For many lawmakers, free sports tickets are all in the game

With gifts to state officials capped at $630, no legislator should be accepting free tickets to Super Bowl 60, which start on secondary markets at more than $6,000 a piece.

But that hasn’t stopped them from taking a lot of free tickets to other sporting events.

A Capitol Weekly review of economic interest disclosures filed since 2022 found nearly three dozen sitting legislators who have accepted a total of at least 96 free tickets to sporting events, many involving some of California’s most iconic sports brands, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Francisco 49ers and UCLA basketball.

According to the disclosures the lawmakers all acted within the state’s gift limit law, California Government Code Section 89503. That code section, established by 1990’s Proposition 112, bars state and local officials and employees from receiving gifts from a single source in a calendar year totaling more than a gift limit updated every two years by the statute.

Our analysis is not to infer these lawmakers have violated any rules, but only to recognize the prevalence of tickets to sporting events as a frequent perk of being in office. Capitol Weekly reached out to all of the lawmakers listed here to correct anything we might have got wrong. To date, all those who have responded indicated that our analysis was correct.

Capitol Weekly also found three other instances of lawmakers receiving discount tickets to sporting events – that is, the gifted tickers were valued above the state’s limit, but the legislators partially paid back their value to get them under the statutory cap.

These gifted tickets were obtained differently than the 49er tickets that landed Assemblymember Matt Haney in hot water with the Fair Political Practices Commission 18 months ago.

The FPPC investigated the San Francisco lawmaker for spending campaign money on football tickets. Capitol Weekly examined tickets given to lawmakers as gifts. Haney’s case is still open.

The Form 700 disclosures offer a glimpse into the interests and passions of the elected Legislature’s sports fans, who seem to favor college athletics to the pros, prefer football to other sports and have a special affinity for historic, inter-California rivalries.

UCLA, Dodgers-Giants, San Diego State
Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana is representative of the 35 lawmakers identified by Capitol Weekly’s review. The SoCal Democrat received free tickets on two occasions, both for UCLA football games.

The university gifted him a single ticket valued at $232 for a September 2021 home game against LSU. Two years later, San Diego State gifted him a pair of tickets valued at $140 total for an Aztecs home game against UCLA. The Bruins won both.

The Form 700 disclosures offer a glimpse into the interests and passions of the elected Legislature’s sports fans, who seem to favor college athletics to the pros, prefer football to other sports and have a special affinity for historic, inter-California rivalries.

With a few exceptions, the legislators identified received free tickets on three occasions or less. More than half of the lawmakers hail from Southern California and all but five are Democrats.

More than half of the gifts were tickets for college sports. More than half were also for football games or in a handful of instances NFL training camp practices.

UCLA tickets were the most gifted (16 instances), followed by Cal (14), San Diego State and the Los Angeles Dodgers (both 10), the San Francisco Giants (seven) and the San Francisco 49ers (six).

On five occasions, tickets to Dodgers-Giants games were gifted, with four of those gifts apparently coming from other legislators.

Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) gave tickets valued at $160 to Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) and Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) for the August 1, 2022 contest at Oracle Park between the MLB rivals that the Dodgers won 8-2.

A year later, former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s 2022 campaign account gave Assemblymembers Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) and Mike Fong (D-Alhambra) baseball tickets valued at $124.25 each. Both Lowenthal and Fong dated the gift on their Form 700s as April 11, 2023, but only Lowenthal specified that it was for a Dodgers-Giants game.

Indeed, Capitol Weekly frequently found incomplete disclosures on the Form 700s.

Unclear disclosures
On more than two dozen occasions, Capitol Weekly found legislators who failed to specify the number of tickets they were given, with some apparently even using the word “tickets” to refer to just one ticket. (That means in some cases where we refer to tickets in this story it’s possible the lawmakers really meant a single ticket, but it’s impossible to know for sure based on the disclosures.)

In several other instances legislators also failed to document what precisely the tickets were for, although reasonable presumptions could be made in some cases.

For example, Sen. Stephen Padilla (D-San Diego) reported receiving $165 in tickets and $25 in parking from San Diego State on November 4, 2023. Tickets at that price, with an event requiring parking, on that date (a Saturday), indicate the tickets were for a San Diego State home football game against Utah State, which ended in a wild double-overtime loss for the Aztecs. (He also received tickets to a much-less interesting San Diego Padres game in June 2022 that Pads easily won 13-2 over the New York Mets.)

It’s more difficult to determine what game for which Assembly Republican Leader Heath Flora of Ripon received a ticket on March 16, 2024. He reported that Sutter Health gave him one basketball ticket valued at $227.85 without offering any other details. Given that Sutter Health is based in Sacramento, an obvious guess is that the tickets were for the Sacramento Kings, who played the New York Knicks that day at Golden 1 Center.

It’s likely Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom) also was referring to Kings games when he reported receiving two sets of $590-worth of “sporting event tickets” from AT&T on March 12, 2024 and from Ernest Packaging Solutions on December 30, 2024. The Kings had home games both days, but without any other details it’s possible the tickets could have been for Golden State Warriors or Los Angeles Clippers games or even a major tennis tournament in Indian Wells.

Gifts from third parties
The combined value of the free tickets identified by Capitol Weekly is $18,521.38, But in a handful of instances, legislators also included the cost of parking or other incidentals like food or tickets to a reception, into the disclosed value, muddying the aggregate total.

More than two-thirds of the time, entities connected to universities or professional teams gifted legislators tickets directly.

Other third parties gifting legislators included:

• the California Federation of Teachers, who gave unspecified baseball tickets valued at $148.02 to Fong, Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) all on August 16, 2023, when the Dodgers, Giants and San Diego Padres were playing at home;
• the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11 and Ironworkers Local 433, both in Los Angeles, which separately gave Assemblymember John Harabedian (D- Pasadena) unspecified football and soccer tickets in 2023 (but the soccer tickets were likely for a game that sent the Los Angeles FC to the MLS Cup final);
• UC San Diego, which, lacking any noteworthy sports teams of their own, gave Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) $408 in tickets and parking to see the San Diego Padres lose badly to the Dodgers; and
• Shangri-La Industries, the Los Angeles developer ensnared in a multimillion-dollar fraud case, which gave Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) $320 tickets to watch No. 7 USC defeat No. 16 UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) also received an undisclosed number of free tickets to this game from UCLA.

Gonzalez also received a ticket to a November 2024 Los Angeles Chargers game while Schiavo received a February 2024 ticket to a UCLA woman’s basketball game.

Harabedian also reported that the Pasadena Tournament of the Roses Association, which hosts the Rose Bowl game, gave him unspecified football tickets valued at $590, then the limit on gifts, with the gift dated December 20, 2024. The Rose Bowl, held 12 days later, pitted Ohio State against Oregon in the College Football Playoff.

Big-time performances
Legislators received tickets for several other noteworthy games and events.

Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones of San Diego received from San Diego State tickets to the Aztecs’ 2023 Final Four men’s basketball games in Houston. San Diego State beat Florida Atlantic on a thrilling buzzer beater in the semi-final.

On more than two dozen occasions, Capitol Weekly found legislators who failed to specify the number of tickets they were given, with some apparently even using the word “tickets” to refer to just one ticket.

The university gifted Jones tickets worth $400 for that game and $185 in tickets for the national championship game where the Aztecs lost to UConn. (He also received tickets from the university to a November 2024 football game San Diego State lost to Air Force.)

Cal gave Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton) $590 worth of tickets to the 2024 edition of the Big Game, where future Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoz, then at Berkeley, thew three touchdown passes to defeat the Cardinal. Stanford gave Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) $500 worth of tickets to see the 2021 Big Game.

That same year, Bauer-Kahan received tickets from the 49ers for a showdown with the Green Bay that the Packers won on a walk off field goal after a brilliant drive by Aaron Rodgers.

Stanford also gave Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) $200 in tickets to a 2024 women’s basketball game where USC’s JuJu Watkins scored 51 points and the No. 15 Trojans upset the No. 4 Cardinal. (Berman also received tickets in 2023 to 49ers training camp and divisional game against their hated rivals, the Seattle Seahawks.)

U.S. Soccer gave Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose) a ticket to a 2023 women’s national soccer team friendly with Wales in forward Trinity Rodman (the daughter of Chicago Bulls great Dennis Rodman) scored two goals.

Four legislators – Fong, Assemblymembers Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) and Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier) and Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-San Fernando Valley) – all received free tickets from the Dodgers for their World Series celebration in 2024.

Three lawmakers who took the most
Fong, Muratsuchi and Sen. Jesse Arreguin (D-Berkeley) received the most free tickets among legislators, Capitol Weekly found.

On four occasions in 2023 and 2024, Arreguin received $250 single tickets from Cal to football games. Among those was a 2024 away game in which Mendoza threw two touchdowns to lead the Golden Bears to an upset victory over Auburn.

Another of the tickets was to an October 2024 game Cal lost to North Carolina State 24-23. Calderon received an unspecified number of tickets to that game, too. They were valued at $589, one short of the gift limit at the time.

Arreguin told Capitol Weekly in an email that he received all of the tickets while serving as the mayor of Berkeley, before he joined the Legislature.

“I would frequently attend UC Berkeley football games to meet with the UC Berkeley Chancellor and UC officials to check in and discuss matters related to both the city and university,” he said. “These events were a good opportunity to connect with University leaders and discuss areas of mutual collaboration.”

In addition to the World Series celebration, Muratsuchi received free tickets to four games in 2022, 2023 and 2024. He received a total of five tickets to two UCLA football games in 2022 and 2024. The 2022 game was an overtime Bruins upset of No. 15 Washington.

The Regents of the University of California also gave him three tickets to a 2024 softball game in which the No. 6 seed Bruins advanced to the NCAA Super Regional after beating Grand Canyon. In 2023, the regents gave him two tickets to a Cal football game against Auburn.

Those were all free for Muratsuchi. But he also received from UCLA two tickets to its game against Cal in 2023. Those tickets were valued at $346, but Muratsuchi reported paying $286 to reduce the value of the gift from the regents to $60. (UCLA also separately gave Calderon and Hoover tickets to the same game.)

Fong, who also attended the World Series celebration, received free tickets to eight games from 2022 to 2024. Six of those were in 2023:

• A March men’s college basketball game in which No. 7 UCLA defeated No. 8 Arizona;
• the April Dodgers-Giants game;
• an unspecified August baseball game (likely a Padres game because the ticket came from UC San Diego);
• the unspecified baseball game paid for by the teachers association;
• an unspecified September baseball game (also possibly a Padres game since it paid for by San Diego State, which did not have a baseball game that day); and
• the UCLA-Cal football game.

Fong also received tickets to the USC-Cal football game in 2022 and two unspecified “sports tickets” from University of California, State Government Relations in 2024.

Discounted tickets and all the rest
The other lawmakers who appeared in Capitol Weekly’s review but not yet mentioned are:

• Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego), who received tickets to San Diego State football games in 2022 and 2023;
• Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights), who received UCLA football tickets in 2023;
• Assemblymember Mike Gibson (D-Los Angeles), who received tickets to UCLA football games in 2023 and 2024 and tickets to a Los Angeles Galaxy game in 2024;
• Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), who received a ticket for an unspecified “sporting event” in January 2024 from Los Angeles County Democratic Party;
• Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Moreno Valley) and Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who both received tickets to a Giants game in June 2023 for Pride Day to raise the LGBTQIA+ and Transgender Pride flags;
• Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), who disclosed receiving ticket to a Dodgers-Giants game in June 2024, but he listed a date on which those teams did not play each other and he didn’t actually identify who gave him the ticket, instead only listing the address of a law firm in Lancaster;
• Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro), who received tickets to the opening day of 49ers training camp in 2023;
• Assemblyman Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin), who received tickets to Sac State football game in December 2022 that the Hornets lost 66-63 to Incarnate Word;
• Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who also received tickets to 49ers training camp in 2023;
• Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego), who received tickets to a San Diego State football game against Fresno State in 2023 and who reported taking more unspecified tickets from SDSU in 2022 on another day when it had a football game; and
• Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who received tickets to a Cal football game in 2022 and a 49ers game in 2023.

None of these, however, likely compare to the discounted seats Becker and Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City) scored.

The California Plumbing Manufacturing Contract Association gave Becker four Los Angeles Rams tickets valued at $956. The tickets were for a Sunday night game in November 2024 against Philadelphia. The Eagles won 37-20 as running back Saquon Barkley rushed for a franchise record 255 yards.

Becker paid $366 bringing the value of the gift down to $590, then the gift limit.

Wilson received from the 49ers two tickets worth $836 for a November 2023 game against the Seahawks. She too paid $246 to drop the value of the gift down to $590.

Our process
The way Form 700 information is stored makes lists like this difficult to compile.

The FPPC has made its collection of Form 700s searchable online. That tool, however, produces search results that are spit out in dynamically generated URLs. So, while a search for disclosures filed by someone like Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) will always produce the same Form 700s for the Assembly Speaker, the URLs for those forms will be different every time, complicating efforts to automate data collection.

Also, when we started searching for Form 700s for this story in January, we found that the FPPC has not posted 2025 disclosures for all legislators. That meant if we wanted to be certain we reviewed at least three full years for all lawmakers, we’d have to go back to 2022.

Meanwhile, legislators frequently file multiple Form 700s in a given year, because they file as both a sitting lawmaker and as a candidate and/or they file amendments to them.

These are not the same Form 700s legislators might file for other offices. The FPPC segregates and labels Form 700s filed by legislators in their role as legislators or candidates for the Legislature. This review only used those specific Form 700s.

To ensure we were capturing everything as accurately as possible, Capitol Weekly ultimately downloaded nearly 600 Form 700s for this review and then used a keyword search for sports tickets.

There were, however, still many duplicates that had to be accounted for in order to get our final list of 70 instances of legislators reporting the receipt of free sports tickets since 2022 – which incidentally was the last year a Super Bowl was in California.

Some things have changed since then. For one, the gift cap has risen from $520 to the current $630, about a 20 percent hike. Super Bowl tickets? Face value tickets start at around $4,800, but as we noted at the top of this piece tickets on the secondary market (StubHub, etc.) are running from a low of about $6,000 to lower level VIP seats at well over $50,000 each.

The Big Game indeed.