Craig Elsten has been part of the San Diego sports broadcasting scene since arriving as a freshman at UC San Diego in 1990, when he immediately started calling college basketball, volleyball and baseball games for the college radio station, KSDT, advancing to program director. Craig joined The Mighty 690-AM  in 1995 and worked his way up into on-air roles as a weekend host, update anchor and show producer on the largest sports radio station west of the Mississippi. From 2000-03, Craig teamed with Ben Higgins as the co-hosts of the San Diego Padres pre-and-postgame shows on AM-600 KOGO, doubling as morning sports anchors and hosts of the offseason Padres Hot Stove show. From 2004-09, Elsten served both as the KOGO sports anchor, the news anchor for the Stacy Taylor Show on KLSD AM-1360 (2004-07), weekend host of “The Watchdog” show on KLSD, fill-in Air America host, pre/half/postgame host for Aztecs basketball and football, and after a station format transition, host of “The Craig Elsten Show” on XTRA Sports AM-1360 from 2008-09. 

After a massive contraction in the radio industry in early 2009, Elsten founded 619Sports.Net with partners Chris Ello and Danny Simmons, creating an independent hub for San Diego sports journalism. The startup website was credentialed by MLB, the NFL and NCAA for media coverage. While at 619 Sports, Elsten began a business relationship with Sockers owner Phil Salvagio which led to the website carrying audio play-by-play of the club from 2009-11. Craig joined the Sockers front office in 2010 as the club’s Director of Communications and play-by-play broadcaster, a role he held until 2015. 

In 2015, Elsten transitioned to the American Hockey League, serving as the first radio play-by-play announcer for the San Diego Gulls, a position he held for three seasons. In 2018, Craig re-joined the Sockers in a front office role as Chief Marketing Officer, while reprising his role as Director of Communications and play-by-play, a full-time job he maintains to this day. 

From 2012-18, Craig joined the staff of The Mighty 1090-AM, working as a weekend/fill-in host, reprising his role as Aztecs pre/half/postgame host, and hosting a weekend baseball show with Bob Chandler, and a Sunday NFL highlights show called “Radio RedZone”. In 2018 Elsten joined the “Scott and BR Show” as a long-term fill-in for Linda Welby, continuing that role until the station dissolved in late 2018. 

It was while working at The Mighty 1090 in 2015 that Craig and John Gennaro began to get together in the podcast production studio to do their own Padres show, called “Make the Padres Great Again”. The show grew over the years and became independent of the station in 2018. In September of 2020, John created the show’s Patreon, beginning to form the community which surrounds the podcast today. On January 7, 2021, the show was renamed “Padres Hot Tub”. In April of 2021, the PHT Discord was formed, and the community began to take root. In December of 2022, a change at John’s workplace forced him to leave the podcast. Chris Reed and Raphie Cantor joined the show, with John Precoda also joining the team as part of the “Pads Above Replacement” podcast, the first spin-off show from Padres Hot Tub. 

In addition to everything else, Craig is also the PA voice of San Diego Wave FC, the host of the Crossing Streams TV review podcast, and co-host of the Sockers Overtime live show Tuesdays at 5pm on Twitch. Craig, 50,  lives in La Mesa with his wife Mitzi, his 11-year-old son James, and pug Samson.