Oakland Roots will no longer play at Coliseum after this season, team announces
By Carlos E. Castañeda
The Oakland Roots soccer club will no longer play home games at the Oakland Coliseum beginning next season, the team announced on Thursday.
The Roots said in a press release that the 2026 season will be the club’s last season at the historic venue. The team began playing in the Coliseum in 2025 and at the time the club said the move would be a temporary one while it explored a permanent place to play in Oakland.
The team cited operating costs along with limitations on event control and matchday flexibility among the reasons for not continuing to play at the Coliseum, the former home of the Raiders and the Athletics, which was built in 1966. Aside from the Roots, the Coliseum is currently the home of the San Francisco Unicorns of Major League Cricket.
“The Oakland Coliseum is a landmark of Oakland and the East Bay, and it has been an honor to be part of its legacy,” said Oakland Roots and Soul SC President Lindsay Barenz in a prepared statement. “We have long stated that controlling our own venue is paramount to the long-term success of the Club and soccer here in Oakland. While we have loved our time at the Coliseum over these two seasons, it is not a viable ongoing option for us as the relationship is currently structured.”
Both the Roots, who play in the USL Championship second-tier league, and Oakland Soul women’s soccer club, who play in the USL W pre-professional league, had originally sought to play in a soccer-specific stadium planned in the Coliseum’s adjacent Malibu parking lot. After the Athletics moved to Sacramento ahead of a planned Las Vegas move, those plans were scrapped. The Roots instead decided to play home games at the Coliseum in the short term, while the Soul played its home matches at Merritt Colllege, save for one Coliseum game as part of a Soul-Roots doubleheader in June 2025.
“It has been great having the Oakland Roots at the Coliseum these past two seasons. They have been a wonderful tenant at the Coliseum, bringing joy to so many and celebrating the community in so many ways,” said David Haubert, Alameda County Board of Supervisors president and Oakland Coliseum JPA board member “I wish them the best as they continue their quest for a stable home. I look forward to supporting them in those efforts.”
Roots and Soul SC said that the efforts underway to find a new home for both clubs include short term options such as a pop-up venue in the Coliseum parking lot and transforming its Alameda Harbor Bay Parkway training facility, the former Oakland Raiders headquarters, into a temporary matchday venue.
The club is still seeking a permanent home at Oakland’s Howard Terminal site along the Oakland Estuary, plans of which were announced in December 2024. Roots and Soul SC said it was in talks with the Port of Oakland to build a soccer stadium at the site where the former Oakland Athletics sought to build a ballpark. The soccer stadium would be built in two phases, with phase one involving the construction of a modular stadium facility with seating for 15,000 spectators, and phase two being the transforming the modular facilty into an enclosed soccer stadium for 25,000 fans with an exterior shell and partial roof.
Roots and Soul SC said it was also continuing a dialog with the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, which recently completed its purchase of the Coliseum complex, to explore the potential of building a permanent soccer stadium at the Coliseum site. AASEG had said in 2025 that it was open to working with the club for a longer stay at the Coliseum.
AASEG had not replied to a CBS News Bay Area request for comment as of Thursday afternoon.
