Oakland Roots Home Games Will Keep Pro Sports in the Coliseum Next Year

Updated 2:45 p.m. Monday

The Oakland Roots will play their 2025 home games at the Coliseum, the soccer team announced Monday, ensuring that professional sports will go on another year at the historic stadium in the wake of the A’s departure for West Sacramento.

In the meantime, the club continues negotiations with Oakland and Alameda County for a temporary, 10,000-seat stadium at the adjacent Malibu parking lot with the goal of opening for the 2026 season, officials said in a press release. The team is seeking approval to build the modular stadium, which would be its home for up to 10 years.

“This club was founded with a purpose: to harness the magic of Oakland and the power of sport as a force for social good,” Oakland Roots president Lindsay Barenz said during a press conference Monday. “I can’t think of a better expression of that purpose than ensuring that we keep sports, jobs, investment and joy right here in East Oakland.”

The Roots play in the USL Championship, the second-tier division of men’s professional soccer in the U.S. Its plans for a stadium at the Malibu lot would include the Oakland Soul, a women’s pro team in the USL Super League.

Barenz noted that the women’s team is on track to join the Roots in Oakland as soon as a long-term stadium arrangement is secured. It will be the first time that women’s professional soccer is represented in the city.

“Roots and Soul radiate Oakland pride in the community and every time they step on the pitch. They are a model franchise and the Town’s global ambassadors to the soccer world,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a press release. “I’m excited they have chosen to invest in Oakland and make our city their home.”

The Coliseum site is being sold to a local Black-owned developers group with plans for housing, green space, entertainment and retail. Last week, the A’s announced an agreement to sell their 50% stake in the site to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, or AASEG, following up on a similar deal for the other half owned by the city of Oakland.

AASEG’s acquisition of the Coliseum means that, for the first time in recent history, the property will only have one owner. According to Thao, that will allow the group to better address the needs of the team and the community.

“The timing wasn’t by accident,” Ray Bobbitt, a founder and managing member of AASEG, said about the group’s purchase of the venue. “We understand the vision and the possibilities of the site so we’re really excited about it.”

As for bringing jobs back into the community, there is hope that having the Roots play at the Coliseum will mean better opportunities for nearby Oakland residents. While Bobbitt noted that the exact numbers of workers and vendors are still in the process of being determined by AASEG and the Roots, he speculated that they will be similar to when the A’s occupied the venue. The A’s filed official layoff notices for 415 team employees at the Coliseum in July.

Next year’s games at the Coliseum will bring the Roots back to Oakland for the first time since 2022, when they moved from Laney College to Pioneer Stadium at Cal State East Bay in Hayward. As part of the USL Championship, the Roots will have at least 17 home games at the Coliseum during the 2025 season.

“When I got the opportunity to come home and play my final seasons in the Coli it was special,” said former NFL player and Oakland native Marshawn Lynch, who is part of the Roots’ ownership group. “I won OAL titles there with Oakland Tech. What that building means to Oakland and the culture is everything. Now we got Roots moving in and we gonna hold it down.”