It felt like 2021 all over again.
Last Saturday, the Oakland Roots’ scheduled home opener at Laney College Football Stadium was postponed just hours before the scheduled kickoff, due to turf issues mainly out of the club’s control. The last-minute postponement is further proof that the club’s long-term future in Oakland is at risk until the Roots can secure their own home venue.
The Roots are actively working to secure a location to build a new stadium in the next two years. Last month the club made a presentation to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority (JPA), hoping to lease a piece of land for a modular stadium next to the property.
“We love playing at Laney. But we cannot continue playing there beyond 2024. The venue is too small, and we cannot accommodate all of our fans or generate enough revenue to cover the cost of putting on our games,” noted Oakland Roots President Lindsay Barenz in the presentation. “Laney rightly puts their students’ needs first. But that creates uncertainty for us that we can’t have as a professional team.”
For pro soccer teams, owning their own stadium helps out with the bottom line. This is especially important for a Roots club that took a significant financial hit in 2021 after turf issues at Laney forced them to play nearly half of their home games at Las Positas College in Livermore, with only a few hundred fans in attendance.
Fans express frustration
Last week, Roots fans expressed disappointment and frustration over another last-minute cancellation. In 2021, the Roots’ home opener was postponed less than two hours before the scheduled kickoff because their opponent refused to play on the field, citing unsafe conditions. This year, the club decided to pull the plug themselves.
“Laney College installed a new turf football field in the offseason. The project’s completion was delayed by multiple weeks due to the Bay Area’s continuous storms,” noted the Roots press release announcing last week’s postponement. “The work was completed late this week, and the infill in the football field has not had time to settle, causing our turf soccer field to not lay flat.”
The Roots once again found themselves scrambling to find a suitable location for their home game on Saturday against New Mexico United. They eventually settled on Cal State East Bay’s Pioneer Stadium, where they will also be hosting their US Open Cup game against El Farolito on Tuesday.
The club has remained non-committal about when the turf issues at Laney Stadium will be fixed, meaning that their April 15th game against Hartford Athletic and subsequent games may also need to be moved.
Ongoing frustrations at Laney
Despite Oakland regularly packing fans into Laney Stadium since its opening season in 2019, the club has always had to work around the junior college football team’s schedule. The stadium was built for football, making it difficult for the Roots to maximize game-day revenues, especially from premium seating plans. Placing a temporary turf field over the football field is also prohibitively expensive, and the club noted that the portable turf field that the club purchased two years ago is already starting to wear out.
All of these issues have made finding a new home a major priority. But building a permanent location could take years to get the required approvals. To expedite the process, the club hopes to build a temporary modular facility that can be assembled on-site at a fraction of the cost and time it would take to build a permanent stadium.
Looking for a temporary home
The Roots have identified two preferred locations that are already zoned for a sports stadium. One is at Alameda Point, and the other is a small triangular lot adjacent to the Coliseum complex, known as the Malibu lot (formerly the home of Malibu Grand Prix). The team has decided to focus their efforts on the Malibu lot first.
During the team’s pitch to the Coliseum JPA in February, Lydia Tan, the Roots Chief Real Estate Officer, noted that the club is planning to build a 10,000 seat stadium at the Malibu lot site, doubling their current capacity at Laney.
The club has done a physical test fit of the Malibu site and determined they can squeeze the modular stadium inside the property’s boundaries. They also noted their willingness to work with the City of Oakland and the African American Sports Entertainment Group (AASEG) to get the project done.
To make Malibu accessible on game days, the Roots need to work with Oakland, AASEG, and the Oakland A’s, who own the other half of the Coliseum property, for game-day parking and to ensure a pedestrian path from the Coliseum BART to the Roots stadium.
The first step in building a hub for world-class sports
In February, the city of Oakland awarded AASEG an exclusive negotiating agreement to buy or lease the city’s share of the approximately 120-acre property. AASEG has proposed turning the Oakland Coliseum complex into a hub for world-class professional sports. They are attempting to bring the first Black-owned NFL team and a WNBA team to the East Bay and have also announced plans to work with The Town FC about a possible soccer stadium on the Coliseum property itself.
Barenz noted that if the Roots receives the necessary approvals for the Malibu lot, they are certain they can raise the required funding from additional investors to build their modular stadium.
“We want to be the first step in the Coliseum redevelopment to kickstart job creation and activity at this site,” noted Barenz during the JPA meeting. “The stadium will allow us to stay in Oakland, increase our community impact, and search for a permanent home in Oakland.”
The sooner the Roots can build their modular stadium and move away from Laney Stadium, the better their chances are to continue building their foundations here. If not, Oakland is in danger of losing yet another professional team.
