san diego clippers
The G League's Ontario Clippers will move to Oceanside, California next season and rebrand as the nostalgic San Diego Clippers. San Diego was the home of the NBA's Clippers from 1978 to 1984, but 40 years later, then-owner Donald Sterling moved the team to Los Angeles. The 7,500-seat FrontWave Arena is set to open this summer in the San Diego suburb of Oceanside — Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has made a retro decision to bring the G League version of the franchise back to the county. . Until they arrive, the current Ontario (California) Clippers will finish the 2023-24 season playing in the 11,089-seat Toyota Arena. The team will begin selling San Diego Clippers merchandise today at 9 a.m. PT at SDClippersHQ.com.
Next season, the San Diego Clippers will be part of Halo Sports & Entertainment, the week-old umbrella brand founded by Ballmer. The brand also includes the Los Angeles Clippers, the soon-to-open Intuit Dome and Kia Forum. Halo and CEO Jillian Zucker will oversee the team's business operations in partnership with FrontWave Arena, while Clippers President Lawrence Frank will oversee basketball operations.
“So much of our history runs deep here,” Zucker said at Monday's Oceanside press conference announcing the move. “And we've done a lot of research on the brand and found that tradition is important to people, and we also discovered that it has a huge fan base in this part of Southern California.
“For us, it's very exciting to be able to address that by bringing in the G League.” [team] Being here and being this close. This is an expansion of our broadcast market, and we're excited to make the most of the opportunity for people here to enjoy both teams on the air. San Diego offers many opportunities to explore the Clippers' long history. ”
San Diego has a complicated professional basketball history thanks to the 58-year-old San Diego Sports Arena, now known as Pechanga Arena. The city was home to the NBA's San Diego Rockets from 1967 until 1971, until the team lost to Houston, and then saw the Clippers (transferred from Buffalo in the late 1970s) move to Los Angeles. I did. The ABA's San Diego Conquistadors (later known as the Sails) eventually disbanded. The common thread is that the underfunded and ultimately dilapidated San Diego Sports Arena actually served as the setting for his 1975 NCAA Men's Final Four, the final championship game for his UCLA coach John Wooden. Ta.
The new Frontwave Arena, located in Oceanside, about 30 miles north of downtown, is the county's first non-college basketball venue built since 1966 (San Diego State University named it Viejas Arena in 1997; The University of San Diego opened the Jenny Craig Pavilion in 2000). FrontWave Arena, decorated with 16 luxury suites, a VIP observation deck, an upscale lounge and an outdoor patio, is what Zucker and G League Chairman Shareef Abdul Rahim said will be home to Clippers G League players. It is also adjacent to the new residential area mentioned above.
“Jillian has shown incredible passion for the Clippers organization,” Abdul-Rahim said. “I told her I entered the NBA in 1996, and the Clipper organization we see today is very different than the Clipper organization I experienced when I came in. And that same passion extends to the G League.”
