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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Bay Area has become a destination for major sporting events, from the 2025 NBA All-Star Game to this month’s Super Bowl, next month’s March Madness West Regional, and the FIFA World Cup coming in June.
The list could very easily grow with the Giants hosting one of Major League Baseball’s marquee showcases: the 2028 All-Star Game.
It’s not just the game, which would be played at Oracle Park. MLB has several events during All-Star week, including the Futures Game, amateur draft, Home Run Derby, red carpet parade, and FanFest, which lasts several days as a prelude to the main attraction.
The economic impact to San Francisco and the surrounding areas could top $100 million, and the Giants and baseball fans throughout the region would stand to benefit in various forms. The Giants hosted the 2007 All-Star Game, and memories remain intact for longtime fans even if nobody in the Home Run Derby hit a ball over the big brick wall in right field, let alone into McCovey Cove.
An All-Star Game in San Francisco is contingent on whether major-league players partake in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and momentum continues to grow for participation to become a reality. Negotiations are underway between the league and the players’ union, as well as Olympic representatives, regarding how it all would play out.
Sources familiar with the planning process told The Standard that if big-league players get the OK to compete in the Olympics, the Giants would be favored to host the All-Star Game. One source went so far as to suggest it would be a lock.
The San Francisco Chronicle was first to report that Oracle Park would be the front-runner to host the game.
With conversations ongoing and many moving parts, the All-Star Game is one piece to a larger puzzle. If all works out for the Giants, All-Star festivities would be in San Francisco in mid-July 2028. The Olympic baseball tournament would follow in L.A., a six-nation, weeklong event at Dodger Stadium.
“I think people have come to appreciate that the Olympics on U.S. soil is a unique marketing opportunity for the game,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said at the recent owners meetings in Florida. “I think we’ve got a lot of players interested in doing it. I’m feeling pretty good about the idea we’ll get there.”
This year’s All-Star Game is in Philadelphia, and next year’s will be at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The announcement for the 2028 game will come only after it’s officially known if big-leaguers will play in the Olympics.
Because the Giants hosted the game just 19 years ago, they were behind other teams in the All-Star rotation, including Toronto (which last hosted in 1991), Baltimore (1993), and Boston (1999). But because the preference for the 2028 game is a venue closer to L.A., the Giants — who had been applying to host the game ASAP — would cut the line.
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For logistical reasons, the league doesn’t want the All-Star Game too distant from the Olympics, and every other MLB city in the West hosted the game after the Giants did in 2007, including the Mariners (2023), Dodgers (2022), Rockies (2021), Padres (2016), Diamondbacks (2011), and Angels (2010).
Until now, Team USA included minor-leaguers and college players in the Olympics, because MLB didn’t want to disrupt its summer schedule to allow its players to fly around the world. Now that the Olympics are in the U.S. and the league’s marketing folks have international aspirations, it’s the right time to showcase MLB’s premier players on the global stage.
Simply put, the stars align for the superstars to shine.
Manfred said the league continues discussions with the players union about “some issues … that we just need to resolve” – including insurance and scheduling matters – but added, “I sense a lot of momentum toward playing in L.A. in 2028. I think we’re going to get over those issues.”
An extended break in the middle of the season would be necessary. Most of the league’s 780 players wouldn’t participate in the All-Star Game or Olympics, and it would be an unusually long hiatus with concerns over their timing and conditioning. But for the premier players, it would be a rare opportunity to be showcased not just on the national stage in the All-Star Game but on the world stage at the Olympics.
Traditionally, All-Star Games are held on a Tuesday, and if that remains the case in 2028, a game in San Francisco could be July 11. Then attention would turn to the Olympics for the weeklong tournament. MLB’s regular season would resume shortly thereafter.
The Giants are in the process of upgrading Oracle Park as part of their collaboration with Sixth Street Partners, a private equity firm that purchased 10% of the team last March. The upgrades would be timely for the 2028 All-Star Game, though they had been in motion before the All-Star possibility emerged.
As the host nation, the U.S. would get an automatic Olympic berth. Two additional countries from the Americas would qualify as the top finishers in the World Baseball Classic. The competition includes Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia.
The last time the Giants hosted the All-Star Game, it generated five days of revelry and more than $60 million in economic impact to the city. On the field, Vladimir Guerrero Sr. won the Home Run Derby, and Ichiro Suzuki was named All-Star MVP after hitting an inside-the-park home run that highlighted the quirkiness of what then was known as AT&T Park.
Willie Mays, then 76, was the focus of an emotional pregame tribute – he entered from center field (naturally) and was flanked by Barry Bonds and Derek Jeter before throwing the ceremonial first pitch, then took a lap in a Cadillac convertible from 1958, the Giants’ first year in San Francisco.
Bonds played in his 13th and final All-Star Game, getting mad love from Giants fans and going 0 for 2 with a long drive to the wall in left field. Bonds didn’t participate in the derby the night before the game, instead attending a South of Market party featuring rapper Jay-Z that lasted well into the night.
The attendance at the game was 43,965, and millions more watched from afar. By the time the 2028 All-Star Game arrives, the Giants hope to be a more competitive team that contends annually for the postseason.
Logan Webb, whose Giants contract runs through 2028, could be considered an early candidate for the Olympics. He’s participating in this year’s WBC, and his Team USA will work out Monday at Papago Park, the Giants’ complex, and play an exhibition against the Giants on Tuesday at Scottsdale Stadium.