Football, not futbol, in Tijuana?

It could happen. San Diego State Athletic Director John David Wicker toured Estadio Caliente, the home of the Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles soccer club, on Wednesday and not just to see the Liga MX game against second-place Santos Laguna.

He wants to bring an SDSU football game here in the next few years.

“We came down here to establish a relationship with the Xolos,” Wicker said Wednesday night at Estadio Caliente. “Obviously, there’s a lot of excitement in San Diego for the Xolos. They’ve done a great job, and the opportunity to connect the Aztecs with them makes sense from a soccer standpoint as we look at building a future stadium in Mission Valley, as well as a desire to play a college football game here.


“I really think there’s an opportunity down the road to do something here.”

College football games have been held outside the United States since Harvard played in Canada in 1894. NCAA Division I teams have played in 11 other countries – including SDSU against Air Force in the 1981 Mirage Bowl in Japan – but never in Mexico.

Wicker, though, was involved with a football game in Ireland and basketball game in China as a senior associate athletic director at Georgia Tech, and he has privately made it a priority at SDSU since returning as athletic director in 2016. In his previous stint at SDSU under Jim Sterk, he organized Aztecs basketball games on the USS Midway aircraft carrier and inside Petco Park.

Wicker characterized discussions with the Xolos as being in the preliminary stages, but both sides sounded optimistic they could progress quickly. He watched the game with Xolos President Jorgealberto Hank and Deputy General Manager Roberto Cornejo.


Both grew up in Coronado and attended high school in San Diego, and Cornejo was a Chargers season-ticket holder. Both understand American college sports, and American football.

“It’s a great opportunity for fans here, now that they’re without a football team since the Chargers left,” Cornejo said. “There’s a huge American football audience here in Tijuana. What better than to host our regional college football team and promote not only the athletic part but the academic part, how they’ve developed to a top-tier academic institution.

“The next step is to continue working and hopefully find a date, then tie up the loose ends.”

Nonconference football schedules are set years in advance, but NCAA rules allow schools to add a 13th regular-season game if they play at Hawaii, which the Aztecs do in alternate seasons in the Mountain West.


Wicker said it was preliminary to discuss potential opponents or dates, saying only he’d like to do it “in the next few years.”

A football game at Estadio Caliente would continue a relationship that has been quietly growing in other areas. The Xolos have sent teams from its youth academy to play the Aztecs men’s soccer team, and the club’s front office has worked on cross-border marketing projects with the university’s graduate school of sports management.

And further engagement with the Mexican-American community seems natural with new SDSU President Adela de la Torre, whose academic background is in Chicano studies.

Wicker’s trip south comes at a time when the university hopes to win a November ballot initiative allowing it to purchase the Mission Valley land currently occupied by SDCCU Stadium and build a new, smaller, multi-use venue there.


Playing in Tijuana, he insisted, is not an exploration of an alternate site for home football games if that goes awry but something they have been discussing internally for years as a one-off event.

“Having done Dublin in football and sent a basketball team to China, I’m very interested in that,” Wicker said. “It’s an experience for our student-athletes, something they won’t get at a lot of other schools. It’s great for our fans as well. And quite frankly, it makes us just that much more recognizable.

“The San Diego-Tijuana region, there’s so much that happens between the two. Being able to bring one more connection is great for the community … I want this to be a long-term relationship. We want to build a stadium in Mission Valley that’s for Aztecs football and for soccer as well. I would love to have them play in our stadium.”

Estadio Caliente has literally grown with the club over past decade, starting as a modest horseshoe-shaped bowl in the far turn of the old Agua Caliente thoroughbred race track


The Xolos have since gained promotion to Liga MX, Mexico’s top tier of soccer, and the modern stadium seats 27,000, with ongoing construction to expand the capacity into the upper 30,000s by 2020. Rising steeply from one sideline is a superstructure with 210 luxury suites on four levels, plus two restaurants that open onto premier seating areas – one where you gaze across a fire pit while ordering from a menu prepared by one of Tijuana’s noted celebrity chefs.

The opposite sideline will have more club seating, topped by a beer garden and a massive video screen. There also are plans to add a second level behind one goal.

The artificial turf field – it’s the same brand used at the new Atlanta Falcons stadium – is plenty wide enough for American football and appears just long enough. The press level has four multiple boxes. The stadium’s television wiring and Internet capabilities were recently upgraded.

The Caliente casino, greyhound track and high-end shopping mall are next door. A Marriott hotel is across the street. The San Ysidro border is a 10-minute taxi ride away.


“It’s inspirational, to see what they’ve built knowing we want to build something like this in Mission Valley,” Wicker said. “They’ve done a really good job of understanding their market. It’s going to be a great, great stadium when they get done. I’m impressed.”

American football in Mexico has roots going back to the late 1800s and has a vibrant subculture, with youth, high school and university teams across Baja California. CETYS, a Tijuana university, has talked about joining NCAA Div. II in football and other sports.

The NFL first played in Mexico in 1978, an exhibition game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. A 1994 preseason game between Dallas and Houston at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca drew 112,376, still the largest crowd to see an NFL game.

Now a regular-season game there is an annual fixture. The Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs play Nov 19.


“I’m learning more and more that there’s a passionate fan base for football here,” Wicker said. “I’ve heard that a lot, and I heard that even more today.”


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mark.zeigler@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutzeigler