San Diego has a variety of live sports for households to get pleasure from. But rooting for the Padres, catching a hometown soccer sport and even cheering on the native hockey group can get costly. Here are a couple of methods to save some money if you happen to’re taking children out to a sport.
Sticker shock
To watch one of many main sports groups in San Diego, the price of tickets alone begins round $25. Those costs can simply creep up to and above $100 dollars per seat. That doesn’t embody the price of parking or transit, meals or merchandise. It’s widespread to spend over $60 per person whenever you issue in all of the bills. But there are methods to save some money.
Ways to save on baseball and transit
1. Watch the Padres from Gallagher Square as a substitute of the stands
The value of taking a household of 4 to a Padres sport can fluctuate extensively. As of this spring, seated tickets to a weekend sport start around $25-30. The nearer you might be to the sphere, the dearer the tickets get — up to over $300 per individual for the perfect seats in the home.
One fashionable possibility is Gallagher Square, the garden and playground space on the north facet of Petco Park. There’s no seating, however folks can carry blankets or delicate seat cushions to sit on. Tickets for that space have a tendency to be cheaper and vary from $30 to $65, according to Petco Park Insider. The space additionally hosts video games, face paint and different children’ actions two hours earlier than the primary pitch at Sunday video games.
Petco Park additionally affords free admission to kids beneath 36 inches in peak, supplied they’re accompanied by an grownup with a legitimate ticket. They should sit in the lap of the accompanying grownup and never occupy a further seat.
2. Bring your individual meals to Petco Park
If you don’t need to spend $8 on a scorching canine, you can bring outside food into Padres video games so long as it’s wrapped, bagged or inside a container. Sealed, soft-sided plastic water bottles, milk containers and juice containers are additionally allowed. Don’t plan to carry in a potluck, although – any meals introduced into Petco Park have to be for particular person consumption.
Pro tip: If you continue to need that ballpark really feel, Costco’s scorching canine and soda combo has remained $1.50 since 1985, and the Costco closest to the ballpark is about 4 miles away in the Mt. Hope neighborhood. But you’ve gotten to be a member, and since Petco Park coverage says soda cannot come in with you, drink it forward of time.
3. Take public transportation
In September, the City of San Diego quadrupled the price of street parking close to Petco Park throughout Padres video games and different particular events. Within a half mile of the park, charges went up from $2.50 per hour to $10 per hour throughout events that draw 10,000 folks or extra. Lots close to the park charge between $50 and $80 on sport days.
Public transit is an economical various. There are two MTS trolley stops a block away from Petco Park. The Green Line stops at the Gaslamp Quarter cease, whereas the Blue and Orange Lines cease at twelfth and Imperial. If you’re taking the bus downtown, the Rapid 215, 225 and 235 buses cease at City College, the place you will get on the Orange or Blue Lines.
Adult fares on the Trolley are $2.50 for a technique and $6 for a day move.
Those who live additional north can take the North County Transit District’s Coaster as far as Santa Fe Depot, and then transfer to a trolley line. Coaster fares are zone-based. They vary from $5.00 (spherical journey, 1 zone) to $13.00 (spherical journey, 3 zones) for adults.
Each paying passenger might carry two kids beneath 5 years-old free of charge. Public transit is also free for youth 18 and beneath if they’ve a youth PRONTO app or card on all MTS and NCTD routes. There are additionally diminished fares for individuals who qualify and buy tickets as Senior/Disabled/Medicare riders.
Fans even have transit choices to get to Pechanga Arena to catch a San Diego Gulls hockey sport. MTS’ Route 8 bus has a cease at the sector alongside its route between the Balboa Avenue and Old Town Transit stations.
And if you happen to’re a San Diego Wave FC and/or San Diego FC fan who needs to keep away from paying $35 to $60 to park on website at Snapdragon Stadium, there’s a trolley cease there too.
In reality, MTS affords 33% discounted all-season transit passes for both soccer teams, to and from the stadium.
Soccer ideas and household/children’ offers
4. Tips to benefit from fútbol fever
Speaking of soccer, the FIFA World Cup 2026 is ready to kick off throughout the U.S., Mexico and Canada this June. While there gained’t be any video games in San Diego, there will likely be many simply up Interstate 5 in Los Angeles. Most World Cup tickets vary from the mid-hundreds to thousands of dollars per person.
(Pro Tip: Try FIFA Collect if you happen to’re discount attempting to find extra reasonably priced World Cup tickets and are keen to take a couple of further steps and journey.)
But there are cheaper methods to get into the fútbol fever. Locally, San Diego Wave FC, the ladies’s soccer group, started enjoying at Snapdragon Stadium in 2022 and got here out of the gates with instant success. San Diego FC, the boys’s soccer group, had a equally explosive begin in their inaugural 2025 season.
Standard Wave tickets this season start around roughly $37 and SDFC tickets start around $45.
There are discounted tickets for individuals who sit in the devoted normal admission/supporter part. Note: This is a really loud and in many circumstances standing-room-only space.
For Wave FC video games these tickets start around $26.50, and so they do provide some seated tickets.
As for SDFC video games, you want to be a member of the supporter union to benefit from the low cost. The fee to join is $15 and you’ve got to agree to a code of conduct. Single sport tickets for these seats are listed as low as $35.
Both SDFC and Wave FC enable kids two years and youthful to be admitted free of charge, however they need to sit on a ticket holder’s lap.
Wave FC and SDFC additionally provide teams of 10 or extra particular group pricing and unique group experiences.
5. Look out for household and children’ offers
The San Diego Padres mentioned memento cups are eligible free of charge refills for the complete occasion on the day it’s bought, however followers should not ready to carry cups again into the constructing for refills for future events.
The group additionally affords a “Pizza Port discounted bundle for a ‘Little Kids Meal’ (pizza and a choice of nonalcoholic beverage) and a ‘Big Kids Meal’ (pizza and a beer).”
Some giveaways at Padres video games are only for the primary 10,000 children aged 14 and beneath. This year, children can get a group water bottle on July 12, a keychain on Aug. 23 and a lunchbox on Sept. 20.
The San Diego Gulls offer a family four-pack beginning at $135. It consists of 4 tickets to sure weekend video games, 4 scorching canines, 4 baggage of chips, 4 sodas and a parking move. Otherwise, weekend tickets vary from round $35 to $85 relying on the seat.
SDFC held their kids night this March with an identical promotion to the Padres’ lunchbox providing.
San Diego Wave FC has beforehand supplied a free child’s ticket with a paid grownup ticket during Kids Free October. Officials with the group mentioned they plan to provide that promotion once more this October.
There are additionally offers obtainable in school sports. San Diego State University affords a $35 Aztec Kids Club membership that features admission to all volleyball, baseball, softball and ladies’s basketball house video games. Kids have to be in eighth grade or youthful.
Merchandise/different live sports choices
6. Get your merch secondhand
San Diego’s thrift shops are nice locations to discover T-shirts, jerseys, baggage and hats for each children and adults. Stores like Target, Walmart and DICK’s Sporting Goods have Padres, Wave FC, SDFC and Aztecs shirts for around $20 and up.
But group merchandise is a fraction of the worth at Goodwill, the Salvation Army or Veterans Thrift Stores. Plus, you may discover one thing classic to allow you to stand out in the gang.
7. Other sports in city
While the Padres, Wave FC, SDFC and the Aztecs are the massive gamers in city, there are different native sports groups you possibly can watch in-person that will save you some money.
We already talked about the area’s hockey group, the Gulls. There’s additionally the area’s indoor soccer group, the San Diego Sockers and the area’s lacrosse group, the San Diego Seals. Plus, San Diego has a brand new skilled volleyball group, the Mojo. And remember all the opposite collegiate athletics in city, just like the groups at UC San Diego, CSU San Marcos and the University of San Diego.
South of the border, there are the profitable and fashionable Liga MX’s Club Tijuana males’s and ladies’s soccer groups and Mexican Baseball League’s Toros de Tijuana that supply typically extra reasonably priced ticket costs. Be certain to issue in the price of border wait occasions if you happen to want to commute!
8. What different San Diego-Tijuana live sports ideas are you aware?
Let us know if we missed something so we will acquire the perfect concepts to save some money watching our favourite sports groups in San Diego and Tijuana.
San Diego’s value of residing is roughly 50% larger than the nationwide common. While the median family earnings is round $104,321, the earnings wanted to afford a median-priced house ($920k+) is now estimated at over $260,000.