Raiders and A's move in The Raiders played their first game at the stadium on September 18,
1966. In 1968, the
Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland and began play at the stadium. The Athletics' first game was played on April 17,
1968. The stadium complex cost $25.5 million ($ adjusted for inflation) to build and rests on of land. On April 17, 1968,
Boog Powell hit the first major league home run in the history of the Coliseum. On May8 of that year,
Catfish Hunter pitched the ninth
perfect game in Major League history at the Coliseum. The Coliseum hosted the 1967 and 1969 AFL championship games. Additionally, the venue had hosted the second match of the
NPSL Final 1967. A
Rolling Stones concert performed here in 1969 became the early bootleg ''
Live'r Than You'll Ever Be''.
1970s on November 2, 2008 From 1970 to 1972 the stadium hosted three
college football benefit games featuring Bay Area schools versus
historically black colleges. The Coliseum hosted the 1971
East–West Shrine Game on January 2, 1971. In
1972, the
Athletics won their first of three straight
World Series championships and their first since their years in Philadelphia. The awkwardness of the baseball–football conversion, as well as the low seating capacity (around 54,000 for football) and that the prime seating on the east side consisted of temporary bleachers led the Raiders to explore other stadium options. One such option was
Memorial Stadium on the UC Berkeley campus. Several preseason games were played there in the early 1970s along with one regular season game in 1973 (a 12–7 victory over the
Miami Dolphins during September while the A's regular season was going on). However, in response to traffic and parking issues associated with these games (while Cal games drew a large number of students who live on or near campus and walk to the games, Raiders games attracted fans from a larger geographic area who were used to tailgating at the Coliseum and were more likely to drive to games), the City of Berkeley passed a Professional Sports Events License Tax in which the city collected 10% of all gate receipts, making the staging of professional games inside the city cost-prohibitive. The Raiders were granted an injunction from the city collecting the tax, arguing that the tax was a regulatory measure rather than a revenue measure, and was therefore an improper regulation on land held in trust by the Regents of the University of California. However, the grant of the injunction was reversed by the California Court of Appeals, who found it to be a revenue measure, despite the fact that the city had made the measure immediately effective "due to danger to the public peace, health, and safety of the City of Berkeley as a result of the holding of professional sports events there". The stadium was not well maintained for most of the late 1970s. Its condition was most noticeable during baseball season, when crowds for A's games twice numbered fewer than 1,000. On April 17, 1979, only 653 fans attended the game versus the
Seattle Mariners. During this time, it was popularly known as the "Oakland Mausoleum".
1980s In
1980, the
Raiders won
Super Bowl XV.
Two years later, the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, leaving the A's as the only remaining tenants of Oakland Coliseum. Only days later, Finley agreed to sell the A's to
Marvin Davis, who planned to move the A's to Denver. However, city and county officials were not about to lose Oakland's status as a major league city in its own right, and refused to let the A's out of their lease. Finley sold the team instead to the owners of San Francisco-based
Levi Strauss & Co. After the
1986 Major League Baseball season, the original scoreboards were replaced. A new American Sign and Indicator scoreboard and message center was installed behind the left field bleachers, while the original right field scoreboard was replaced with a manually operated out-of-town scoreboard. Between the centerfield flagpoles, a new
Diamond Vision video screen was installed. The
1987 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held at the stadium. From
1988 to
1990, the venue saw three more World Series. In 1989, the
Athletics won their 4th Series since moving to Oakland, sweeping the
San Francisco Giants in the
earthquake-interrupted
"Battle of the Bay" Series.
1990s In July 1995, the Raiders agreed to return to Oakland provided that Oakland Coliseum underwent renovations. In November 1995, those renovations commenced and continued through the next summer until the beginning of the
1996 football season (more info below). The new layout also had the somewhat peculiar effect of creating an inward jog in the outfield fence, in left center and right center. There are now three distance markers instead of one, at various points of the power alleys, as indicated in the dimensions grid. The Raiders' return also heralded the creation of the "Black Hole", a highly recognizable group of fans who occupied one end zone seating during football games.
2000s On April 2, 2006, the broadcast booth was renamed in honor of the late
Bill King, a legendary Bay Area sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice of the A's, Raiders and
Warriors for 44 years.
San Jose Earthquakes of
Major League Soccer, announced in November 2007 that they would be playing their "big draw" games, such as those featuring
David Beckham and the
Los Angeles Galaxy, at the stadium instead of their then-home
Buck Shaw Stadium (capacity roughly 10,000) in
Santa Clara. Since then the Quakes moved to their new home of
PayPal Park and play their bigger games in either nearby
Levi's Stadium or
Stanford Stadium. Midway through the decade, the stadium established a "no re-entry" policy. Each ticket can be used only once, after which a second ticket must be purchased in order to re-enter the Coliseum.
2010s On May 9, 2010, almost 42 years to the day of Catfish Hunter's perfect game,
Dallas Braden pitched the
19th perfect game in Major League history at the Coliseum. A commemorative graphic was placed on the baseball outfield wall next to Rickey Henderson's retired number on May 17, their next home game. With the
Miami Marlins opening their own
ballpark in 2012, the stadium became the last remaining venue in the United States that hosted both a Major League Baseball and a National Football League team. As part of a new ten-year lease signed by the Athletics with the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Authority in 2014, the Oakland Coliseum had a new $10 million scoreboard system (two large outfield scoreboards, 36 feet tall and 145 feet wide, and two ribbon scoreboards) installed for the start of the 2015 MLB season. Also part of the new lease, the Coliseum Authority agreed to pay $1million a year, with five percent annual increases, into a fund to maintain the stadium. For the 2017 Major League Baseball season, the tarp covering a large amount of the baseball configuration has been removed, increasing the capacity to over 47,000 for the first time since 1995. The tarp remains on the football-only Mt. Davis. From 2016 until 2024, the A's invested heavily in improvements to the Coliseum. In 2017 the team created a new outdoor plaza area with food trucks and lawn games, called Championship Plaza. The West Side Club was also entirely renovated and rebranded into Shibe Park Tavern (after their former home park in Philadelphia), the Coliseum's new destination restaurant and bar with more than twenty different beers on tap. In 2018, the A's created a brand new destination indoor/outdoor bar concept in the left field corner called The Treehouse. The Treehouse has brought a new demographic of fans to the Coliseum through nightly themed discounts and through its innovative subscription ticketing product, the Treehouse Pass.
2020s On September 6, 2020, the
San Diego Padres and the Athletics played in the warmest game in the Coliseum's history. The game was played in 94-degree heat. On June 13, 2023, Oakland A's fans organized a "Reverse Boycott" protest against the ownership's poor management of the team and attempts to relocate the franchise to Las Vegas. The attendance was 27,759 as the A's won 2–1 against the Tampa Bay Rays. Fans chanted protests such as "Sell the Team", "Fisher Sucks", and "Stay in Oakland". On June 28, 2023,
Domingo Germán of the
New York Yankees threw the
24th perfect game in Major League Baseball history, defeating the
Oakland Athletics 11–0 at the Coliseum. It was the third perfect game in Coliseum history after
Dallas Braden in
2010 and
Catfish Hunter in
1968. The Athletics played their final game at both the Coliseum and in Oakland on September 26, 2024, winning 3–2 against the
Texas Rangers in front of a sellout crowd of 46,889 fans. The team relocated to
Sutter Health Park in the
Sacramento area for the 2025 through 2027 seasons, with an option for the 2028 season, until their new permanent home in
Las Vegas is completed. In March 2025,
Major League Cricket announced that it would host nine matches during its
2025 season at the Coliseum, including a season opener between the
San Francisco Unicorns and
Washington Freedom. The field was adapted for a cricket-specific configuration with 12,000 spectators and a
drop-in pitch that was used in the
Nassau County Stadium for the
2024 T20 World Cup.
Concerts Commencing in 1973, the stadium hosted an annual
Day on the Green concert series, presented by
Bill Graham and his company
Bill Graham Presents, which continued on into the early 1990s. In January 1974, singer
Marvin Gaye used the stadium as the site for his comeback to the performance stage. His acclaimed performance was later released for the live album,
Marvin Gaye Live!.
Led Zeppelin played what turned out to be their final North American concerts with twin shows during their
1977 North American Tour. Following the second show
Bill Graham barred the band from the venue and his other managed venues in response to the band's manager
Peter Grant, drummer
John Bonham and security 'coordinator'
John Bindon's brutal assault on one of Graham's security employees during the first show, following the employee's refusal to allow Grant's 11-year-old son Warren to take an item belonging to the venue as memorabilia. The death of Plant's young son Karac three days later and the resulting cancellation of the remaining tour dates rendered Graham's action academic.
Parliament-Funkadelic brought the P-Funk Earth Tour to the Coliseum on January 21, 1977. Their performance was recorded and released as a double LP set entitled
Live: P-Funk Earth Tour.
Lynyrd Skynyrd played at the stadium on July 7, 1977 during their Gimme Back My Bullets Tour. The stadium played host to
Amnesty International's
Human Rights Now! Benefit Concert on September 23, 1988. The show was headlined by
Bruce Springsteen & The
E Street Band and
Peter Gabriel and also featured
Tracy Chapman,
Youssou N'Dour,
Roy Orbison and
Joan Baez.
Metallica and
Guns N' Roses brought the
Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour to the Coliseum on September 24, 1992, with
Body Count as their opening act.
U2 played 2 nights in June 1997 at the Oakland Coliseum as part of their
PopMart tour. They were supported by
Oasis, one of the first shows of their
Be Here Now tour. Celine Dion played 1 night on October 13, 1998 at the Oakland Coliseum as part of her
Let's Talk About Love World Tour. The stadium played host to The
Gigantour on September 8, 2006, featuring performances by
Megadeth,
Lamb of God,
Opeth,
Arch Enemy,
Overkill,
Into Eternity,
Sanctity and
The SmashUp.
U2 performed at the stadium again during their
360° Tour on June 7, 2011, with
Lenny Kravitz and
Moonalice as their opening acts in front of 64,829 people. The show was originally scheduled to take place on June 16, 2010, but was postponed, due to
Bono's emergency back surgery. On August 5, 2017,
Green Day played a homecoming concert at the Coliseum. The show was part of the band's summer
tour in support of their third number1 album,
Revolution Radio. The stadium hosted the "Bay Area" edition of large hip-hop music festival
Rolling Loud in 2018 and '19. 2019 headliners included
Future,
G-Eazy,
Migos, and
Lil Uzi Vert. On October 1, 2021, and October 2, 2021, regional Mexican giant
Los Bukis closed out their reunion tour at the Coliseum, following a 25-year hiatus. The concerts were not included in the tour at first but were eventually added due to increased demand.
In popular culture The music video for the
Huey Lewis & the News song "
Jacob's Ladder" was shot at a concert at the Coliseum on December 31, 1986.
Richard Marx shot the video for "
Take This Heart" on the baseball field of the Coliseum. The stadium was the location for the 1994
Disney movie
Angels in the Outfield. Although
Angel Stadium of Anaheim (known as Anaheim Stadium at the time) was where the Angels actually played, it was damaged in the
1994 Southern California earthquake. Anaheim Stadium was used for views from the outside and aerial views, while the Coliseum was used for interior shots. Ironically, within two years of the film's release, the Oakland Coliseum itself would be drastically altered due to the Raiders moving back in. Meanwhile, after the
Los Angeles Rams relocated to St. Louis, Anaheim Stadium was renovated to be more baseball-friendly. The Coliseum was also used for scenes in the 2011 film
Moneyball. The climax of the novel
There There by
Tommy Orange takes place in the Coliseum.
Other events The stadium has hosted an
AMA Supercross Championship round since 2011. The stadium has also hosted a
Monster Jam event since 2008. ==International soccer matches==