The bittersweet story behind San Diego's long-awaited MLS debut

San Diego has been fighting for an MLS franchise for nearly a decade. On the surface, it's a perfect market for professional soccer, with excellent weather, proximity to soccer-mad Mexico, strong local youth programs and a lack of other professional sports teams in its favor. But bureaucratic headaches and strong bids from other cities have stymied San Diego for years. 

In 2019, ex-U. S. Men's National Team star Landon Donovan led a strong San Diego bid. However, the one-two punch of organizers in Nashville and Miami outmuscled the former MLS star's bid for a team, so San Diego's MLS plans got put on hold.

When San Diego was announced as the league's 30th franchise in 2023, many assumed that Donovan — one of the bigger names in American soccer and a local — was still attached to the bid. But Donovan was nowhere to be found, angering some.

After failing to secure San Diego's MLS spot in 2019, Donovan took a different approach to bring soccer to his home city. He partnered with Warren Smith, the founder of the wildly successful Sacramento Republic soccer team, to bring second-division soccer to the city instead. Donovan's reasoning was simple: If a second-division team could prove its viability, the MLS would undoubtedly come calling and leverage that franchise as a starting point. That had happened in Cincinnati, Vancouver and Seattle. It would take lots of hard work, but it was a smart strategy.

Donovan called his team the San Diego Loyal, and he dedicated himself to founding, running and eventually coaching the second-division side from 2020 on. The Loyal quickly cultivated a sizable fan base and began selling out games at San Diego's 6,000-seat Torero Stadium. 

The club was competitive from its first year and not shy about standing up for social justice. It hired Carrie Taylor, one of the first female coaches of a men's professional soccer team in American history, and refused to tolerate racial or homophobic slurs during its matches. The Loyal famously forfeited a point it had earned against the Los Angeles Galaxy II side after a Galaxy player used offensive language, saying it didn't "want to recognize being part of a match where these types of actions take place."

The Loyal's dedicated fan base, impressive play and strong social convictions earned it plaudits among American soccer faithful. But as the 2023 season kicked off, the Loyal had a problem: It needed a bigger stadium, and no stadium in San Diego was willing to let the team buy in.

The city had a perfect stadium for the Loyal's needs — Snapdragon, the 35,000-seat home of the women's soccer franchise the San Diego Wave— but unbeknown to the Loyal, Snapdragon had already committed itself to a rival men's team. Meanwhile, a new MLS bid, this one led by billionaire Mohamed Mansour and offering a $500 million buy-in fee, was gathering steam in the city, and it was doing so largely on the back of the Loyal's success.

In May 2023, MLS announced that Mansour's San Diego team would become the league's 30th franchise. The then-unnamed outfit would play its games at Snapdragon Stadium. Just a few weeks later, the San Diego Loyal announced it would shutter after the 2023 season, citing its lack of a suitable stadium as the key reason behind the closure.

The bait-and-switch left San Diego soccer fans reeling. Many were thrilled to finally have their place in the nation's top soccer league, but others were furious that it came at the expense of their beloved lower-division side.

National soccer programs are often described as a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are first-division leagues such as MLS and senior men's programs such as the U.S. Men's National Team. Beneath them, hundreds of lower-division franchises keep them elevated and strong. San Diego's journey to MLS burnished the shine of the pyramid's top, but it removed a key brick from the base — and the long-term effects of that could come back to bite MLS in the future.

San Diego FC will begin its MLS journey Sunday against the L.A. Galaxy in Carson, California. There will be plenty of San Diego natives in the crowd, and many will wear the team's Navy blue in support. But scattered among the Navy blue may be orange and Torrey pine green — the Loyal's beloved colors, worn by San Diego fans who aim to stay loyal beyond the team's bitter end.