Coliseum to host Roots, Soul home games
The Oakland Coliseum might be bidding farewell to the A’s, but its days as a sporting venue are not quite over.
On Friday, city officials confirmed that the Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul soccer teams will play their 2025-2026 season home matches at the Coliseum.
“The Roots and Soul Soccer Team, a beacon of unity and passion, has captured the hearts of Oakland residents and soccer enthusiasts nationwide,” Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan said in an announcement. “Their commitment to community engagement, diversity, and excellence on the field aligns perfectly with the values that make Oakland a remarkable city.”
The Roots, the men’s club, have played in Oakland since 2018 and belong to the USL Championship league, just below the toptier Major League Soccer. The women’s club, the Soul, launched in 2022 to play in the pre-professional USL W League.
Oakland Pro Soccer LLC, which owns both teams, still wants to build a pop-up venue adjacent to the stadium to host up to 10,000 fans under a proposed 10-year lease.
This venue would utilize approximately 8.8 acres of a triangularshaped property at 8000 South Coliseum Way, known as the Malibu Property, a vacant asphalt lot used for overflow parking during Coliseum events.
The Roots currently play home games at Cal State East Bay in Hayward. The Soul host games at Merritt College.
The Friday announcement arrives as the city faces the potential loss of yet another sports franchise within a decade. The Oakland A’s confirmed plans to relocate to Las Vegas last year, following departures by the Raiders and Warriors.
Although the A’s lease to play at the Coliseum expires in 2024, their home for the following three seasons remains uncertain as the team plans for a move to Las Vegas, tentatively scheduled for 2028.
Though the team has explored alternate venues in near Las Vegas, Sacramento and Salt Lake City, and even had discussions about sharing Oracle Park with the Giants, the A’s preference leans toward staying at the Coliseum for those three seasons in order to maintain their $67 million annual TV contract, contingent upon their Bay Area presence.
The team met with city officials Thursday to discuss a lease extension, but no decision was reached.
Negotiations are ongoing for the sale of the city’s share of the Coliseum to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, a local development organization. AASEG has plans for a $5 billion megaproject featuring housing, restaurants and a convention center on the 155-acre Coliseum site.
The Chronicle reported Thursday that the A’s plan to meet with AASEG representatives about purchasing the team’s 50% share in the complex.
AASEG, a Blackowned development group, has expressed interest in bringing a WNBA team to the city that would play at the Oakland Arena, although updates on these efforts are pending. In May, the Roots and Soul teams established a partnership with AASEG to collaborate on finding a home at the Coliseum.
Should an agreement be reached between the city and the soccer teams, the Roots and Soul plan to construct the temporary outdoor stadium until they secure a permanent home. The Malibu property, jointly acquired by the city and county in 1994, hosted a miniature car-racing track known as the Malibu Grand Prix from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The proposed temporary stadium would utilize modular and temporary structures, including movable bleachers, portapotties and shipping containers, on the site outside the stadium.
In the meantime, Oakland city officials are celebrating the temporary commitment.
“The Roots and Soul radiate Oakland pride in the community and every time they step on the pitch,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a social-media post. “They are a model franchise and the Town’s global ambassadors to the soccer world.”
Last summer, the soccer teams raised more than $3.1 million from a community fundraising campaign that allowed fans to buy slivers of ownership in the franchises. Among the team’s investors is the East Bay rapper G-Eazy.
Because the Soul now will have a stadium that seats more than 5,000 people, that will qualify them to be a first-division women’s team atop the U.S. soccer pyramid. The Soul are slated to join the USL’s Super League in 2025, the inaugural season for the league that will compete at the same level as the National Women’s Soccer League.
The Soul still will compete this season at a semipro level before fully converting into a professional club next year, when the Bay Area will be home to two top-tier women’s soccer teams. Bay FC, based in San Jose, makes its NWSL debut Sunday.
The Roots and Soul also recently struck a deal to continue using a former Raiders training facility in Alameda that was sold by Oakland and Alameda County for $24 million to a private real-estate firm.