Oakland Reaches Deal on $105 Million Coliseum Sale to Stave Off Budget Cuts

Updated 1:20 p.m. Tuesday

Oakland has agreed on the terms for the sale of its share of the Coliseum complex to a private developer, city officials announced Monday.

Mayor Sheng Thao said officials signed the term sheet outlining the $105 million sale of the city’s half of the Coliseum, where the Oakland Athletics are playing their last season, to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group. The deal allows Oakland to avoid city employee layoffs as it deals with a budget shortfall.

“What we’ve done today is we’ve changed Oakland for the better because what we’re doing is we’re investing not in just today, but we are investing in Oakland for tomorrow,” Thao said during a press conference on Tuesday morning.

In May, Thao announced that revenue from the sale to AASEG would be used to close part of the city’s massive budget deficit — $117 million this fiscal year and $175 million next year. The budget passed by the City Council early this month included $63 million in expected one-time revenue from the Coliseum sale to help close the shortfall without laying off workers or making massive cuts, including to public safety departments.

Thao’s plan to use the funds, which were pending at the time, to subsidize this year’s budget proved controversial during negotiations. Councilmember Janani Ramachandran said that a deal was “nowhere near” being signed at the time, and therefore, a budget utilizing its funds should be a “nonstarter.”

On July 2, the council voted 5–3 to pass Thao’s budget, with a contingency plan should the first funds from the Coliseum sale not be available by the September deadline, which city budget administrator Bradley Johnson said would require pulling the funding “emergency brake.”

Payments for the sale of Oakland’s 50% stake in the Coliseum site to AASEG will be made in installments over the next several years.

Thao said the first payment of $5 million will be available within a week of the deal signing, which is set to happen no later than Aug. 23. A second $10 million payment will be available Sept. 1, and the remaining $90 million will be paid in three more installments before June 2026.

The Oakland Police Officers Association said it was “doubtful the sale of the Oakland Coliseum will solve the mayor’s and city council’s epic mismanagement,” according to a statement from Sgt. Tim Dolan.

“We are deeply concerned for the safety of residents, businesses, and our police officers,” Dolan said.

But Thao said the deal was not a short-term solution.

“It’s a deal that will lead to a multi-billion-dollar investment in East Oakland,” she wrote in a post on X.

Thao said in May that the city would be working with AASEG to create housing, along with an entertainment, retail and sports destination at the site of the Coliseum. A spokesperson for the mayor also said that future property taxes from the Coliseum would be used to help the city address its larger structural deficit and create jobs for residents.

The owner of the Black-owned firm, which also signed the deal on Monday, said the sale presents a new opportunity to revitalize East Oakland.

“We see it as an incredible opportunity, but more we see it as a profound responsibility,” Ray Bobbitt, a founder and managing member of AASEG, said during Tuesday’s press conference. “The fact that we are local, we’re here, we were all born and raised here, I’m a direct product of the Oakland public school system — that’s one of the reasons why we believe we were selected. We engage the community at a high level.”

AASEG is also in talks to purchase the portion of the Coliseum owned by the A’s, who are still paying off the team’s 2019 purchase of Alameda County’s share of the site, and the two groups remain in “constant communication” negotiating, Bobbitt said.

The deal comes as the A’s filed official layoff notices for 415 employees. The team plans to finish the season at the Coliseum before moving to Sacramento for at least the next three seasons. Their long-term plan remains to build a stadium in Las Vegas.