The Seattle metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States is home to several professional and amateur sports teams. They include seven teams in major leagues, several in minor leagues, and collegiate programs for two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I universities and one NCAA Division II university.
The city's first professional sports team was the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA)'s Seattle Metropolitans, who became the first American ice hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. Several expansion teams were created for Seattle by various leagues in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association in 1967; the short-lived Seattle Pilots in Major League Baseball, who played one season in 1969; the original Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League in 1974; the National Football League's Seattle Seahawks in 1976; and the Seattle Mariners in Major League Baseball in 1977. Several of these teams shared the Kingdome, a multipurpose venue opened in 1976, before purpose-built stadiums were built in the 1990s and 2000s.
Several professional teams in women's leagues were also established in the 21st century, including the Seattle Storm of the WNBA and Seattle Reign FC in the National Women's Soccer League. Other franchises established in the 2010s include the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League and the Seattle Seawolves of Major League Rugby. In 2023, the city welcomed one of the first six franchises in North America's newly-formed professional cricket (MLC) league with the arrival of the Seattle Orcas. And, in 2025, Seattle entered the newly-formed 8-team Professional Women's Hockey League with the Seattle Torrent.
Major professional teams
At 4.1 million residents in 2025, Seattle has the 15th-largest metropolitan area (between metro Detroit at 4.4 million and the Twin Cities at 3.7 million) in the United States. Since the late 20th century, rapid population growth in the counties surrounding the City of Seattle (King County; Pierce County and Snohomish County) and the satellite cities in these counties (Bellevue; Tacoma and Everett) has led to the establishment of new professional sports teams in the Puget Sound region. Seattle's teams are known for their high attendances across several leagues. It is also the only U.S. city to have teams in three professional women's leagues—the Women's National Basketball Association, National Women's Soccer League, and Professional Women's Hockey League.
Professional soccer in Seattle has always involved the Seattle Sounders, whose original team played in the defunct NASL in the 1970s through to its demise in 1983. The name lived on in a second incarnation of the team, which played in the second level of US soccer from 1994 through 2008. In November 2007, Major League Soccer announced that Seattle would host the league's fifteenth franchise to start play in 2009. The team held a vote among its fan base for the team's name between March 27 and 31, 2008 and Seattle Sounders FC was chosen. The current version of the Sounders plays at Lumen Field.
In 1976, the NFL's Seattle Seahawks began play. The Seahawks played at the Kingdome until its implosion in 2000. The Seahawks now play in Lumen Field.
In 1977, following years of legal wrangling over the move of the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee (to become the Milwaukee Brewers), the MLB awarded Seattle a new baseball franchise, the Seattle Mariners. From 1977 the Mariners played in the Kingdome until mid-season 1999 when the team moved across the street to what is now known as T-Mobile Park, where they continue to play today.
The WNBA's Seattle Storm arrived in Seattle in 2000, and played at KeyArena through the 2018 season. After KeyArena was closed for its reconfiguration as today's Climate Pledge Arena, the Storm split their 2019 home games between Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett and Alaska Airlines Arena on the University of Washington campus. The WNBA's 2020 season, held amidst COVID-19, was completely moved to Bradenton, Florida. When the league returned to home markets in 2021, the Storm played all home games at Angel of the Winds Arena, and returned to Climate Pledge Arena in 2022.
In 2013, Seattle's professional women's soccer team Seattle Reign FC, including several members of the World Cup winning US women's national team, opened their first season as Seattle Reign FC in the National Women's Soccer League at Starfire Sports Complex and played at Memorial Stadium in Seattle Center through 2018. Starting in the 2019 NWSL season, the rebranded Reign FC began play on their new home pitch at Tacoma's Cheney Stadium. During the 2019–20 offseason, the parent company of prominent French club Olympique Lyonnais bought a majority stake in Reign FC, and soon rebranded the side yet again as OL Reign. The team returned to Seattle in 2022 and now shares Lumen Field with the Seahawks and Sounders.
In September 2012, the Seattle City Council agreed to move forward towards building a $490 million new arena in the SoDo, Seattle, neighborhood. This commitment was intended to help bring the NBA back to Seattle along with the NHL. Instead, five years later, on December 3, 2017, the Council approved the expansion of Key Arena in Seattle Center, under the direction of the Oak View Group. Three days later, on December 6, 2017, the NHL awarded a new franchise opportunity to Seattle.
In 1976, Seattle was awarded a conditional NHL franchise; however, this opportunity did not come to fruition. The new professional hockey team was originally expected to join the league in the 2020-21 season, given an on-time completion of the Arena expansion project. On December 4, 2018, the NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved Seattle's bid to become the 32nd NHL team, being the Seattle Kraken. The Kraken's inaugural season was played in the revamped Key Arena - now Climate Pledge Arena - starting in October 2021. The new Seattle franchise expanded and rebalanced the league to four 8-team divisions, equal to the NFL in size. In just their second regular season, the Seattle Kraken made their first trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the top Wild Card position in the Pacific Division (NHL). Unexpectedly, the Kraken defeated the previous-season's Stanley Cup winning Colorado Avalanche (NHL) in Game 7 of their first-round series, knocking out the defending champs and securing the 32nd franchise's first playoff series victory.
In 2017, the Seattle Seawolves became one of the founding teams of the newly-formed Major League Rugby. The Seawolves won back-to-back titles in the first two seasons of the league's existence, defeating the Glendale Raptors 23–19 in 2018 and San Diego Legion 26–23 in 2019.
In 2025, following the success of the PWHL Takeover Tour game in Seattle, the city was awarded a Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) expansion franchise known as the Seattle Torrent.
Current major professional teams + Name Sport League Home venue Founded First season Majortitles attendance Seattle Kraken Ice hockey NHL Climate Pledge Arena 2018 2021–22 0 17,151 Seattle Mariners Baseball MLB T-Mobile Park 1976 1977 0 31,333 Seattle Orcas Twenty20 cricket MLC None 2023 2023 0 2,300 Seattle Reign FC Soccer NWSL Lumen Field 2012 2013 4 7,864 Seattle Seahawks American football NFL Lumen Field 1974 1976 2 68,740 Seattle Seawolves Rugby union MLR Starfire Sports Complex 2017 2018 2 Seattle Sounders FC Soccer MLS Lumen Field 2007 2009 9 30,993 Seattle Storm Basketball WNBA Climate Pledge Arena 1999 2000 4 11,835 Seattle Torrent Ice hockey PWHL Climate Pledge Arena 2025 2025–26 0 12,875
Championships As of 2026, the city of Seattle enjoys a total of 23 national & international professional team championships, including one Stanley Cup, one NBA Championship, two Super Bowls (XLVIII and LX), four WNBA championships, four U.S. Open Cups, one MLS Supporters' Shield, two MLS Cups, one CONCACAF Champions League Cup, one Leagues Cup, three NWSL Shields, one The Women's Cup trophy and two MLR Championship Shields. Twenty-one of these twenty-three titles were won in the 21st century, over the course of 22 years (2004–2026).
Seattle's first professional sports championship was brought to the city by the Seattle Metropolitans in 1917, when they became the first American team to win the coveted Stanley Cup by beating the Montreal Canadiens three games to one. They returned to the Stanley Cup Final twice more. Their first return, again versus Montreal, was in 1919; that series was cancelled due to an outbreak of influenza with the two teams tied at 2–2–1. The Metropolitans last went to the Stanley Cup Final in 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators.
Led by Lenny Wilkens, the Seattle SuperSonics made it to the NBA Finals in two consecutive years in the late 1970s. In 1978 they lost the championship series to the Washington Bullets in seven games, but rebounded in 1979 to defeat the Bullets by four games to one to win the NBA Championship. The next time the Sonics made it to NBA Finals was in 1996 when they met the Chicago Bulls, to whom they lost the series in six games.
Another national basketball championship trophy arrived in 2004, when the Seattle Storm defeated the Connecticut Sun two games to one to win the WNBA championship. The Seattle Storm won their second WNBA title in 2010, beating the Atlanta Dream in 3 games. Eight years later, the Storm swept the Washington Mystics in 2018 to take their third national championship. The team earned a fourth WNBA title in 2020 in a sweep against the Las Vegas Aces with all games played at a quarantined facility in Florida.
The Seattle Mariners have won the American League West Pennant four times – in 1995, 1997, 2001 and, most recently, in 2025. The Mariners, however, have yet to win an American League Championship Series or participate in a World Series Championship. After the then-longest playoff drought in professional American sports (21 years), the Mariners clinched their next trip to the post-season on September 30, 2022 by defeating the Oakland Athletics with a walk-off home run in the ninth inning in front of a sold-out crowd at T-Mobile Park.