San Diego Padres and Sports San Diego announce new venue for Holiday Bowl
SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Padres and Sports San Diego jointly announced today that after two successful seasons hosting the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park (2022-23), the Holiday Bowl will be moving to Snapdragon Stadium beginning in December 2024.
“It was our honor to host the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park,” said Padres CEO Erik Greupner. “Keeping the game in San Diego at a time when there weren’t any other viable options was vitally important to the Holiday Bowl, our community and local economy. The Holiday Bowl is a great event and wonderful San Diego tradition. We will continue our promise to be more than a ballpark by hosting world-class concerts and events at Petco Park in the future. We wish the Holiday Bowl many years of successful and exciting games at their new venue.”
”The DIRECTV Holiday Bowl had a great run at Petco Park, and we are so appreciative to the San Diego Padres for being tremendous hosts,” said Sports San Diego CEO Mark Neville. “The Holiday Bowl is an important event for San Diego, and the Padres were there for us when SDCCU Stadium was razed. Petco Park is an incredible venue, one for which our community is lucky to have.”
Petco Park is a premier sports and entertainment facility in the heart of the Gaslamp and East Village neighborhood in downtown San Diego. In addition to the Padres 81-game home baseball schedule, the ballpark also serves as a year-round concert venue and has hosted myriad full-venue shows, including Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel & Sting, Sir Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen, Metallica, Green Day, and many more, as well as hundreds of special and innovative events since opening in April 2004. Petco Park has also held numerous sporting events over the years including The Links at Petco Park (golf), Monster Jam & Monster Energy Supercross (monster truck and dirt bike events), San Diego Rodeo, 2014 Davis Cup (tennis), international soccer matches, college and high school basketball and baseball games, rugby tournaments, and the Holiday Bowl (football).
The Holiday Bowl has been played in San Diego since its inception in 1978 and was hosted at San Diego Stadium/Jack Murphy Stadium/Qualcomm Stadium/SDCCU Stadium through 2019 until moving to Petco Park for the 2022-23 seasons (2020-21 games were not played).