Crowd at victory parade for NBA Champions the Seattle TremendousSonics in 1979.
Seattle Sports have been a significant half of the town since its inception. From the wet shores of Elliott Bay, we have been hitting balls and conserving rating for nicely over a century. Sometimes, we even win.
Rainier Baseball Club scorecard, 1906
1903 The Rainiers (Sort Of)
The Seattle Siwashes have been founding members of the Pacific Coast League. The nickname didn’t final lengthy. Over the following a long time, the baseball membership would additionally go by the Purple Sox, the Turks, and, in the end, because of beer magnate Emil Sick, the Rainiers.
Harry Holmes was the beginning goaltender for the Seattle Metropolitans ice hockey crew from 1915-24.
1917 Raise the Cup
The Seattle Metropolitans (nice identify, clearly) have been the primary crew from the United States to win the Stanley Cup, an auspicious starting for professional sports activities titles in Seattle. But it was not a predictive one. The Metropolitans lasted solely a decade. And championship trophies since have confirmed, uhh…scarce.
Longacres Park races.
1933 Pony Express
There was a time when the most well-liked sports activities in America have been baseball, boxing, and—giddy up—horse racing. When it opened in 1933, Longacres racetrack in Renton supplied beautiful view of Mount Rainier and the one authorized playing possibility in Washington state. It closed in 1992, served a pair of a long time as a Boeing workplace park, and is now the coaching dwelling of the Sounders.
1946 Steelhead Alley
The cream and black Sunday uniforms the Mariners are carrying in 2026 are a throwback to the short-lived Steelheads of the West Coast Negro Baseball Association, a Negro Leagues offshoot cofounded by Abe Saperstein, the person behind the Harlem Globetrotters. The league lasted just one season.
Hydroplane Slo-Mo-Shun IV on Lake Washington, 1950.
1951 Hydro-Powered
Any Seattle old-timer will inform you that our metropolis’s most emblematic sport is, the truth is, hydroplane racing. And they may even be capable to inform you about hydro cups previous over just a few beers and pull tabs. The hydros arrived on Lake Washington as half of Seafair in 1951. They’ve returned each Seafair since, usually bearing the names of native companies like Oberto and Albert Lee. (Notice that for all of the complaints our metropolis has in regards to the noisy Blue Angels overhead, there’s nary a phrase in regards to the roaring hydros.)
Gary Payton passing basketball in sport in opposition to Celtics, Seattle, 1992.
1967 SuperSonic Boom
Seattle’s first main league professional sports activities crew took the court docket for the primary time below the shadow of the Space Needle in 1967. The TremendousSonics weren’t precisely good that first season—or for the following few—however the basketball crew rapidly grew to become an integral half of the town’s tradition. And in 1979, they introduced the Seattle its first fashionable championship banner. Then all people lived fortunately ever after, proper? Right?
Seattle Pilots promotional {photograph}, 1969.
1969 Major League Baseball, Briefly
Only two years after the Sonics arrived on the scene, Seattle landed an growth American League franchise. The Pilots performed at Sick’s Stadium, previously dwelling to the Rainiers and Steelheads. They have been then instantly stolen and moved to Milwaukee by future MLB commissioner Bud Selig. That’s referred to as foreshadowing.
Mike England marking Pelé at Sounders vs. New York Cosmos sport in 1975.
1974 Sounders: Take One
The first golden age of soccer in Seattle got here within the Seventies, when the unique Sounders crammed up Memorial Coliseum and Pelé was making nationwide headlines suiting up for the New York Cosmos. The North American Soccer League would disband in 1984. But the Sounders identify would stay within the hearts of Seattle followers, for use within the Nineties after which once more when the town was lastly awarded a Major League Soccer franchise in 2009.
1976 and ’77 The Kingdome Effect
Fun reality: Before Seattle received its very personal multipurpose sports activities dome, sports activities advocates on the town tried to counsel a floating stadium out on Elliott Bay (with monorail entry, of course, and likewise a ferry dock). Instead, we received the Kingdome—and with it, soccer’s Seahawks and baseball’s Mariners in brief order. The Sounders got here to play there, too. It could have been dreary. It could have lacked buoyancy. It could have sometimes dropped ceiling tiles. But Seattle wouldn’t be the sports activities city it’s with out it.
Seattle Storm gamers Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson, and Sheri Sam cheer within the third sport of the 2004 Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) finals.
2000 Storm Rising
The Nineties have been a golden age in Seattle. Payton and Kemp. The Griffey-powered Mariners. A nationwide championship for UW soccer. And the rise of girl’s professional basketball. For a pair years, we had the Reign of the American Basketball League, earlier than the ABL folded in 1998. Then in 2000, the Storm debuted within the WNBA. Soon they’d draft Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird and set up an identification altogether impartial of their NBA counterparts in Key Arena. Which was a superb factor…
Seattle TremendousSonics proprietor and founder of Starbucks espresso Howard Schultz in 2006.
2008 Sonicsgate
…as a result of quickly, the Storm could be on their own there. In 2006, Starbucks proprietor Howard Schultz offered the Sonics to an Oklahoma oil baron named Clay Bennett, supposedly
as a result of the town didn’t need to cough up the tax {dollars} he wanted to improve Key Arena. Bennett quickly did what all people anticipated: ditched the lease and took the crew to Oklahoma City. Schultz himself lastly introduced his departure from Seattle after the passage of a state revenue tax this 12 months.
Seattle Reign FC ladies’s soccer crew photograph for inaugural 12 months, 2013.
2013 Reign FC
The Seattle Reign launched in 2013 as one of the founding groups within the new National Women’s Soccer League. Since then, they’ve performed in 4 completely different stadiums (together with a sojourn in Tacoma), and below three completely different possession teams. And but they’ve managed to achieve traction yearly, to platform worldwide superstars like Megan Rapinoe, and to win three shields for having the league’s finest regular-season file.
2021 Seattle Kraken
It was straightforward to be skeptical in regards to the NHL coming to Seattle. Even simpler when the crew introduced that it will be referred to as the Kraken. Thankfully, the Kraken realized early on that their job wasn’t to fill the void left by the Sonics however to create one thing new, with flying salmon, a really bizarre mascot, and a real dedication to group outreach. In their second season, they even hooked a playoff berth
Brandi Carlile did the ceremonial puck drop on the sold-out ultimate sport of the Torrent’s first season.
2025 Seattle Torrent
The Torrent’s first dwelling sport attracted an viewers of greater than 16,000 followers—the largest crowd for a ladies’s hockey sport within the historical past of the United States. And the vibes may simply be the most effective within the historical past of the United States, too. It seems Seattle is a hockey city now.