San Diego Stadium

Lore & Background

The stadium was the longtime home for two teams of the major professional sports leagues: the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League (NFL) and the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Chargers played at the stadium from 1967 through the 2016 season, after which they moved to the Greater Los Angeles area to become the Los Angeles Chargers. The Padres played home games at the stadium from their founding in 1969 through the 2003 season, then moved to Petco Park in downtown San Diego.

Additionally, the stadium hosted the San Diego Sockers of the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1978 through the 1984 season. San Diego Stadium was the home of the San Diego State Aztecs football team from 1967 through 2019. A college football bowl game, the Holiday Bowl, was held in the stadium every December from 1978 through 2019. The stadium was home to a second college bowl game, the Poinsettia Bowl, from 2005 until its discontinuation following the 2016 edition.

In 2020, San Diego State University (SDSU) purchased the stadium site, with plans to develop the area into a noncontiguous campus expansion following the stadium's demolition, now known as SDSU Mission Valley. Snapdragon Stadium opened on the site in 2022 as the new home for the Aztecs football team. The stadium hosted three Super Bowls: XXII in 1988, XXXII in 1998, and XXXVII in 2003, being the most recent multi-purpose stadium to host the NFL's title game.

It also hosted the 1984 and 1998 World Series, the 1978 and 1992 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and games of the 1996 and 1998 National League Division Series and the 1984 and 1998 National League Championship Series. It was the only stadium ever to host both the Super Bowl and the World Series in the same year (1998), and was one of three stadiums to host the Super Bowl, World Series, and the MLB All-Star Game, along with the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

Reader's Guide

The stadium was designed in the Brutalist style. It was the first of the square-circle 'octorad' style, which was thought to be an improvement over the other multi-purpose stadiums of the time for hosting both football and baseball (the second and last of this style was the since-imploded Veterans Stadium). Despite the theoretical improvements of this style, most of the seats were still very far away from the action on the field, especially during baseball games.

The Chargers (then a member of the American Football League) played the first game ever at the stadium on August 20, 1967. San Diego Stadium had a capacity of around 50,000; the three-tier grandstand was in the shape of a horseshoe, with the east end low (consisting of only one tier, partially topped by a large scoreboard). The original scoreboard, a black-and-white scoreboard created by All American Scoreboards, was replaced in 1978 by one manufactured by American Sign and Indicator, which was the first full-color outdoor scoreboard ever built.

This was replaced in 1987 by a White Way Sign scoreboard, in which the video screen is surrounded almost entirely by three message boards. The original video board was replaced in 1996 by a Sony JumboTron, with a second JumboTron installed behind the opposite end zone (third base in the stadium's baseball configuration). In 1983, over 9,000 bleachers were added to the lower deck on the open end of the stadium raising the capacity to 59,022. The most substantial addition was completed in 1997, when the stadium was fully enclosed, with the exception of where the scoreboard is located.

Nearly 11,000 seats were added in readiness for Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, bringing the capacity to 70,561. Also in 1997, the facility was renamed Qualcomm Stadium after Qualcomm Corporation paid $18 million for the naming rights. The naming rights belonged to Qualcomm until 2017, after which the rights were purchased by San Diego County Credit Union. In order to continue to honor Murphy, the city named the stadium site Jack Murphy Field.

However, as part of the naming agreement Jack Murphy Field was not allowed to be used alongside Qualcomm Stadium. Some San Diegans, however, still refer to the stadium as 'Jack Murphy' or simply 'The Murph'. The stadium was temporarily renamed 'Snapdragon Stadium' for 10 days in December 2011 as a marketing tie in for Qualcomm's Snapdragon brand.