Despite the exclusion of San Diego Wave in the NWSL Championship at Snapdragon Stadium this coming Saturday, it will still be a great opportunity for the San Diego market to show that San Diego is a huge market for soccer.
The San Diego crowds this season have put the league on notice and have a reputation among players as one of the loudest environments they play in in the NWSL.
“I think the San Diego market has been really successful in how they pack the stadium and how they build fans. I think every time we’ve come down here the stadium’s been full, it’s been loud. It’s hard to hear your teammates, it’s hard for me to try to communicate out of the back knowing the person 10 yards in front of me won’t hear me so it’s been really, really cool and they’ve just done a really good job cultivating that,” OL Reign’s Alana Cook said.
“I think for us players it just makes it so much more fun to know the crowd’s there watching and supporting,” Cook said. “Even when it’s not your home crowd, I think it just adds to the atmosphere, it adds to the enjoyment of it.”
The Wave have packed Snapdragon Stadium more than any other team at the venue, including San Diego State football who the stadium was specifically made for.
“We always say, going to California teams, going to games, playing here, they always get so many fans. They make it so fun to come and play here. Obviously you hate playing against a team when they have 30,000 fans on their side, but I think the California teams do such a great job promoting it and getting so many fans to come here and join it that it’s just like, it’s been so fun to come play against these teams even though it’s our third time playing in this stadium,” OL Reign goalkeeper Claudia Dickey said, who shutout the Wave in front of that crowd last Sunday in the semifinal.
Both 2022 expansion clubs, the Wave and Angel City FC in Los Angelss, led the way for an explosive increase in attendance and fan engagement in the last two years across the entire league.
“Back when I [started] playing I think we had maybe a couple thousand in big games. And now we’re getting consistent fans and people following. And not just knowing the big stars but they know some of us non-named players, so it’s exciting and it’s really positive growth for this league,” Gotham’s Katie Stengel said.
“To me it just energizes me, I think it energizes every team I’ve been on. It’s an exciting thing and it’s always better to play in front of an excited and rowdy crowd for sure,” O’Hara said.
There have already been over 22,000 tickets sold for the championship game, even without the Wave playing in it, which is already more than the league’s championship game record of 21,144 in 2018 in Portland, Oregon.
Just like the international matches earlier this year with the Manchester United-Wrexham game and the Mexico-Cameroon matchup, the neutral-site NWSL Championship gives San Diegans one last chance for the 2023 calendar year to show that the city of San Diego is a soccer city.