For as much as San Francisco has been a grift bonanza for conservative pundits claiming it’s a drug-addled dumpster fire whose streets aren’t safe for tourists, the city was the ultimate host for the NBA All-Star Weekend and proved all the naysayers wrong in the process.
From Thursday to Sunday, the annual basketball showcase brought an enormous flow of traffic into the city from players, tourists, media, sponsors—a lot of sponsors!—and then some. Beyond just the glitz and glamour of the All-Star’s Game marquee events at the Chase Center (read my thoughts on those here), San Francisco’s people and infrastructure rose to the occasion and showed on an international scale what a crucial hub for culture, innovation, sports history, independent hustle, and entertainment it still is.
Considering that NCAA March Madness’ West Regional comes to the Chase Center later next month, followed by tennis’ Laver Cup in September, and the Super Bowl 2026 bandwagon of events (think Super Bowl 50, but not “stupid and boring“—and seemingly without the overload of cruel sweeps of unhoused people), this was an opportunity for the city’s new entertainment heartbeat to prove its worth.
All examples of this start with Chase Center’s rapidly growing Thrive City. With a bustling public plaza outside of the arena’s doors and diverse locally-owned restaurants and bars that represent the city’s makeup, this was the center of the NBA world for the weekend. Places like Che Fico Pizzeria and workhorse Señor Sisig were swamped, busy Harmonic Brewing was a lively watering hole and even the complex’s soon-to-be newest tenant, Fikscue BBQ, popped up for the weekend in front of their as yet to be opened storefront (no joke, easily the meltiest, crispiest slice of brisket I’ve had in the Bay.)
TNT set up a broadcasting studio in the vast public plaza among buildings emblazoned with Steph Curry’s likeness. A kids’ museum popped up on the back side facing the water, Tyler Florence’s Miller & Lux steakhouse was steadily hosting sponsor parties, and Curry took over the new Splash Sports Bar with his own “Club Thirty” series of activations for his own brands. Thrive City was a well-oiled machine.
Surrounding street closures led to some car congestion that echoed as far as Lower Haight, but this just highlighted San Francisco’s strength as a walkable city with passable public transportation options. (How about that free Muni though?) In this case, e-bikes were a godsend, especially if you were hopping back and forth to the Moscone Center for NBA Crossover, a 250,000 square foot basketball theme park of sorts.
At Crossover, 50 sponsor destinations offered largely family-friendly experiences. Over a dozen of them were places where you could literally shoot a basket and there were more than 100 player appearances throughout the weekend. At 2K’s Royal Court, I watched Washington Wizards rookie Bub Carrington amusingly beat a kid at a StreetHoops video game. At AT&T’s activation, people snapped photos while dunking a basketball set to a canvas of the city’s fog above the skyline. Coinbase had a game where folks could shoot hoops on a robot hoop that moved unpredictably to win swag.
If this was too much for you, there was an official Pop-A-Shot brand area where you could play the game in its purest form. There were two full-sized basketball courts on either end (one sponsored by the G-League, the other by Coinbase), while the WNBA House had a scavenger hunt activity where of course the city’s newest team, the Golden State Valkyries was front and center.
I watched a basketball game through Meta’s new VR headset; it was fine. I created a custom Funko Pop doll of myself and dribbled an airless Wilson basketball for the first time. This was fun, and if ever there was a city where all of this capitalism-porn didn’t feel totally out of place, San Francisco — still the country’s epicenter of technology and innovation — was it. It’s this kind of hoopla (no pun intended) that All-Star Weekend is all about.
Sure, sometimes it got to be too much. At Starry soda’s trailer zone across Howard street from Moscone, I saw three point contest champion Tyler Herro answer lay-up questions (another unintended pun, I’m so sorry) like, “If Starry had a soundtrack, what songs would be on it?” A total eye roll moment.
But I walked away past the sticky staffers handing out free soda, through the gorgeous serenity of the Yerba Buena Center, and into the City View Metreon. Here, with a backdrop of the Downtown skyline, Chase Freedom held a basketball mini-fest of sorts on the fourth floor with hoops to play on (what else?) and hosted appearances from Steph Curry, the WNBA’s A’Ja Wilson, singer Saweetie, rapper LaRussell, etc… I had my choice between a slice of Outta Sight Pizza or bahn mi sliders and wings from Bodega. Two places whose merits locals can surely stand behind.
People of all kinds were soaking it in everywhere and unfazed by any lines to get in. There was consistent foot traffic all weekend to get into the Google Pixel house that popped up in the old Thirsty Bear Brewing space (yes, this locale took some getting used to for the local beer contingent) for Pixel demos, a SLAM Magazine collab and a 2 Chainz show. Elsewhere, Hennessey held a 2 on 2 tournament with WNBA Stars and you probably get the idea by now.
The NBA put sponsorship dollars to work in a major way and in this modern era of TV-ready sports, it’s the name of the game. Grasping this is what’s fueling San Francisco’s rise as a major media market hosting more and more high profile events. Even in the face of the talking heads and spin doctors who try to fool the online stooges into thinking that SF is some terrifying cesspool. Furthermore, these events brought in incredibly diverse crowds and not just a white-heavy sector of the tech community. Black and Brown and Asian communities were often the biggest participants in the weekend’s festivities. And when the biggest basketball league in the world is held up by the excellence of athletes of color, it’s easy to see why.
On the musical side of things, we were less than enthused by the NBA’s slate of concerts at Pier 48. But to the league’s credit, the in-game performances at Chase Center were a direct reflection of what’s poppin’ in the Bay and what’s been poppin’ here for decades. During player introductions at Sunday’s All-Star Game, Raphael Saadiq led his band on renditions of classic Bay Area cuts from Tower of Power to Souls of Mischief to Tony! Toni! Toné! And beyond.Too $hort was everywhere in and outside of the arena and I must’ve heard “Blow The Whistle” two dozen times this weekend (not mad). E-40 was a main event presenter, Saweetie performed with DJ Cassidy at halftime. LaRussell performed at Friday night’s Rising Stars game and the authentic sound of the Bay was broadcast in 60 languages to 216 countries around the world. I love that.
NBA All-Star Weekend had that South by Southwest feel to it. And much like at the Austin festival for music, film and tech, the cultural and economic spillover effect trickled into more neighborhoods beyond Mission Bay, SOMA and Downtown. Whether via afterparties that went crazy across the spectrum, or just the traffic to local businesses, the city capitalized on the energy that flowed through it.
Hip-hop industry heavyweight Empire put on a red carpet bash at the Exploratorium. While local independent hip-hop crew Family Not A Group put on a rager in the Mission at El Rio. A coffee shop deep in the Haight told me that they were slammed with All-Star game tourists non-stop all weekend. A Russian Hill restaurant told me they catered dinners for players. Heck. Yes. Across the board.
If the city is going to recover from the sagging economic state that the pandemic left us in, it’s events like NBA All-Star Weekend that are going to fuel it. This was a huge win for San Francisco, because it was a huge win for the NBA and its sponsors. And for the first time in a while, the whole world got to see San Francisco for the creative, diverse, exciting, scenic and accessible destination that it’s always been.
