San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum

Came here for a work related party. I felt this place was medium — sized and somewhat outdated. I had the pleasure of visiting a lot of museums this year. The event that I went to had a live band and had two photo booths. One was upstairs and one was downstairs to the very right of the museum. i do like the staircases, how it was easily accessible to go upstairs. The were a lot of bathrooms and there seem to be a small shop with food options, it was not opened because of the event. I think if you are a big sports fan and you are looking to have an event, this would be a place for you to throw the party. In the middle of the museum we had a dance floor, that was nice. I don’t know of they had any connection with the catering company or not, however I found a piece of plastic in my slider. This scared me, it was so sharo that I thought it was a piece of glass. After close inspection, Hubbs said it was a piece of plastic plates that the food was being served on. I told the waitress lady… no one said nothing to me. I still had a great time thougj.

I’m sorry to say this but I don’t recommend coming here at all! My husband is a sports fanatic and thought this place was just as disappointing. When we came in there was no one at the admissions counter to greet us– no one. We were in and out in 10 minutes. There just wasn’t much there! We didn’t bother going to the bottom level to see the sailboats. I recommend skipping the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum and the Automotive Museum.

maybe come if you’re one of those die hard America’s cup fans (wherever you are). Otherwise this is definitely a big skip.

Sports Hall of Champions has a nice little place to grab a bite to eat. They range from cold sandwiches to hit sandwiches. The prices are nice only about $ 7.00 to $ 8.00. The food is made to your order and have pretty quick service. The food is fresh and tastes great. This is the place to grab lunch.

I’m glad I came to this museum on the free Tuesday as I would be very disappointed if I had actually paid money to be here. In fact most of the people at the museum were in the café getting food, which might be the best or only reason to come here. I just get the feeling that the museum got whatever sports memorabilia was donated and put it in one space. They have room for much more. I have a son that sails at a local yacht club so that exhibit is wonderful, but there are so many sports that are not even represented. I didn’t see any museum staff on the floor if I had wanted to ask any question. My thought is the museum is under funded and under staffed.

I usually do not give 2 stars, but I’m a sports fanatic so I’m being slightly tougher on this museum. I just really didn’t get this museum. The layout was confusing to say the least. There was way too much open space, and the organization of all the sports didn’t make much sense.
The whole bottom floor is dedicated to sailing. I know we’re in San Diego, but that’s overkill for a 3 story sports museum. The Chargers section was a little confusing to follow. And nothing against local high school coaches, but having an entire area dedicated to local high school coaching legends seems a little ridiculous.
The top floor has cool iron plaques of people’s faces but I wasn’t even sure why they put up each guy that’s on there.
Lastly, there’s just too much random stuff next to San Diego sports exhibits. Why is there a Reggie bush jersey and a Muhammad Ali statue?
Only go on FREE TUESDAYS

I want to start by saying thank you to the nice lady who did not charge us for our 3 kids because if she had, I would have been extremely disappointed in the fact we dropped nearly $ 30 for this museum. Nearly all touch screens were out of order. The museum was very disappointing. If you are a true sports fan, do not set your expectations too high. A lot of lights were out which prevented us from seeing certain items.

I wanted to review this museum because of the wonderful treatment we received for having our wedding here! From the beginning, we never had any problems communicating with the event coordinator, Katelynn. She helped us with a lot of the planning, which made for a less stressful wedding planning experience. The venue, being a museum, did not require a lot of decorations to look nice, and we were able to utilize ALL 3 floors of the venue for our large wedding! Even the theater was available to us! We also used their tables, which saved us a lot of money on rentals. If you are looking for a large, unique wedding venue, definitely give this place a tour!

So many things for looking!
Walking in, I felt like a kid in a candy store, or rather a sports store. Even though the Man and I hit up the SD Hall of Champs for a Beer fest, we were still able to catch a serious glimpse of all the sports swag they’re stocking.
Balls, bats, uniforms, even a freaking boat! They’ve got it all. And some interactive stuff to boot. Granted, we were having some tasters at the time and it was probably more fun than usual, but pretending you’re on a boat, pulling the rigging and knotting up your friends, priceless.
Definitely one of the places to see when you’re cruising Balboa. And fun for the kiddies too!

Very poor excuse for a museum. Kids were disappointed as there was no interaction. When listening to the audio from one speaker, it was impossible to concentrate because of the other 2 …
When we arrived, I thought it was such a pity the place was empty… but after spending a grand total of 5 minutes before the kids (and I) wanted to leave, it was plain to see why… Only wish I had read the other reviews before going in.

I’m going to have 2 reviews one for my 2 year old and one for me.
2 year old son «WOW! COOL! WOW! COOL! Oh, Look! Baseballs! Footballs! Balls, Boats, Elevator! Up the Stairs» He really loved it, but that’s probably because he has an obsession with all things balls. My 11 month old also seemed to enjoy looking at all the balls and I felt it was pretty clean in there so I let him crawl around on the floor.
My review: What a beautiful space. If I were to get married in San Diego, I would seriously consider this as the venue. We first walked in headed over to the skateboard display. Um, Ok. I would expect some kind of plaque on the wall explaining the history of skateboarding, and then the history of skating in San Diego. Not so much. We moved over to the motorcycle. Ok, so it’s a motorcycle? Who did it belong to? Where was the story behind it? All the surfboards — cool way to display them., but for someone like me who doesn’t surf where was the info explaining all the different types of boards, the names of them? Where was the story about the history of surfing in SD? We walked over to the long wooden boat in the corner. What was it? Oh, I see a tiny sign saying it’s a hydroplane. I find it hard to call that area a museum. Then, we head over to the Padres & Chargers area. Very well done — why wasn’t the rest of the museum like that? We spent most of our time over there.
We headed downstairs and the sailing exhibit looks well done, but unfinished. Head to the 3^rd floor — only thing here are commerative plaques. We spent 40 minutes in the museum and I would suspect if you weren’t chasing around 2 kids you would spend a lot less time.
I hope they have some major updates in the works because this place has so much potential. I would definitely come back with my kids on Free Tuesday, but wouldn’t make the trek to pay.

In terms of a museum, well, the Hall of Champions could step it up a notch. They’ve done so with the newest exhibit, Sailing, but the rest of the place needs a major update. It’s interesting and all, but only worth it on Free Tuesday.
That being said, for a corporate event, it’s pretty legit. There’s a ton of space, they have a scavenger hunt that while corny, is a nice way to break up the day, and it’s better than sitting in an office. The event staff is super friendly and professional. Definitely worth a look if you need to plan something a step above the office picnic.

Great beer selection, and really good value. Short menu, friendly staff. Really great stop off for a bite to eat on this side of the park.

I love this museum! Sports memorabilia, history and the annual County Spelling Bee. I was here attending the spelling bee as my son successfully managed to out spell all the other kids at his school. I became a bit nostalgic entering the doors as the history of San Diego sports is housed right inside this building. Everything from the PCL Padres to the AFL Chargers. Even a spotlight on high school success stories. Gotta love it.
Currently the lower level houses a special on the America’s Cup yacht races. Dennis Conner, a local captain, years ago brought the trophy to San Diego.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to visit the entire museum, but I would love to visit again!

I grew up a Chicago sports fan so maybe that’s why I didn’t share the same displeasure that a lot of other reviewers did. My knowledge wasn’t extremely rich to begin with so I felt like I learned a lot about San Diego sports from this museum. Everyone has heard of the Padres and Chargers, but what I dug about it is the fact that they have a section for almost every type of sport imaginable.
Skateboarding, surfing, fishing, and even fencing are things you probably won’t find in any other city’s sports hall of fame so it was cool to hear that our town has a fairly rich history in the less mainstream sports.
Considering it’s called the Hall Of Champions and San Diego hasn’t had many championships in the sporting world I suppose they had to make due with what they have, but all in all I think it’s definitely worth taking your dad or uncle for some bonding time.

It was cheaper and it was one of the museums I had never been to. So it was decided on that. I was all ready to use the Museum Pass to get half off admission (which probably would’ve knocked the price down to $ 4 each for my mom and I). It turned out, there was a sign out front that said admission was free today. Heck, that was even better! But I admit it was kind of a buzzkill not to have used the pass at all during this month.
The Hall of Champions was interesting. First floor had this completely empty space in the middle that only had this giant metal statue of Rocky Balboa that was on loan from one of the major donors to the museum. Way in the back, flanking both wings of the empty floor were major displays of both the history of the Chargers and Padres. The displays weren’t necessarily up to date, which was a bit unexpected, but I thought they were pretty cool. The baseball side of things was much more filled than the football, which is surprising because the Padres have been in existence a little less longer than the Chargers have.
After we looked at those displays, we went up to the second floor to look at some of the plaques that were a part of the Hall of Fame display. It was strange that the two bunches of plaques were on opposing sides of the floor. The lower level below the first floor also had some displays for the water sports that were major in San Diego history. I guess Lauren would like something like that.
I must also say that I saw a ridiculously gorgeous woman at the Sports Museum, and I think she was one of the curators or something.

The owner of the museum is a raiders fan (no joke) which explains why this place has all the charm of a case of herpes.
I really hoped this place would be awesome, but it was lame. I would NEVER pay money to go into this snooze palace, but I went on a day when it was free. The «museum» is unfinished, and is more like a 3^rd rate sports collection of an eccentric private party.
There is a HUGE Rocky Balboa statue in the lobby. I have no idea why it is there, as Rocky was a fictional character who had nothing to do with San Diego. They must have added it out of desperation because they needed items and the character’s last name is the same as the park which houses the museum. I mean, if that was their logic then why not write to the National Trust in England and advise them to erect a statue of Dr. Jekyll /​Mr. Hyde in Hyde Park. So lame.
There are so many amazing athletes from San Diego county, but few were given attention.
The gift shop was strange. They had more raiders crap than they did Chargers, and this is bloody San Diego!!! One of the employees told me that this is because the owner of the museum is a raiders fan. This alone explains why the museum sucks ass. Also, the Packers won the Super Bowl and they didn’t have a single Packers item… yet they had obscure team coffee mugs featuring teams like the Falcons and the Bills. It made no sense.
The place seemed to only be using 25% of its space, yet they charge full museum price to get in. But if this place was $ 1 I still wouldn’t go. Boo!

I had high hopes for the SD Hall of Champions. There are plenty of great athletes that hail from here and though the SD championships are few and far between, I reasonably assumed that SD could make a good show of presenting their case for athletic glory.
1^st word of caution: Only visit on the 4^th Tuesday of every month when entry is free. Sad to say it but I find it difficult to justify paying for entry here due the quality of the exhibits and the presentation.
It would appear that some organization is necessary here. I saw one exhibit that had items in the glass case tucked away into a corner with the glass against the wall and hidden from view. The Chula Vista Park View Little League World Champion team display wasn’t in the baseball area and just stood off to the side with little fanfare. They don’t even get mentioned in the Little League exhibit.
I don’t see anything there related to SD golf or tennis either. Perhaps they’ve forgotten about Phil Mickelson being a local kid? Not even a mention of Tiger Woods’ amazing wins at Torrey Pines? The almost 40 year history of the WTA La Costa events seem to be overlooked too.
I may have missed it but I also don’t recall anything about the America’s Cup regatta either and we owned the cup here for 7 years while holding 3 America’s Cup races.
What about the San Diego Sockers? Like most Americans, I guess they really don’t care about soccer even if that’s one of the few sports where SD has had any championship success. I don’t remember even seeing a soccer ball on display.
But perhaps the most egregious omissions might be that I saw a dearth of SDSU Aztec representation and some curious missing items. I know that the Coryell years at SDSU resulted in amazing records and many NFL players but his time there is merely footnoted in the Chargers section of the museum. They may as well have highlighted Coryell’s time in St. Louis for all the enthusiasm they showed. Plus, Coryell just died but couldn’t they have at least put up a posterboard mentioning that fact? But not to have any Marshall Faulk items on display? C’mon… the single most successful Aztec/​NFL alum doesn’t merit a display of his own?
I also found it odd that you don’t see a single Junior Seau jersey on display either. I might be wrong, but I would think it would have been displayed prominently in the area that his foundation sponsors?
The surfing exhibit is really lacking too. A couple boards on stand up racks and 2 surfing break maps is pretty much it. We have world class surfers and the history of Windansea Beach is truly iconic. Hell, Mike Hynson of Endless Summer fame was Windansea Surf Club’s 1^st VP!
I also found it funny that the display of «Current Chargers» shows 2 players that have left (Jamal Williams & LaDanian Tomlinson) and one likely to leave soon (Shawne Merriman).
Things I suggest they add: More Aztec stuff, Coryell memorial, Windansea shack.

We had to be out of the house for a couple of hours so we headed to Balboa Park and I thought the Hall of Champions might be fun.
We had a 2 for 1 so the $ 8 didn’t hurt as much, but even at $ 4 it seemed a little lacking.
The main floor has a Chargers and Padres exhibit, which was pretty cool and a diagram of all the coaches that have used the West Coast offense. Including a nice Bill Walsh video.
There is also a replica Rocky Balboa statue that was about 30 feet high. I am guessing Stallone is from San Diego maybe because the museum is in Balboa Park?
The bottom floor is super lame with one fish tank and a movie theater with no movie running. The top floor just had plaques with people in the San Diego Hall of Fame.
We finished the whole museum in about 20 minutes. I think I would have preferred the car museum across the street much more.

If this museum was free, I’d give it 2 – 3 stars BUT it isn’t so it gets one star!
Save your money and just google all your favorite sports teams, or go to the library and get a book about them. You’re not going to get much more from this place.
It does have potential but it needs a LOT of work! It’s boring and too large for such little memorabilia.
Fail!