Sports & Recreation (Specialty) in Phoenix
Fifteen Major League Baseball teams hold spring training across metro Phoenix as the Cactus League, and the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale draws tournament-week crowds of roughly half a million fans — the best-attended event in golf. State Farm Stadium's roof was the first retractable design ever engineered on an incline and has hosted three Super Bowls, while the Diamondbacks became the fastest expansion team in MLB history to win a World Series.
Cactus League
Every spring, 15 Major League Baseball teams hold spring training across the Phoenix metro area as the Cactus League — tied with Florida's Grapefruit League for the most MLB clubs of any spring circuit, generating more than $300 million a year in regional economic impact. Unlike Florida's spread-out setup, most Cactus League clubs share stadiums rather than each building their own, with only five of the 15 teams (the Cubs, Angels, Brewers, Giants, and Athletics) operating dedicated facilities.
State Farm Stadium
Home of the Arizona Cardinals, State Farm Stadium in Glendale has a translucent fabric roof that opens in about 12 minutes and was the first retractable stadium roof ever built on an incline, paired with a natural-grass field that rolls in and out of the building on a massive outdoor tray. The stadium has hosted three Super Bowls — XLII in 2008, XLIX in 2015, and LVII in 2023.
Chase Field
When it opened in 1998, Chase Field became the first stadium in the United States built with a retractable roof over a natural-grass playing surface; the roof still closes or opens in about four and a half minutes, even though the field itself switched to artificial turf in 2019. It also carries one of baseball's more unusual amenities — a swimming pool in right-center field that seats up to 35 guests, first christened by a Mark Grace home run.
WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale
The WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale draws roughly half a million fans across tournament week — a 2016 edition set the record at 618,365 for the week and 201,003 on its single busiest Saturday, figures the tournament and PGA Tour describe as the best-attended in golf. Its par-3 16th hole, ringed by a temporary 20,000-seat grandstand nicknamed "The Coliseum," is famous for stadium-style roars on every shot, good or bad.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick
Opened in 2011 on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick was the first Major League Baseball spring-training park built on Native American land, and it's the rare Cactus League site that hosts two MLB clubs — the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies train there in matching, side-by-side 85,000-square-foot clubhouses. A March 2019 game drew a facility-record 14,035 fans, well above its listed 11,000 capacity.
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series in only their fourth season of existence, the fastest any MLB expansion franchise has gone from inaugural pitch to championship, beating the three-time defending champion Yankees in a Game 7 walk-off. It remains the only men's major professional sports championship won by an Arizona-based team.
Phoenix Rising FC
Phoenix Rising FC won 20 consecutive matches between May and September 2019, a North American professional soccer record, on the way to the USL Championship's Players' Shield for most regular-season points that year. The club won its first USL Championship title in 2023 and plays at the 10,000-seat Phoenix Rising Soccer Stadium, which opened that same year.