oracle Park, even before the now-demolished Candlestick Park, there was Kezar Stadium. Football was always huge there. In 1928, Lowell and Polytechnic drew 50,000 fans for the high school championship. For 24 years, the 60,000-seat stadium was the home of the 49ers, where Hall of Famers like Y.A. Tittle and John Henry Johnson played in the pre-Super Bowl era.
The 49ers left Kezar in 1971 for Candlestick, and the stadium was rebuilt in 1989 in its current 10,000-seat configuration. Smaller professional leagues have tried making it home, notably the brand-new San Francisco Deltas of the North American Soccer League in 2017. They drew crowds of 2,500, won the league championship, and promptly folded.
At Murio’s Trophy Room, an old-school bar on Haight Street a couple blocks away, bartender John Lawton remembers Delta fans celebrating the championship with a big party at the bar. Local businesses would love to have those crowds again.
“Kezar is a very good stadium that is under used — it needs to be activated more,” said Kezar Pub owner Cyril Hackett, whose sports-friendly hangout is just a few steps away. During the one Deltas season, “we sold a lot of food and drinks,” he said.
Neighborhood sales tax revenue around Kezar, including the Upper Haight, Cole Valley, and parts of the Inner Sunset, hadn’t quite returned to pre-pandemic levels by 2023, the most recent year available. But there have been signs of life for Kezar crowds.
The Deltas’ demise brought the return of former tenant SF City FC, which participates in the amateur US League 2. But COVID wiped out attendance — the club played before crowds of around 30 fans in 2022.
“We were ready to fold before the next season,” volunteer creative director Ian Blackley told The Frisc. In 2023, the team partnered with the city’s transit agency, creating Muni-themed merch that sold out and saved the team.
That momentum has carried forward to this year. Blackley said he was shocked when 1,500 fans came to the Kezar home opener on May 14, the same day as high-profile Warriors and San Jose Earthquakes games.
Anything that brings people to the Haight is great.
murio’s trophy room bartender john lawton
Blackley credits his own marketing play: a clever re-editing of Mayor Lurie’s announcement about a new team in town. The new team, Golden City FC, will be part of a pro minor league, not quite the level of the Deltas but above SF City FC.
Golden City’s owner — a longtime donor to the nonprofit that Mayor Daniel Lurie founded — has also pledged $10 million in improvements to Kezar Stadium, including a new turf field and new seats. They start play in 2026 or 2027, depending on the renovation schedule. The Board of Supervisors greenlighted the agreement this week without discussion.
The deal guarantees SF City only one home game a year. “We were told about it two days before it became public knowledge,” Blackley tells The Frisc. “We oppose it because it’s being pushed by a team with a very similar name and our exact colors, playing adult men’s soccer.”
Blackley said he’s looking for other venues, but nothing can match Kezar’s name recognition. He’s confident about getting the word out anyway: “We’re trying to build a professional club of our own from the ground up.”
They have at least another year at Kezar to do so. Just around the corner is a high-stakes matchup with crosstown rival SF Glens on July 2.
Murio’s bartender Lawton is ready. “Anything that brings people to the Haight is great,” he said.