How Oakland Roots SC is unifying the community through soccer

I am a bonafide sports chick. As cringey as the phrase sounds, it just fits, despite me also being a hardcore womanist. Born and raised in Inglewood and Altadena, California, I was also raised on Lakers basketball. I was 13 years old when the Olympics came to Los Angeles in 1984 and changed my life. It showed me the winning ways of Carl Lewis, Evelyn Ashford, Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Nawal El Moutawakel, the first Muslim woman to win gold for Morocco in the 400-meter hurdles.

So when my decades-long friend and radio legend Sway Calloway posted about joining the ownership group of the Oakland Roots Soccer Club in 2023, I was intrigued. A soccer team in the Bay, where football, baseball and basketball live rent free in the area’s collective consciousness? I made a mental note to see a match, since I had only experienced soccer on TV, save a few invitations to support my friends’ school-aged kids.

Fast forward to the summer of 2025. I’m in Tha’ Town on vacation, and received an invite to attend a match on Aug. 9 against the Colorado Switchbacks from Dr. Akilah Cadet, whom I’d met in New York City while she was promoting her book, White Supremacy Is All Around. I jumped at the chance to spend some time with a fellow sports-loving Black woman writer.

What I didn’t know was that my ultra cool author friend buried the lede. Cadet is also a co-owner of the franchise, and I was not just going to the match. I was attending as a guest of an owner.

Cadet is the only Black woman owner of the Oakland Roots Soccer Club and its female counterpart, Oakland Soul Soccer Club. And she’s in legendary Bay Area company. In addition to Sway, superstar former athletes Marshawn Lynch and Jason Kidd are also in the ownership group, along with recording artists Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, and rappers Richie Rich, G-Eazy and LaRussell.

Still, Cadet didn’t have this path on her bingo card. 

“It isn’t easy, but it’s exactly where I want to be,” she told Andscape.

What started as attending a presentation and learning about the team’s purpose-driven position became an opportunity to fundraise, at the insistence of former club president Steven Aldrich.

“I kept telling him that I don’t do fundraising,” Cadet said. “But he saw that capability in me and for that I am forever grateful.”

Leveraging her connections in business and the philanthropic space, she raised $3.1 million for the club’s first community funding round. She also became its lead investor. In just two investment rounds, the group raised $3.6 million, powered by 6,000 community investors.

Given the historic, winning presence of Black female athletes in U.S. sports, from Olympic heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee to the tennis-court dominance of Venus and Serena Williams, and now Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, and the long line of college basketball and WNBA champions, Black women team owners should be a foregone conclusion.

But unlike her male counterparts, Cadet didn’t benefit from a pipeline, from a mentoring program, and certainly not billionaire privilege. She is among a handful of Black women team owners. The aforementioned Williams sisters have been part of the Miami Dolphins ownership group since 2009. Businesswoman Valerie Daniels-Carter is part owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese has a stake in DC Power Football Club, the city’s pro women’s soccer team. Atlanta Dream Vice President Renee Montgomery is also the team’s co-owner.

Educator and music therapist Evelyn Magley pivoted to an executive role with Canada’s National Basketball League, leveraging that experience to invest in a U.S. men’s league of her own, The Basketball League (TBL). Sports impresario Alexis Levi was the first Black woman to own a men’s pro basketball team when she purchased the Las Vegas Stars, a former member of the International Basketball League, in 2006.

Interestingly, these women follow in the footsteps of Black Entertainment Television co-founder Sheila Johnson, who was the first Black woman to hit this rare air of franchise team ownership with principal shareholder stakes in three teams: the Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, and Washington Capitals.

We know that without Black players, the very heartbeat of every major American sports league would stop. Cadet believes it shouldn’t take billions, or even millions, to invest in a sector that’s powered by Black talent, be they athletes, staff, commentators or fans. Enter the community ownership model of the Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul.

Equity in the club was available with a minimum investment of $100 through its Community Investment Round (CIR).

“Our CIR investors range from retirees, hourly workers, students, immigrants and professionals from the Bay Area and around the world who make less than $200,000 per year,” Cadet explained.

This model of attainable access to equity ownership also informs the brand identity and values of the soccer club itself. In keeping with the name, the roots and soul of Oakland, a historically Black and vastly diverse city, permeate the club — from the youth programs to the halftime performers and merchandise.

“We knew it might be controversial, but if we didn’t have a Black Panthers jersey collection as the city’s soccer team, that would be completely inauthentic,” said club Chief Marketing Officer Edreece Arghandiwal, who heads brand strategy for the franchise.

The club also released the Conoce Tus Raices kit in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. This fall, a mural will go up in Oakland’s Chinatown in collaboration with the city’s civil rights department. And an acknowledgement of the ancestral homeland of the Ohlone, who are indigenous to Northern California, is spoken before every home match.

But as I entered the Oakland Coliseum in August for the match, a pitch-perfect a capella version of the national anthem could be heard. Jazz vocalist Leah Dobson added the last line of the Negro National Anthem, closing her performance with “let us march on til victory is won.” With decades of live sporting events under my belt, that was an evocative, surprising first. The franchise has enjoyed rapid and consistent success, making the playoffs in three out of four USL Championship seasons. Their home opener drew over 26,000 fans to the Oakland Coliseum in March, setting a USL record.

The purpose-driven ethos also shows up in the club’s utilization of the arts. They partnered on an exhibition with local Bay Area photographer Kira Stackhouse in August. The team also supports six nonprofit organizations they call their Purpose Partners. One org, Chapter 510, provides educational spaces for LGBTQ+ and youth of color to hone their creative writing skills with the guidance of teaching artists. Stronger students make better athletes, and the connection between arts, culture and sports is one this franchise cultivates with intention. The USL has conferred League awards to the Oakland Roots and Soul for LGBTQ+ inclusion and Racial Justice.

With seating just a few feet from the barrier of the playing field, I settled in for my first match. I am very green on most aspects of the sport, so if you’re new to soccer, you don’t have to be an expert to enjoy the games. Soccer is inherently exciting because movement is constant. So. Much. Running! 

From where I sat, I could see every player’s mind working to anticipate, maneuver, defend, or maintain control of the ball, and, ultimately, score. Because it often takes much longer for a point to be scored than other sports, I was riveted as the ball changed feet and was launched from foreheads. Having only watched the game on TV, I now understand the contagious elation that follows making a goal. It’s a natural high and welcome release all at once, and I couldn’t wait to see it happen again.

While the Roots lost to Colorado 2-1 in the game I watched, fans still clamored for photos and autographs from their heroes. Proud parents of all backgrounds looked on as their children’s faces lit up while goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh, an Oakland native, signed shirts, flags and jerseys, then smiled for countless photos. Once he was done, McIntosh reflected on how it felt to go from a kid in the Coliseum stands to a goalkeeper on its field.

“Encouraging the kids is fun for me. Oakland was stigmatized as bad, but the Coliseum was such a safe space for me,” he said. “It didn’t matter who you were, we were all there to root for Oakland. The teams that have left have hurt me personally, but I would like to bring the arena back to those times of community, and we’re definitely doing that.”

Throughout the match, staffers from every touch point stopped to hug Cadet and chat her up. She knows most by name and introduces herself to those she doesn’t. With Lemonade-length blonde braids under her baseball cap, Oakland Soul hoodie, denim and poised, yet warm demeanor, she doesn’t fit the stereotype of what a team owner looks like.

“When I tell fans, or folks staffing concessions that I’m an owner, they’re surprised—in the best way,” Cadet said. “It’s important to me that our people know that I value them. Besides, as a woman in leadership, I don’t feel I have the luxury of being in this position without saying what needs to be said.”

I asked Cadet what she thinks can change the tide for female ownership in sports.

“Black women need to see that ownership is an option,” she said. “This makes storytelling crucial to the pipeline of women in ownership. Women, and especially Black women, have transferable skillsets to be here.”

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