Once a haven for golf and tennis, other pro sports are exploding in the desert
It doesn’t seem long ago that the Coachella Valley was still a sleepy little desert community with great weather, great scenery and great professional golf and tennis tournaments as attractions for sports fans. With the exception of a few one-time events – like the NFL’s Fastest Man competition or the Tour of California bike race – golf and tennis was the extent of professional or major college sports in the desert.
In just a handful of years, though, the Coachella Valley sports world has exploded into a sports destination not only for Southern California but the nation.
The eyes of the world used to focus on the desert for the Bob Hope Classic (now The American Express), the Nabisco Dinah Shore (now in Houston) and the always vibrant BNP Paribas Open. Now the basketball and hockey and auto racing worlds have reason to focus on a not-so-sleepy desert.
Consider the desert sports news in just the last week:
More: Firebirds have kicked sports to a completely new level for the Coachella Valley
Auto racing
The NTT IndyCar Series announced it will return to the desert in March for an all-star race with a charity aspect that also will involve members of The Thermal Club. The event will run March 22-24 and will feature a $1 million component to be split between the winning driver and members of the Thermal racing community. This comes after IndyCar used The Thermal Club in 2023 for testing, with drivers and teams raving about the facility.
College basketball
College basketball continues to grow in the desert with the official announcement of two more days of games over Thanksgiving weekend. The Nov. 24 games will feature Hawaii, Texas Rio Grande Valley, University of San Diego and Arkansas State, with the winners and losers meeting Nov. 25. Those games will come one day after a featured game Thanksgiving Day between Michigan State and Arizona, two of the top college programs in the country.
Hockey
The Coachella Valley Firebirds will return for their second season in the American Hockey League after a wildly successful debut season on and off the ice. Two preseason games will be played at Acrisure Arena on Oct. 6 and 8 before the home slate of regular-season games begins Oct. 13 against the Bakersfield Condors. A National Hockey League preseason game between the Arizona Coyotes and the Anaheim Ducks will be played Oct. 1 at the Palm Desert arena.
NBA basketball
The NBA, which once had a series of outdoor games in the desert featuring the Phoenix Suns at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, will return to the Coachella Valley on Oct. 19. This time the Suns will face the Los Angeles Lakers. You have to assume this will be the start of a series of preseason NBA games in the coming years, just like the preseason NHL games will likely be an annual occurrence.
So what changed? Surely more people now live in the desert, many moving to the area during the pandemic to get away from metropolitan areas, which has created more of an appetite for live sports that doesn’t require a two-hour drive into Los Angeles, Orange County or San Diego. The success of the Firebirds last year, drawing sellout after sellout in the AHL playoffs, shows there is a demand for live sports other than golf and tennis.
Of course, the biggest changes have been in facilities. There could be no IndyCar testing in the desert without a suitable track for the cars. The Thermal Club, with 4.5 miles of race-worthy track, is perfect for IndyCar’s needs and some believe would be perfect as a racing circuit, whether it be IndyCar or another series.
It is tough to overstate what Oak View Group has done to open the doors in the desert for live sports with the construction of the Acrisure Arena off Interstate 10. The Firebirds are the centerpiece of the arena, along with concerts from the Eagles, Harry Styles and Reba McEntire, among others.
But with the addition of college basketball potentially becoming a new Thanksgiving tradition in the desert, with the NBA and the NHL already paying attention and with even rodeo showing up for local fans, you have to think the sky could be the limit for live sports in the facility.
It’s a dramatic shift for the Coachella Valley, where they has always been support for the golf and tennis tournaments. Perhaps there has also been a pent-up demand for more sports in the desert. Perhaps the burgeoning population from people who moved to the desert from the coast means there is more demand than existed 10 or 15 years ago.
Whatever the reason, facilities or demands or both, the trajectory of sports in the Coachella Valley has never been as exciting as it is now. And as long as the weather is good and the grandstands are filled, more opportunities will keep coming to the area.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs area adds hockey, auto racing, basketball to pro sports prowess
