Unlike its name, the Oakland professional soccer team has had trouble growing Roots in its hometown. In fact, the club has spent most of its first five seasons as local vagabonds looking for a stadium site to call home.
In the past half-decade, the Roots have moved their home games from Laney College in Oakland to Las Positas College in Livermore, a quick stop at Merritt College in Oakland, back to Las Positas, and then back to Laney College before being forced to move to Cal State East Bay in Hayward. Finally, the club has returned to Oakland, having secured at least a one-year deal to play at the Oakland Coliseum.
That’s why the Roots’ announcement that they are interested in building a stadium at the Howard Terminal Complex shows that they will explore any possible site to finally and permanently call Oakland home.
With the Oakland A’s leaving, the Roots essentially remain the only game in town, playing now at the Coliseum as the facility’s primary tenant. However, with the future development of the property under the auspices of the African American Sports Entertainment Group unclear, the stadium is seen as only an interim solution, hopefully their last, on a journey to a permanent home.
“We have searched every square inch of Oakland to find a place that’s large enough,” explained Roots and Soul President Lindsay Baernz to Brodie Brazil during a YouTube interview.
In the short term, the Roots hope to build a modular stadium that can go up quickly and for a fraction of the cost of a permanent stadium at two possible locations: a space known as the Malibu Lot right next to the Coliseum or at Howard Terminal near Jack London Square.
However, the Roots are signaling that for either site to become fully feasible, fans will need to pack the Coliseum and its 15,000 seats to show that there is an audience for pro soccer in the East Bay.
“We just need to show that there are people in Oakland and the East Bay that want pro soccer and pro sports in their community,” Baernz told Brazil. “If folks come out for that, the path will make itself.”
So, a half-decade in, the Oakland Roots have reached an inflection point. After five years of the club’s staff putting their blood, sweat, and tears into building the team from the ground up and the club’s owners committing millions and millions of dollars without a financial return, 2025 is turning into possibly the most critical season in team history.
The future of the Oakland Roots depends on its fans, who need to show up at the Coliseum in 2025.
If that happens, Oakland’s Pro Soccer team will finally have a chance to grow permanent Roots in The Town.
