Businesses and public officials are hoping to score from the highly anticipated 2025 NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco next month.
Tickets to the event that kicks off on Feb. 16 start at around $1,500, while packages with extras like access to the Champion’s Club open bar or selfies with basketball legends cost much more.
But those who can’t afford to see the game live at the city’s Chase Center arena will still be able to see the greats of the sport in a seven-story advertisement for the marquee event that will wrap around nearly the entire Nike building at the corner of Post and Stockton streets in Union Square.
The ad will consist of 36-foot banners bearing the likenesses of NBA-sponsored players Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Victor Wembanyama, Ja Morant and LeBron James as well as the WNBA's Sabrina Ionescu, according to a planning application filed with the city. The campaign’s tagline, “We don’t play,” to debut around All-Star weekend, will be emblazoned on a rooftop billboard and elsewhere on the building, along with multiple Nike swooshes.
The athletes’ likenesses will stretch from the third to the seventh floor of the nearly 85,000-square-foot building at 278 Post St., complemented by window displays on the ground floor. According to city documents, the $50,000 ad campaign is meant to “help activate Union Square during the event festivities” for All-Star weekend.
City officials and local business owners are heavily invested in the event as a much-needed booster for downtown San Francisco, which still bears visible scars from the COVID-19 pandemic: Blocks of shuttered storefronts and office buildings once dominated by technology firms remain half-empty.
Better days ahead?
Back in 1997, when Nike opened its Union Square store — its second largest after New York —crowds lined up outside the 1910-era building at 278 Post St., which then also housed boutiques for Cole Haan and Georgio Armani. Today, Nike is alone in the building, occupying some 40,000 square feet across six floors, according to city documents, and surrounded on all sides by empty real estate.
The retail vacancy rate across Union Square, the city’s premier shopping district, soared from 9% in 2019 to roughly 22% today, according to CoStar data, making it one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in San Francisco. That's more than five times the nationwide vacancy rate of just over 4%.
There is a long list of brand names that have departed the square in recent years. Macy's said last year that it plans to shutter its Union Square store, though it didn't say when.
Julie Taylor, a veteran broker for Colliers who handles commercial real estate in the neighborhood, is optimistic that better days are just around the corner. They could begin with the NBA All-Star weekend, a three-day event featuring live music at multiple venues, merchandise sales and tours of the sites for out-of-town guests.
Taylor said the event has motivated several big brand names to lease space in Union Square.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” said Taylor. “But it’s very exciting."
Activating the city
Nintendo stoked those hopes by announcing last year that it had picked the Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Square as the location for its second U.S. store, to open sometime in 2025.
Across the street, Shoe Palace, which sells athletic shoes and other footwear, signed a lease in early January to occupy 16,000 square feet at 301 Geary St., according to the San Francisco Business Times. The brand is reportedly hoping to open in time for All-Star weekend in a space that has been empty since the fast-fashion retail chain Express closed its doors in 2023.
City officials and the Union Square Alliance, a group that works to promote the neighborhood, have lined up a series of events and openings separate from the NBA weekend to help revive one of the city’s most iconic neighborhoods. On Feb. 6, it will celebrate the unveiling of a 45-foot-tall mesh sculpture of a nude woman created by a local artist that debuted at the Burning Man music festival in 2015.
The NBA All-Star Game is the first of three major sporting events taking place in the Bay Area this year that are expected to generate billions of dollars into the region’s economy. The NFL's Super Bowl LX and group stage matches as part of the FIFA World Cup are both set to take place in Santa Clara in 2026.