Oakland A’s Reject Black-Owned Group’s Bid for Coliseum

Can an unmovable object be standing still and moving at the same time? 

When it comes to the Oakland Athletics, we may be about to find out. As we’ve been chronicling on these pages, the A’s appear to be moving full speed ahead on their plan to move the MLB franchise to Las Vegas.

The A’s already have secured $380M in public funding for a new $1.5B, 35,000-seat ballpark with a retractable roof that will be built on a 49-acre site on Las Vegas Boulevard. All they need is approval from three-quarters of the MLB team owners, and the deal is done.

But when it comes to a $5B plan to redevelop the A’s current home—the Oakland Coliseum—the owner of the team is proving to be a boulder that won’t get out of the way of the city and the developer it has selected for the redo.

In February, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG), a Black-owned developer, reached an agreement on a $5B redevelopment of the Oakland Coliseum and half of the 155 acres surrounding it.

Under the agreement, AASEG bought 50% of the Coliseum site for $115M. This month, the developer submitted a bid to the ownership of the Athletics, who still own the other half, only to have it rejected a day later.

That’s right, the team that can’t wait to vacate the 57-year-old football stadium and move its last-place team to the Vegas strip wants to hang onto its share of the complex, located at 7000 South Coliseum Way.

“While we appreciate AASEG’s efforts to acquire and redevelop the Coliseum site, we are not interested in selling or otherwise disposing of our interest in the Coliseum at this time. Thank you for your understanding,” Dave Kaval, president of the A’s, said in a letter to the developer, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.

This has always been about much more than whether the A’s franchise moves to a venue in Sin City, which will be its fourth home, after lengthy stints in Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland.

At stake is a potential $12B redevelopment of the Howard Terminal section of Oakland. According to the city’s plans, an urban retail village including 3,000 new homes is earmarked for the site.

On its parcel, AASEG is aiming to bring a Black-owned NFL franchise and a WNBA team to Oakland. In addition to renovating the Coliseum, the developer is planning a complex with homes, a convention center, a hotel, restaurants, museums and an outdoor amphitheater for youth sports.

The A’s acquired half of the property rights to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 2019 for $85M, back when they were still in negotiations to build a new baseball stadium in Oakland.

According to the report in the Mercury News, the city of Oakland may invoke eminent domain to reacquire the 50% stake in the Coliseum from the Athletics.

The deal with AASEG also requires the group—formed in 2020 by a group of civic leaders in Oakland to develop sports and entertainment venues to enhance economic equity—to make a one-time $2.5M payment to the city as well as an annual fee of $200K per year.

AASEG includes former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb; Oakland-based developer Alan Dones; Shona Scott, a former chair of the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce; former NBA player and sports agent Bill Duffy; and Loop Capital, a Black-owned investment firm.

The agreement gives AASEG two years to gain approval from the City Council for a development plan for the site.