With all the news of sports teams leaving the East Bay for greener pastures, here's a short article about the wild success of Roots FC.
Roots FC are a minor-leage soccer team who use the local community college football stadium for home games and practice in the former practice fields of the Oakland Raiders (who are now the Las Vegas Raiders).
Branded as the country’s first “purpose-driven pro sports team,” the Roots are part of the Common Goal movement, meaning all players and staff donate 1% of their salaries to combat social inequalities. Last year, the club worked with Common Goal to create The Anti-Racist Project, an initiative that helps train players, fans, coaches and executives to tackle systemic racism. Club partners include an Oakland writing center and a local nonprofit that serves immigrant youth through soccer.
The Roots’ founders saw value in centering their approach around a community of Oakland sports fans who’d tired of feeling like pawns in billionaire owners’ real estate ventures. With the Raiders and Warriors now gone, and the A’s threatening to also bolt if taxpayers don’t contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to their proposed Howard Terminal project, the Roots have embedded themselves into Oakland’s fabric without asking for more than the price of a general-admission ticket.
Good on them. I ride my bicycle past their practice fields often, and sometimes I can hear the sounds of training coming from behind the (unfortunately) high security fences.
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