Typically considered one of the worst sports facility among the major, professional North American leagues, O.Co Coliseum has been the long-time home of the Oakland Athletics, who share the field with the notorious Oakland Raiders of the National Football League. This stadium is one of the oldest in the MLB and the NFL, originally opening on April 15th, 1964.
The Athletics suffer through the indignity of being the only Major League Baseball team to occupy the same field as an NFL franchise. The most recent renovation took place during the mid-1990s, which has lead to discussions of either a new facility being built or teams moving out of Oakland. In fact, a battle between Oakland, San Diego and Carson City brews to see which city will host which professional franchises.
This ballpark has a spacious amount of foul territory due to its use as both a football and baseball field, which helps pitchers induce an unusual amount of pop-ups, helping hurlers out quite a bit.
Oakland Athletics Stadium
The Oakland Athletics played well at home during the 2014 season, earning a wild card spot largely through their 48-33 home record, compared to a 40-41 mark on the road. The 2015 season has not been kind to Oakland, after they traded away some of their top sluggers. Their home record was well under .500, finishing with a few extra wins compared to their efforts on the road.
The MLB Park Factors statistics list O.Co Coliseum in the bottom third in terms of the rate of runs, hits and doubls. However, this field produces in the top third of the league in terms of triples and ranks bottom five in terms of home runs, which might have been caused by the fire sale that the team underwent over the past year.
Beginning in 2006, the upper deck of the facility was tarped off, which ended up reducing the seating capacity of the stadium to the one of the smallest in the league. Tickets were sharply reduced in terms of price. Players were also caught up in the decrepitude of O.Co Coliseum, as there have been multiple incidents that have involved sewage flooding into the facilities, most notably causing the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners to have to share the Oakland Raiders locker room after the game. The likely culprit, other the age of the facility, is the fact that the field is 23 feet below sea level.
Stadium Vitals
Date Opened: March 22, 2008
Construction Cost: $693 million
Architect: Devrouax & Purnell Architects; Populous
Ballpark Type: Retro Modern
Capacity Attendance: 41,418
Playing Surface: Platinum TE Paspalum
Previous Oakland Athletics Stadiums
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium; Olympic Stadium; Hiram Bithorn Stadium;
Jarry Park Stadium
Other Major Events
Oakland Raiders
The insane fans of the Oakland Raiders visit O.Co Coliseum for home games. After leaving for another facility, the mid-90s renos caused the team to return, much to the delight of Raiders Nation, which includes “The Black Hole”, consisting of four different sections of especially zealous fans who attempt to swallow the souls of opposing players.
San Jose Earthquakes
This MLS squad chose to play their marquee games against big name players and teams at O.Co Coliseum, such as when David Beckham’s L.A. Galaxy visited before the Galaxy moved to Stanford Stadium for their big matches.