PayPal Park

Tickets

PayPal Park is the long-awaited home of the San Jose Earthquakes. The stadium opened in 2015, finally ending the club’s long struggle for a permanent home. The Earthquakes were one of Major League Soccer’s founding members, but the original team moved to Houston after the 2005 season because they could not reach a deal to build a soccer-specific stadium in San Jose. From 1996 to 2005, the team played at Spartan Stadium on San Jose State University’s campus. The Earthquakes were resurrected in 2008 and played most of their home games until 2015 at Buck Shaw Stadium on the campus of Santa Clara University.

The stadium has a capacity of 18,000 for soccer. The seats are laid out in a horseshoe configuration, with the open end facing San Jose Mineta International Airport. At the horseshoe’s opening is Earthquakes’s famous massive, double-sided LED scoreboard. The seating areas are designed to be as steep as possible—in fact, PayPal Park has the steepest-raked seating in MLS—to create an intimate feel and ensure that even the fans in the top rows would have the best possible view of the pitch.

The Earthquakes and the Chicago Fire played the first regular season Earthquakes game at PayPal Park. The Earthquakes won 2-1 in front of a sellout crowd. PayPal Park hosted the 2016 MLS All-Star game, which was a friendly match between the MLS All-Stars and Arsenal FC of the English Premier League. Forward Chris Wondolowski and goalkeeper David Bingham represented the Earthquakes for the MLS team. Arsenal won the game 2-1.

The US Men’s National team has also played at PayPal Park. In 2017, the US defeated Honduras 6-0 in a FIFA World Cup qualification game. The US Women’s National Team has also played a pair of friendly games in the stadium. The stadium also branches out to other sports: in 2018, Earthquakes will be a host site for the Rugby World Cup Sevens Tournament.