Why Oakland for pro soccer? For Benno Nagel the answer is clear.
“I think Oakland for soccer makes a lot of sense on a lot of levels,” said Nagel. “If you announced that tomorrow at 3 pm Club America and Chivas were going to play at the Oakland Coliseum and tickets were on sale for 24 hours, you would sell it out. That’s how big soccer is here.”
His organization, known as Oakland Pro Soccer, has been trying to bring a professional soccer team to the city for over a year. Nagel believes that for any pro soccer team to ultimately be successful in Oakland, they need to focus on social good to improve the community while weaving themselves into the fabric of ‘The Town.’
“If you look at Sacramento Republic and FC Cincinnati, Detroit City, Chattanooga or Atlanta United: It’s not necessarily the league [that makes them successful] it’s more the vision behind it,” he said.
“We always say Oakland is a big city but a small town,” Nagel continued. “The reason we got a lot of people interested in what we were doing was because we brought them into the conversation and asked then ‘What do you want to see?’”
Oakland Pro Soccer is separate from USL 2 East Bay, which has announced it will bring a second division pro soccer team in the United Soccer Leagues somewhere in the East Bay by 2021. They made news in March when they offered to buy part of the Oakland Coliseum complex from the city and construct a soccer stadium on the land.
“We only want the best for Oakland and the best for the community here,” Nagel said only wishing success for the USL 2 East Bay. “If that’s us doing it great. If it’s someone else doing it with the same vision that we have that is awesome.”
Nagel grew up in Oakland and attended Bishop O’Dowd High School before playing in college at San Francisco State. After graduating he played for several semi-pro Bay Area teams before moving to the sidelines at 26 years old.
The decision led to the coaching staff of Holy Names University in Oakland and then the US Development Academy in Fresno. He then took an internship working with FC Twente’s women’s team staff in Holland. Next, he moved to the Dynamo Zagreb working at their boy’s soccer academy that launched the careers of pro soccer players Luka Modrić, Mateo Kovačić, and Eduardo.
His time in Zagreb finally took him to an assistant coaching position with Rayo OKC, which played one season in the North American Soccer League in 2016 in Oklahoma City. After being away from the Bay Area for several years, Nagel returned home while brainstorming on what his next step in soccer would be.
His first idea was to found a high-level semi-professional team in Oakland and the East Bay with former Oakland A’s executive Andy Dolich. Later, Nagel connected with Peter Wilt who has successfully launched teams in Indianapolis and Chicago. In late 2016 he encouraged Nagel to explore the idea of bringing a pro team to Oakland instead.
“Wilt asked me ‘What do you think about Oakland for a professional soccer team?’ and that was really the starting point for everything,” Nagel recounted.
Nagel’s started working closely with Edreece Arghandiwal, a branding professional, and together they co-founded Oakland Pro Soccer. The organization partners include Mike Geddes, the managing director of Street Football World USA and the Common Goal campaign which encourages all pro soccer players to commit one percent of their salaries to non-profits. Another partner is Aaron Dolores who created Black Arrow FC which has worked to introduce soccer to the African American community.
In the May of 2017, Oakland Pro Soccer launched its Twitter and Facebook pages while continuing to network with the local soccer community in the city. During their outreach the organization connected with real estate developers interested in building a soccer complex as part of a broader development in Oakland if they could secure a location in the city.
Last year Oakland Pro Soccer engaged in preliminary talks with the city about developing a soccer complex. “We felt if we could get a stadium then we would figure out the league that would be best for what we wanted to do,” Nagel said.
Following up on their momentum Oakland Pro Soccer held a kickoff event in October 2017 to introduce their project to the general public.
But they hit a roadblock last November when the city of Oakland informed them that they would be unwilling to facilitate a search and acquisition of land in the town, which included possibly acquiring a piece of the Coliseum complex.
“The city said we would love to do this but we can’t,” said Nagel, explaining that with the ongoing negotiations of the A’s was Oakland’s priority.
Another stumbling block for his organization was which pro soccer league to join.
USL 2 East Bay acquired the territorial rights for the United Soccer League in the East Bay late last year. Oakland Pro Soccer has had some contact with USL 2 East Bay and has been impressed.
“When you start looking at Mark [Hall] (the owner of USL 2 East Bay) and his background, and what he is trying to do and proposing it’s really exciting,” said Nagel. “He’s going to make soccer better here.”
The organization had been in touch with the NASL, which lost its US Soccer Federation sanctioning last year. A few weeks ago Rocco Commisso, the owner of the NASL’s New York Cosmos pledged 500 million dollars to restart and fund the league. “Yes we have had contact, and there is a lot of interested in Oakland and the Bay Area market in general,” said Nagel. “But there hasn’t been any movement because they still don’t know what their timeline is going to be.”
They also have had conversations with the proposed third division National Independent Soccer Association, founded by Peter Wilt. However, the NISA’s status is in doubt after Wilt said he was leaving the league. It also does not have any announced teams or sanctioning by the US Soccer Federation.
During the process, Oakland Pro Soccer even had conversations with Major League Soccer about possibly being a candidate for expansion after the current round of teams are decided in 2024. “They would prefer San Francisco because it’s a bigger market, but they understand the challenges that come with building a stadium in San Francisco,” Nagel noted. “They would be interested in an MLS Oakland team in the future if a stadium deal were put together.”
In the near term, Oakland Pro Soccer has focused on building the soccer community in Oakland even without a team. They will host events during the World Cup, community tournaments and volunteer service days improving soccer field in the city while waiting for the bigger picture to develop.
“We’re trying to figure out what is the next best step. Our goal remains to bring the highest level team possible to Oakland,” Nagel confirmed. “We’re looking to bring pro soccer to Oakland with whoever is committed to doing that.”
