SAN ANTONIO – This fall, the San Antonio Spurs hope Bexar County voters give them the OK to return to the spot where the city first fell in love with them: Hemisfair.
The history of the NBA’s Spurs in San Antonio predates their time in the Alamo City and the NBA itself.
The Dallas Chaparrals were a member of the American Basketball Association (ABA), which took the court for the first time in 1967. While the team experienced moderate success, the Chaparrals couldn’t attract much of a following in North Texas.
By their 1972-73 season — the Chaparrals’ final season in Dallas — the team split its home games between Southern Methodist University’s Moody Coliseum and select games on the North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) campus in Denton.
According to the Texas State Historical Association, only 134 tickets were purchased for the Chaparrals’ last home game.
Fast forward 52 years and five NBA championships later, the Spurs are eyeing voter approval of a proposition that could award the franchise with its fourth San Antonio home by the 2030s.
In the Nov. 4 election, voters will decide on Proposition B, which focuses on the funding Bexar County would contribute to a new Spurs arena.
>> Who will pay for a new Spurs arena in downtown San Antonio? KSAT Explains
Here’s a look back at the first three arenas the Spurs have called home in San Antonio.
Hemisfair Arena (1973-1993)
The arena built for the 1968 World’s Fair lucked out: a professional basketball team was in a new city and the venue needed a regular occupant.
After the Chaparrals were purchased by a San Antonio-based ownership group, which included Red McCombs, the renamed Spurs settled into the Hemisfair Arena ahead of the 1973-74 ABA season.
An on-the-ground view of Hemisfair Arena. (UTSA Libraries Special Collections’ General Photograph Collection)
On Oct. 10, 1973, the Spurs played their first home game in San Antonio against the San Diego Conquistadors before nearly 6,000 fans (5,879) at the arena.
The fun was only beginning.
Four months later, in February 1974, San Antonio orchestrated its most consequential trade to date when it acquired 21-year-old George Gervin.
Gervin quickly became the face of the Spurs. His play may have aided in their ability and marketability to emerge as one of four teams (along with the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and New York Nets) to survive the ABA’s folding into the NBA in 1976.
Dubbed the “Iceman,” Gervin played parts of 12 ABA and NBA seasons in San Antonio.
An aerial view of Hemisfair Arena. (UTSA Libraries Special Collections’ General Photograph Collection)
David Robinson became the new face of the franchise in the late 1980s. He was selected as an NBA All-Star in each of his first four seasons in the league.
As Robinson’s NBA reputation was building and building, so, too, was a new facility on the opposite side of Interstate 37.
In 1991, longtime KSAT 12 News reporter Paul Venema went on-site at an ambitious project that some elected officials had hoped would attract an NFL franchise to San Antonio.
Venema’s report can be seen below.
Two years later, in 1993, the Spurs were preparing to wrap up their two-decade run at Hemisfair Arena.
No NFL team had come to the Alamodome or San Antonio after all, but the city’s NBA franchise was set for its largest-ever homecourt advantage.
Before the Spurs said goodbye for good, former KSAT 12 News photographer Larry Burns spoke to fans and arena workers who reflected on what they would miss about Hemisfair Arena.
Burns’ 1993 report can be seen below.
In 1995, Hemisfair Arena was demolished in order to accommodate the expansion of the Henry B. González Convention Center.
Alamodome (1993-2002)
The Alamodome was and is still a football stadium in practically every way, but for eight seasons, it was primarily a basketball facility.
In 1995, Robinson continued his ascension and was awarded the NBA MVP award during the Spurs’ playoff series against the Houston Rockets.
Three years later, in 1998, the Alamodome hosted the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four for the first time — a major sporting event the venue has continued to host well into the 21st century.
The Alamodome hosted the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four semifinals on Saturday, April 5, 2025, and the national championship game on Monday, April 7, 2025. (KSAT)
One of the Alamodome’s most indelible moments came in 1999.
Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals were monumental in franchise lore, but neither game would have been possible had it not been for Sean Elliott’s sideline high-wire act known as the “Memorial Day Miracle.”
Weeks later, the Spurs left New York City’s Madison Square Garden with their first NBA title.
However, back home in San Antonio, Spurs fans celebrated the win in any way — and anywhere they could — including the stretch of Interstate 37 running alongside the Alamodome.
KSAT 12 News’ coverage of the title of ‘99 can be seen below.
Five months after the Spurs won it all, voters went to the ballot box and approved the Bexar County Venue Tax, a funding source the organization and county used to pay for a prospective new basketball-centric arena on the East Side.
The tax would be placed on hotel stays and car rentals.
Election Day for the Bexar County Venue Tax was Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999, which also happened to be the day Spurs players received their NBA championship rings before their 1999-2000 regular season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers.
SBC Center/AT&T Center/Frost Bank Center (2002-present)
The Spurs’ current home is a product of its time. Unlike its two predecessors, the Frost Bank Center is and was an arena adorned with corporate sponsorship.
When the estimated $175 million facility opened, it was the Spurs’ furthest home venture from the city center. According to a 1999 Associated Press report, the organization put up $28.5 million to go towards the arena’s construction.
In 2002, the team officially arrived on the East Side. Almost immediately, fans were able to experience one big difference heading east versus traveling into downtown.
Instead of dealing with the congested crawl of getting in and out of the downtown area via Interstate 37, the new arena was just close enough for fans to travel in and out of two of San Antonio’s major traffic arteries instead of one — Interstate 35 and Interstate 10.
The other big difference was the hole in the home schedule each February, thanks to sharing the SBC Center with the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.
The so-called “Rodeo Road Trip” became the one time each season when the Spurs were typically out of town for two consecutive weeks and faced some of the stiffest competition they would see all season.
The Spurs opened up the arena with a rousing first season, winning 60 regular-season games, earning the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and sending the 37-year-old Robinson off into retirement with his second NBA championship.
Moments after securing the 2003 title, the late KSAT 12 News reporter Rosenda Rios spoke to fans who lined up for championship gear at the Academy Sports + Outdoors store on Northeast Loop 410 near Perrin Beitel.
Rios’ reporting can be seen below.
The good times kept on rolling. San Antonio continued its stranglehold on the West and the NBA with two more titles in 2005 and 2007. The Spurs added a fifth championship ring for the pinky finger in 2014, when they defeated LeBron James and the Miami Heat in five games.
In the years since the last championship, residents and business owners in the city — as well as researchers away from the city — were beginning to take a closer look at the effect that the SBC Center, AT&T Center and now Frost Bank Center have had on the East Side.
The Frost Bank Center. (KSAT)
In 2016, a study from the Brookings Institution found that the Spurs used $41 million in federal subsidies to help pay for the arena. The study also identified that the San Antonio area lost $44 million worth of total tax revenue.
One of the study’s co-researchers at the time told KSAT 12 News’ Courtney Friedman that the Spurs, like many other teams, secured municipal bonds through a legal loophole in the tax code.
In February 2024, East Side business owners told KSAT 12 News reporter Patty Santos that the economic boom they expected to take place after the arena opened its doors two decades earlier had not happened.
Santos’ story can be seen below.
Months later, the secret Project Marvel, which includes a possible new Spurs arena in the downtown area, finally saw the light of day.
In September 2024, KSAT 12 News’ RJ Marquez reported on the series of non-disclosure agreements city officials attempted to keep under wraps.
Back in August, a majority of San Antonio city council members voted in favor of a non-binding funding deal that would pay for the estimated $1.3 billion new basketball arena.
According to the deal, the proposed new arena in Hemisfair would be ready for the 2032-33 NBA season, just in time for the Spurs’ Frost Bank Center lease with Bexar County to expire after the 2031-32 season.
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