How the Oakland Roots Took Over the Coliseum | OneFootball

The Oakland Roots have long been one of the most impactful soccer clubs in the United States. Now playing at the iconic Oakland Coliseum, they finally have a home venue in which they can fully flourish.

A soccer game in a baseball stadium is a uniquely American experience. New York City FC routinely plays at Yankee Stadium, a love-it-or-hate-it quirk about the 2023 MLS Cup champions. NWSL side Bay FC just set a league attendance record in a special one-off match at Oracle Park, home of MLB’s San Francisco Giants.

But just across the Bay Bridge in Oakland, something a bit different is going on. The Oakland Roots have made the Oakland Coliseum their home. The concrete monolith was once home of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and MLB’s Oakland Athletics, but with both teams leaving the Town, the Roots — who’d been searching for a permanent home for years — have more than happily filled in the vacancies left by each franchise. In addition, the Oakland Soul, the Roots’ affiliate in the USL W League, played a match at the Coliseum as part of a double-header with the Roots in June.

The Coliseum was built in an era of multi-use arenas, so unlike Yankee Stadium or Oracle Park, it was built to be interchangeable. Opening in 1966, the Raiders were the arena’s first tenants, but one year later, a soccer team moved in. The Oakland Clippers, winners of the 1967 NPSL title, played both seasons of their existence in the Coliseum.

Baseball wouldn’t come to the Coliseum until 1968, when the A’s made the move from Kansas City to Oakland. So in a way, you could say that the Coliseum is the first and only soccer-specific baseball/football stadium.

“The whole tide rises with a stadium,” said Edreece Arghandiwal, founder and CMO of the Roots. “We’ve always had our eyes on the Coliseum. I never thought that it would be this quick. It was a dream to be able to play games in the Coliseum at some point in time. And with the teams departing, the vacancy really expedited our journey.”

The Roots’ route to landing in the Coliseum followed a winding road. The club’s first home, Laney College, had field surface issues multiple times; in fact, the Roots’ first ever game in the USL Championship had to be postponed because of problems with the field.

Roots home venues also included Las Positas College in Livermore and Cal State East Bay in Heyward before the Coliseum came around.

“The number one issue for a pro soccer team starting in this area was always going to be the venue,” Arghandiwal said. “We were experts in building a brand and an identity in the marketplace. We’re from here, so we get how to spread the message. It was always going to be where do we play and how do we sustain that? And how does that venue then become a way towards profitability or sustainability for the club?”

The Coliseum is perfect. It is already built and the maintenance of the field isn’t a concern. It also is a community institution, as most sports fans in the U.S. let alone California know of the Coliseum. The game day experience, not just the product on the field, can change a lot level to level and league to league.

I was not sure what to expect when I pulled up to the Coliseum, a stadium I had never been to that is nearly 60 years old. As a Seattleite, the brutalist building wasn’t a new experience. We had the Kingdome, another concrete-laden behemoth of the bygone multi-use era that was home to the Seahawks, Mariners, SuperSonics, and Sounders. Unlike the Kingdome however, the Coliseum utilizes a grass playing surface, which would delight any serious soccer fan.

The walk across the ocean of a parking lot was familiar, a pilgrimage my younger self looked forward to; a universal right of passage for any young sports fans in America — including Roots players themselves.

“My first real memory is my hands were too small for me to hold my Dad’s hand, so I’d hold his pinky and we would walk through this overpass,” said Kendall McIntosh, the Roots’ starting goalkeeper and Oakland native. “People were selling all sorts of stuff, selling the jerseys, memorabilia, scalping tickets, and it was full of hustle energy, which I really enjoyed. We’d have to walk all the way around up to our seats through all that concrete.”

While the Coliseum is technically multi-use, it’s designed for baseball. The center field stands — referred to as “Mount Davis” after the late Al Davis, the infamous owner of the Raiders — were only built because he wanted more seating. Originally, you had a view through center field to the mountains, but the new seating arrangement obstructed views both in and out of the stadium alike.

Now in its third era, only the Roots are regular tenants of the Coliseum, but more events are heading to the venue that’s been called “the last dive bar” of stadiums.

In September, Mexico will play a friendly against Japan at the Coliseum, spurning the much more modern Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Cricket is also starting to come to the Coliseum with exhibition matches as well.

”Our success of the 26,000 home opener, I think prompted a lot of conversation around, wow, there’s a market here for soccer and we’re interested in hosting, and (the Mexican national team) have been here before and they’ve sold out,” Arghandiwal said.

Being able to fully convert the field to soccer full-time matters. It’s not just for the players either, as it looks better and completes the experience for fans too. The infield dirt is completely removed, the old third base dugout is now a suite you can rent out, and the first base dugout hosts media operations for the club.

It’s hard to escape the temporary feeling of a stadium that’s just going to reconfigure itself after you leave. Now well into its first season as the Roots’ venue of choice, things are starting to truly feel like home.

“The field is immaculate, they take care of it really well,” McIntosh said. “It feels a lot more like a proper football playing surface. And I think that’s what the club wanted. I think that especially since these last eight-ish games, we want to play football, we want to get on the ground, we want to move it.”

You can’t totally erase history though, and the Roots aren’t trying to. They have a third jersey in A’s yellow and green, and throughout the stadium there are still reminders of who the original tenant was. They’ve also retained the name of Rickey Henderson field in tribute to the late baseball legend.

The weather was perfect when I visited, a warm August summer evening that didn’t make you sweat. The low rise of seats in baseball stadiums puts the average seat much farther away from the field than the typical soccer stadium. However, it creates the feeling of watching a spectacle, with the wall of suites, stands, and lights towering over the field as a backdrop.

It’s the kind of stadium you want to do a lap around and see all the different angles before you get to your seat. Left field bleachers are now looking down on a corner flag and the first base seats transition from being up close to the action, to looking at the field as a whole from behind the goal. The views are different and it works; the fans are also loud despite not filling up the lower bowl.

“It feels like when you’re doing well, you have 100,000 people there cheering you on,” McIntosh said.”They’ll go, ‘Oakland!’ And you almost get goosebumps. But then at halftime, if you’re losing, they’re going to boo you and you’re going to feel like you’re getting booed by 100,000 people at the same time. So it’s like you get a full stadium’s worth of passion.”

No lower league team in the world could fill out a stadium the size of the Coliseum. But the growth is visible — the Roots’ average attendance in 2025 is higher than the total capacity of their previous home fields. The home opener saw a crowd over 26,000 fans, a club record.

The people come for a reason and the attention to detail shows.

”The key thing for me on game days is that we differentiate ourselves from most other pro teams in that it really feels like a festival,” Arghandiwal said. “I mean, every game we have tailgates, we have community vendors activating. We have a gallery inside of our stadium that showcases local art and artists game to game. We have musical performances during halftime and pre-game that are really world known and celebrated.

“So we’re going to continue to try to show people that you can do unique things, stay rooted, be cultured, and create memorable experiences. Soccer is one facet of it. You’re also coming to enjoy a time with your family and disconnect from the realities of life, which can be difficult at times.”

The Roots may be young compared to other soccer clubs around the world, but their culture is not. Tapping into a community known for its diversity, passion and ingenuity, the Roots are a cultural force, not simply a sporting one, and bringing life back to the Coliseum is just the latest of their accomplishments. The Roots as a club are growing into their own without the shadow of other leagues or teams.

The next Kendall McIntosh will be talking about growing up walking across the bridge to the Coliseum to see Roots games — not the A’s, not the Raiders, or even the Warriors — it’ll be for the Oakland Roots Sports Club.

Photography by Kyle Scoble for Urban Pitch.