Black-Led Investors to Close Oakland Stadium Next Year

The city of Oakland will give a group of Black-led investors more time to close a $125 million deal to buy its half of the Oakland Coliseum.

The City Council voted unanimously to allow the Sacramento-based African American Sports and Entertainment Group until spring of next year to make a $95 million payment for the 112-acre stadium complex at 7000 South Coliseum Way, in East Oakland, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

An expedited payment deadline set by former Mayor Sheng Thao had been set for May 30. Thao wanted a speedy sale to help plug a crippling budget deficit. But after voters recalled her in November, the city scrapped plans to budget money gained from selling a one-time asset.

City leaders now plan to finalize the $125 million sale of their Coliseum stake when Alameda County closes a deal to sell its own half of the property by the end of June 2026.

The African American Sports and Entertainment Group, or AASEG, has another year to close its purchase of both the city’s half of the coliseum and the other half that the county was in the process of selling to the Oakland A’s baseball team.

AASEG, buying the site through its affiliate, the Oakland Acquisition Company, also intends to pay off longstanding bonds remaining at the coliseum.

“This would transform the sale into something that’s a lot more conventional with the market,” Brendan Moriarty, a city real property asset manager who has been involved in negotiations with AASEG, told the council. “It would take an installment sale, which is unusual, and make it into a traditional purchase-and-sale structure.”

Ray Bobbitt, a co-founder of AASEG’s local flagship entity, said in a recent interview that the group never asked to speed up its acquisition of the coliseum.

The larger coalition’s funding arm, Chicago-based Loop Capital, backed out of Thao’s original budget-saving deal once it realized that the payment installments wouldn’t give the buyers incremental ownership of the property.

“There have been a lot of moving parts — it’s a very complex process,” Bobbitt told the council.

What might be holding up talks between the group and Alameda County is an environmental nonprofit’s lawsuit against the county over the $85 million sale of its coliseum share to the A’s, a deal that included no guarantee of affordable housing, Bobbitt said.

AASEG plans to acquire the A’s ownership stake for $125 million. The entertainment group’s proposed $5 billion redevelopment project calls for homes, hotels, convention center, youth amphitheater, restaurants and museums, while retaining the aging stadium.

Bobbitt’s partners include Loop Capital, sports agent Bill Duffy, real estate developer Alan Dones and former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb.

— Dana Bartholomew