Oakland's City Council voted 6-1 on July 13 to split the Coliseum complex into two separate sales: $50 million in cash from the Arena parcel goes straight to pension liabilities, while the Stadium parcel's $75 million comes via deferred payments and a permit-contingent tranche — with Oakland effectively financing a buyer that missed its prior closing deadline.

The Oakland City Council voted 6-1 on July 13 to approve a restructured $125 million sale of the city's 50% stake in the Coliseum complex — a deal that splits the 112-acre property into two separate transactions, routes $50 million immediately to pension liabilities, and leaves the city as a seller-financer for the larger parcel. Five days later, the venue hosted the Major League Cricket Championship Final, underscoring the stopgap uses filling the stadium while its long-term future is settled.

The vote ratified the Second Amendment to the Coliseum Complex Sale Agreement (City of Oakland File #: 26-0905), filed by the Economic and Workforce Development and Finance Departments. Councilmembers Ken Houston, Janani Ramachandran, Rowena Brown, Carla Constandina, and Ty Alper voted in favor, per KQED and The Oaklandside's reporting from the July 13 special concurrent meeting. Councilmember Noel Gallo cast the lone "no" — "it's public land and the city and county need to be unified," he said. Council President Kevin Jenkins was excused during the vote but had publicly endorsed the deal; Mayor Barbara Lee, a non-voting endorser, called it "a step forward."

The financial structure, as documented in the Legistar filing and The Oaklandside: Oakland receives $50 million in cash for the nine-acre Arena parcel, with those proceeds routed under city consolidated fiscal policy to unfunded pension liabilities. The larger 103-acre Stadium parcel yields another $75 million — $60 million in three equal deferred installments at five, six, and seven years post-close (with 5% annual interest on the unpaid balance), plus $15 million contingent on Oakland Acquisition Company obtaining development permits. Closing is targeted between September 2026 and January 2027. The deal also saves Oakland approximately $6 million per year in operational subsidies — $16,438.36 per day — it had been paying to maintain the vacant complex, per the Legistar filing.

The primary buyer is Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, an affiliate of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group backed financially by Loop Capital. The Arena parcel is being carved off for planned acquisition by Oak View Group, led by Irving Azoff. At the July 13 press conference, Azoff estimated it would take roughly $140 million to renovate the Arena. Councilmember Houston recalled a prior meeting with Azoff producing a "handshake deal" on community benefits: "He said, 'I'm going to do the community benefits, and it's going to be on steroids.'" What was specifically agreed to and when is not in the public record.

Saturday's cricket final was played by the San Francisco Unicorns, a tech-backed franchise owned by entrepreneurs Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and WhatsApp's former Chief Business Officer Neeraj Arora among reported investors. The Unicorns have no permanent Bay Area venue; the Coliseum is a stopgap. Major League Cricket completed a $44 million Series A and A1 in May 2022 and subsequently secured commitments of an additional $76 million from investors, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, per Sports Business Journal.

What isn't settled: OAC had paid only $5 million of the originally owed $110 million before missing a May 2025 deadline; the revised structure extends seller financing to a buyer that already failed one closing. Alameda County holds the other 50% of the complex, and File #: 26-0905 does not address how their parallel sale process aligns with Oakland's. The $15 million development permit trigger has no published milestone or timeline. The September 2026 target close is twelve weeks out.