Written By Mauricio Segura // Photo: Golden Bay Times Graphics Dept.
OCT 6, 2025
When the A’s left for Sacramento and the Raiders settled in Las Vegas, the Oakland Coliseum, once a roaring temple of Bay Area sports, seemed destined to fade into irrelevance. Its vast concrete bowl felt like a relic of a proud but abandoned past, a monument to lost teams and lost hope. Then the Oakland Roots, a scrappy, community-driven soccer club that started on college fields, stepped into the void. Their arrival hasn’t just given the Coliseum a new tenant; it has given the stadium a fresh sense of purpose, while keeping Oakland on the map as a city that refuses to let its sporting soul be erased.
The Roots began life in 2018, playing in the lower-division NISA league at Laney College’s modest 5,000-seat venue. When turf changes at Laney forced them to move, they shifted to Pioneer Stadium at CSU East Bay. Those early homes reflected the club’s grassroots identity, but they also underscored its limitations. The seismic shift came when the A’s announced their departure and left the Coliseum’s future uncertain. Instead of watching the iconic stadium crumble into disuse, the Roots seized the moment. In August 2024 they struck a lease to play the 2025 USL Championship season at the Coliseum, committing around $3 million for at least 17 home games and promising to install a dedicated natural grass pitch to make the old baseball diamond a proper soccer stage. That decision transformed what could have been a sad, empty shell into a bridge between Oakland’s storied past and its uncertain future.
The move was more than a practical relocation. It was a declaration that Oakland’s sports scene wasn’t dead. The Coliseum, once home to championship Raiders and the dynastic A’s, still had a heartbeat. The Roots embraced the venue’s history, keeping Rickey Henderson’s name on the field and weaving local culture into the matchday experience. Their 2025 home opener drew more than 26,000 fans and featured Bay Area rap legend Too Short performing at halftime, an unmistakable signal that Roots games were as much about Oakland’s soul as they were about soccer. The team has configured the cavernous stadium for about 15,000 seats per match to maintain an intimate atmosphere, opening additional sections only when demand spikes. That pragmatic approach keeps energy high while avoiding the cavernous emptiness that plagued late-era A’s games.
Attendance remains a test. The Roots have historically drawn between 3,800 and 5,200 fans at smaller venues, and sustaining larger crowds at the Coliseum will take relentless outreach and consistent performance. But the club’s leadership sees their stay at the Coliseum not as a stopgap but as a proving ground. Plans for a permanent, soccer-specific stadium, potentially at Howard Terminal, remain in motion, with a vision for a 15,000-seat facility expandable to 25,000. The Coliseum stint gives the Roots a chance to demonstrate they can carry the weight of being Oakland’s flagship sports franchise while a new home is built.
The timing is fortuitous because the Coliseum itself is at a crossroads. With the A’s selling their share of the property to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group, already the majority owner, the stadium’s future is being reimagined as part of a larger redevelopment that will include housing and entertainment without tearing down the structure. The Roots, alongside their women’s team, Oakland Soul, now play a central role in that vision. They have become stewards of the Coliseum’s legacy rather than just tenants renting a field. The stadium is also diversifying its calendar with events like Major League Cricket matches in 2025, showing signs that it can become a multi-sport and cultural hub rather than a decaying relic.
As the USL Championship season winds down with only a handful of games left, the Roots are unlikely to clinch a postseason berth, but their impact on the Coliseum’s revival is undeniable. They have breathed life back into a venue many had written off and reestablished it as a relevant stage for professional sports. The coming offseason promises to be pivotal, with plans for continued improvements to the matchday experience and deeper engagement with Oakland’s soccer community. If this year was about proving that the Coliseum could host meaningful soccer again, then 2026 is shaping up as a must-see season for Bay Area sports fans. The Roots have set the foundation, and next year offers the promise of a bolder, more vibrant era of soccer at a stadium once thought past its prime.
The larger question is whether the Roots can spark a genuine resurgence in Oakland’s sports identity. Losing the A’s and the Warriors wasn’t just about losing teams; it was about losing civic pride and global visibility. The Roots are betting that Oakland’s loyalty can be redirected to a different game and that soccer can thrive where baseball and football once ruled. Their success could prove that a city doesn’t need an MLB or NFL badge to be considered major league; it just needs teams that connect deeply with the community and fill a stadium with purpose and passion.
The Coliseum’s future is no longer about nostalgia. It is about whether this old concrete giant can find new life as a venue for a new era. The Roots’ gamble is that Oakland still wants a team to believe in, a team that reflects its resilience and diversity. If they can continue to grow their fan base, build momentum toward a permanent home, and keep the Coliseum buzzing with energy, they may not just rescue a stadium, they may redefine what it means for Oakland to be a sports city in the twenty-first century.
