After four years of playing second fiddle at Laney College’s football stadium, the Oakland Roots publicly announced their search for a home of their own.
The new stadium will also house Oakland Soul SC, the club’s women’s team, which is scheduled to begin playing in 2023, as well as the club’s development team, Project 51O.
“The challenge of finding facilities that meet the standards for top-level pro sports in Oakland are well-known, but it’s a challenge we’re happy to embrace,” noted Roots and Soul President Lindsay Barenz in the team’s press release. “We’ve been working hard to explore all options, both short- and long-term, to create a permanent home for pro soccer in ‘The Town’ that reflects our commitment to the community.”
Despite Oakland regularly packing Laney Stadium since its opening season in 2019, the club has always had to work around the junior college football team’s schedule. That caused the Roots to have to load up on home games during the middle of the season. This year the team has averaged about 4,300 fans per game in the 5,500 seat capacity stadium, around 80 percent full.
For professional soccer teams, owning their own stadium also helps out with the bottom line. This is especially important for a Roots club that took a significant financial hit after canceling a number of home games in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had to play a number of games in 2021 at Las Positas College in Livermore, with only a few hundred fans in attendance, due to turf issues at Laney College.
Using Laney Stadium also required the Roots to bring their own soccer turf field for each Roots home game to lay over the football field to reach FIFA regulation size.
The East Bay Times noted that the Roots are looking for a suitable 15-acre site in Oakland already zoned for a sports facility where they can build a modular stadium. Modular stadiums have become increasingly popular for lower-level pro soccer teams in recent years because they cut down the cost of building a soccer-specific stadium and can be built within a matter of months. Finding a parcel of land zoned for a sports facility will also cut down on the possibility of the team having to produce an Environmental Impact Report, which could further delay the process.
Any stadium site would ultimately have to go through an exclusive negotiating agreement with the City of Oakland.
The Roots are hoping to build a 10,000-seat stadium, nearly double their current capacity at Laney College. A new stadium will also allow the club to add luxury suites and other premium customer amenities that will help the team increase its revenue streams.
“We are talking to everyone,” Barenz told the East Bay Times about their plans for the stadium. “We’re talking to our fans. We’re talking to our community advisory board. We’re talking to local elected officials. We’re talking to everyone. We haven’t talked to everyone yet. But we have kickstarted the process.”
Wherever the Roots end up building their modular stadium, their long-term plans are to build a permanent stadium in Oakland. That process could take several additional years. Until then, the Roots will continue to call Laney home until they finally have a stadium of their own.
