How did they get here? A timeline of Republic FC’s path to new downtown Railyards stadium
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the announcement made Thursday — that the city and Republic FC professional soccer team had finalized a term sheet for a new, roughly $200 million stadium in the downtown Railyards while Wilton Rancheria became a majority stakeholder — was eight years in the making for government and team officials.
“They never gave up,” Steinberg said. “They fought to make Sacramento their home and their future.”
The stadium and surrounding entertainment district, planned to open in 2027, will expand downtown to the north and are expected to rival Downtown Commons and Golden 1 Center in scope and impact. The next bureaucratic hurdle toward finalizing the plan comes Tuesday when the term sheet will be presented to the City Council for approval.
But since Republic FC’s official arrival on the field in 2014, a lot has happened over the past decade leading to Thursday’s announcement and Wilton Rancheria’s involvement.
2014: Republic FC wins USL championship in inaugural season
Sacramento Republic FC formed in 2012 and began play in 2014, joining the second-tier United Soccer League after Antigua Barracuda FC and Tampa Bay FC folded following the previous season. The league had 14 clubs then and has since grown to 24 with a two-conference format.
Republic FC played its first games at Hughes Stadium on the campus of Sacramento City College, where they nearly doubled the league’s single-game attendance record with over 20,000 fans. The club moved into 8,000-seat Bonney Field at Cal Expo midway through that season in June and later expanded the stadium to its current form seating over 11,000.
Rodrigo Lopez scored a hat trick against LA Galaxy II in the semifinals before Republic FC beat Harrisburg City Islands, 2-0, to secure the USL title in its inaugural season.
It remains Republic FC’s only championship to date.
2015: 49ers owners join Kings to invest in Republic FC
Following their first-year championship, there was momentum for Republic FC to jump from the USL to Major League Soccer. That led to then-Mayor Kevin Johnson facilitating a deal with the San Francisco 49ers to invest in the club. The Sacramento Kings had announced they were investing in the team a day before Johnson announced the 49ers’ addition at his annual state of the city address.
The agreement was contingent on Republic FC making the jump to MLS. The 49ers were looking to strengthen their foothold in the region. The team’s CEO Jed York told The Sacramento Bee at the time, “We have more 49ers season ticket holders in Sacramento than we do in San Francisco.”
Years went by and the jump to MLS never came. The 49ers, meanwhile, began investing in Leeds United, an English soccer club, in 2018 before taking on full control in 2023. Their investment in Republic FC never materialized.
2019: Ron Burkle helps Republic FC win MLS expansion bid
MLS began its booming expansion phase in 2014 when it had just 19 teams. The league in 2019 grew to 27 teams and its board of governors publicly approved a plan to expand to 30 while giving Sacramento and St. Louis exclusive negotiating rights.
Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle led Republic FC’s investment group toward earning an MLS expansion bid with plans to begin playing in a new, $300 million Railyards stadium after paying a $200 million expansion fee. Burkle had previously tried to buy the Kings in 2013 before they sold to Vivek Ranadivé.
Burkle was considered a strong investor given the success of building a new arena for the Penguins in 2010.
But then the pandemic happened.
2021: Burkle backs out
Sacramento’s MLS dreams became short-lived.
Burkle in Febuary of 2021 back out of his agreement to bring the MLS to Sacramento citing COVID-19 and rising stadium and expansion costs. The pandemic cause a yearlong delay of construction.
“We will still bring MLS to Sacramento, and we will work with the league to find a new lead investor,” Steinberg said at the time.
2022: Republic FC announces new round of stadium plans
Kevin Nagle, the team’s current chairman and managing partner, unveiled new stadium plans to The Sacramento Bee. They were different than the previous stadium plans, Nagle said, because the team needed a new home venue whether it was making the jump to MLS or staying in the USL.
The plans called for a $100 million to $150million stadium that could be expandable to eventually house MLS.
But after Nagle’s announcement, things got quiet on the stadium front due to a lack of capital investment and the ability to buy the land in the Railyards.
2023: New investor gets involved for another MLS bid
The Bee reported Canadian businesswoman Belinda Stronach was being tapped as a potential investor should MLS reconsider expansion to help cover stadium and expansion fee costs.
Stronach, who served in the Canadian Parliament in the House of Commons, heads the Stronach Group, a real estate and entertainment company that specializes in thoroughbred horse racing. The Stronach Group owns Pimlico, Santa Anita Race Track and recently closed Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley.
Stronach’s involvement with Republic FC remains viewed as dependent on the club’s jump to MLS.
2024: Wilton Rancheria becomes Republic FC majority stakeholder
“What’s different here is we found the right investor,” Steinberg said Thursday of the Wilton Rancheria tribe.
Steinberg said negotiations with Republic FC, Wilton Rancheria and the city had been ongoing for nearly a year before terms were agreed to, making the tribe the majority stakeholder in the team and financial backers for the new stadium in the Railyards.
Following the City Council’s pending approval, the team said it plans to finalize the stadium design and break ground in the coming months. There were no renderings of the stadium at Thursday’s press conference because the design has not been finalized since the majority of the ownership was transferred.
The term sheet, meanwhile, said the stadium would be privately financed and cost $175 million with $42 million in related infrastructure.
This story was originally published November 8, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
