Oakland Roots won’t be kicked out of Coliseum — yet — despite owing $1.4 million in rent

OAKLAND — Coliseum officials will not immediately red-card Oakland Roots SC over $1.4 million in unpaid rent owed by the popular men’s soccer franchise after the team presented no firm repayment plan Friday.

The franchise, one of Oakland’s few remaining professional sports teams, will play Saturday’s home game as scheduled on the stadium field after paying its fees, roughly $173,000 for a match, in advance.

While they agreed Friday to seek a resolution without taking a formal vote, some officials who oversee the Coliseum’s affairs accused the Roots of lacking urgency and accountability in their efforts to clear the outstanding debt.

With no payment plan for the debt and no home stadium secured for next season, the Roots face mounting uncertainty over where — and under what financial conditions — they can continue playing in Oakland.

“I was not blindsided — I was duped,” said Henry Gardner, the executive director of a body appointed by the city and Alameda County to oversee the stadium-and-arena property, at Friday’s meeting about his dealings with the Roots.

The missing payments accumulated over several games, with the Roots paying only secondary fees but not their base rate of $138,000.

Gardner described various efforts by the Coliseum body — formally called the Joint Powers Authority — to discuss the Roots’ outstanding debt, accusing team officials of ducking those communications.

“I will not sit still for this nonsense!” Gardner responded when the Roots’ team president, Lindsay Barenz, denied his characterization of events and insisted franchise executives had “repeatedly” sought a meeting.

Their uncomfortable standoff recalled Oakland’s previous clashes with much-deeper-pocketed major sports franchises, including the Raiders, A’s and Warriors, all of which have departed the Coliseum complex in the past decade for new homes.

The Roots, a second-division franchise founded in 2018, have been on a similar quest to nail down long-term digs in Oakland. In just the past four years, the team has been a tenant of Laney College, Cal State East Bay in Hayward and now the Coliseum.

Although its merchandise has become a popular fashion choice among Oakland residents, the team has struggled to draw crowds to the aging 70,000-seat stadium.

In a statement Thursday, Roots representatives partly blamed revenue shortages this season on having ceded all parking revenue and a portion of ticket sales to the joint authority in the team’s last-minute lease agreement, among other unfavorable costs.

“We’ve tried everything to make it work, but the economics are insurmountable,” Barenz told the authority Friday.

Barenz said the team remained “deeply committed to the East Bay,” noting the team invested $700,000 to convert the former A’s baseball field to a soccer pitch.

As a result, said Roots cofounder and chief marketing officer Edreece Arghandiwal, the Coliseum was able to host a lucrative Mexico-Japan international friendly last summer on the stadium grounds, along with two annual domestic cricket events.

But authority commissioners pointed team leaders back to the outstanding debt.

“We need some guarantees on this, so we are not left holding the bag,” said Commissioner Kevin Jenkins, the president of the Oakland City Council, who asked to “hear some accountability — sometimes that’s ‘I messed up,’ as simple as that.”

Ken Houston, a fellow commissioner and Oakland council member, expressed disappointment that the situation had grown so dire before he became aware of it.

He floated the idea of the Roots offering their name and branding as collateral on the debt, likening the transaction to how business is done at a pawn shop.

But the Roots found support from three other commissioners — Alameda County supervisors Nate Miley and David Haubert, plus Rev. Jacqueline Thompson — who agreed the team matters too much to Oakland’s sports scene to be kicked to the curb.

“If they don’t play, then they can’t pay,” Haubert said, calling for the debt to be frozen until the team seeks a payment plan.

It remains to be seen how negotiations play out between the Roots and the Coliseum’s management company, Legends Global, which formally owns the team’s lease but oversees only daily operations.

An earlier proposal by Barenz for the franchise to simply pay in advance for its remaining home games while attracting unknown investments was flatly rejected by Legends officials.

With the Roots intent on leaving the Coliseum after this season, executives must also secure another venue. The team has discussed preliminary stadium plans at either the team’s practice facility in Alameda or the waterfront Howard Terminal property in West Oakland.

Gardner, in an interview before Friday’s meeting, appeared unmoved by the threat of the franchise being endangered by its precarious financial state.

“Even a nonprofit would be expected to pay rent at the Coliseum,” he said. “I do not run a rescue unit.”

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].