Could professional basketball return to Oakland?
The Oakland-based African American Sports and Entertainment Group announced Monday it’s proposing as much in its bid to purchase the city’s share of the Oakland Coliseum site, aiming to bring an "African American women-led" WNBA team to the city.
Ray Bobbitt, the organization’s founder, said in a statement Monday the group has submitted a request to the league. The Coliseum Authority board will also discuss the proposal at its Friday meeting.
The group said Shonda Scott, a partner in the group who played basketball at Oakland’s Holy Names High School, is spearheading the effort.
Oakland Arena has not had a primary tenant since the Golden State Warriors decamped for San Francisco’s Chase Center in 2019. A WNBA team has never called the Bay Area home, nor has the region had a professional women’s basketball team since the San Jose Lasers and the American Basketball League folded in 1998.
Bobbitt’s group is proposing to purchase the city’s share of the Coliseum site for $92.5 million, aiming to redevelop the site to build housing, office space, a Black-owned business district and, ultimately, a stadium for the NFL’s first Black-owned franchise. The group said awarding that much public land to an Oakland-based, African American-led group would be a first in the city’s history.
The Oakland City Council will vote on the group’s term sheet July 20, the same day a vote is scheduled on the Oakland Athletics’ proposed Howard Terminal development.
The A’s purchased Alameda County’s share of the Coliseum in 2019 and have tried to buy the city’s. Team president Dave Kaval told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s proposal "surprised" him, and the group has "a very different vision" for re-developing the site than the A’s.
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