During an Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority meeting on Friday, November 17, Oakland Roots and Soul president Lindsay Barenz announced the organization is “very interested” in being an anchor tenant for the Coliseum in 2025. This comes with the Oakland A’s lease concluding after the 2024 season and talk of the ballclub playing elsewhere before its permanent move to Las Vegas.
“In the October meeting, executive director Gardner reported that the staff would be pursuing events for the 2025 season at the Coliseum,” said Barenz at the meeting. “Oakland Roots and Soul are very interested in serving as an anchor tenant of the Coliseum in 2025 while we continue to pursue construction of a modular stadium at the Malibu site. We are very excited for this opportunity, it would be an honor to carry on the tradition of having professional sports teams in Oakland call the Coliseum its home. The Coliseum is proximity to public transportation. It’s connection to the community and its soccer-ready layout make it a great location for our games.
“Playing at the Coliseum would more than doulbe our fan capacity, allowing more of our community to attend our games. We are selling out Soul games, we have hit capacity multiple times for our Roots games, and the recent success of our Community Investment Round shows there is more demand for soccer in Oakland and the East Bay.”
However, the announcement comes with a condition given Roots targeted the Malibu Lot to open its interim 10-year stadium in time for the 2025 season. Barenz added they have run into “some hurdles” with Malibu which could delay its stadium plans.
“We are continuing to make progress on our proposed interim stadium at the Malibu site. We have submitted our application and we’re conducting diligence, building out the details stadium plans, and engaging community stakeholders in the course of that work. However, we have encountered some hurdles that may delay our ability to open Malibu in time for the 2025 season,” said Barenz.
One team source suggested there’s no concerns with the Malibu site and this is the normal process of building a stadium. At the November 17 meeting, Barenz mentioned they’ve already had talks with the Joint Powers Authority regarding the logistics involved at the Coliseum and are “encouraged” by the information they’ve received thus far.
“We wanted to take this opportunity to make you aware of our progress on the Malibu site and express our interest in being the anchor tenant at the Coliseum for 2025,” said Barenz. “We have been engaging with the JPA team over the past few weeks and really appreciate their help educating us on the logistics of playing at the Coliseum. We have more due diligence to undertake but are encouraged by the discussion to date.”
How it would work
As Casey Pratt of ABC points out, the one caveat to Roots playing at the Coliseum is the Oakland Athletics’ future. A’s president Dave Kaval said the Coliseum remains one of its options in 2025 with the Giants’ Oracle Park and Las Vegas Ballpark of its Triple-A affiliate its other possibilities.
The Athletics are scheduled to pay $1.25 million in its final year at the Coliseum in 2024, which would equate to $15,432 per game over 81 games. Roots would likely be asked to pay more than that per-game figure, but Barenz’s announcement intimates they feel the prospective rent is achievable. The real issue with making the Coliseum a possibility is field-conversion cost opposed to per-game rent, so if the city continues leasing to the A’s, constant field changeovers would prove too costly for Roots to keep up with.
With the highest capacity for the Coliseum being 63,132 for soccer matches, just 12 percent of that number would equate to a club-record in single-game ticket sales. Regardless, one team source contends there’s little problem with what crowds would look like on TV given it wouldn’t be an extended stay at the Coliseum. USL Championship eastern conference team Birmingham Legion, for instance, plays in Protective Stadium of UAB with a capacity of 47,100.
Presumably, Roots would focus attendance around the lower bowl, while the location gives more opportunities to continue setting attendance records with easier access to public transit. We’ll provide more information on Roots’ stadium saga as details continue being ironed out.