The pair are bringing America’s sport again to the Bay Space courtesy of the Pioneer League’s Oakland Ballers.
Billie Joe Armstrong of Inexperienced Day performs onstage in the course of the FIREAID Profit Live performance for California Fireplace Aid at The Kia Discussion board on January 30, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif.
John Shearer/Getty Photographs for FIREAID
Billie Joe Armstrong is East Bay all day. The Green Day frontman has lengthy flown the flag of his hometown of Oakland, CA, and nothing has fired him up greater than the heartbreaking loss over the previous few years of the proud metropolis’s skilled sports activities franchises, the Oakland A’s and NFL’s Raiders.
Now he’s doing one thing about it.
The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Wednesday (March 5) that Armstrong has joined fellow Oaktown legend rapper Too $hort as a part of the possession group of the Oakland Ballers, the brand new unbiased Pioneer League staff that as of this yr would be the Bay’s solely skilled baseball staff; the A’s are enjoying in Sacramento for the subsequent two years forward of a deliberate transfer to Las Vegas in 2028 and the Raiders left in 2020 for Las Vegas.
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“That is all about bringing households to a ball sport,” Armstrong instructed THR. “After the A’s left, the city was heartbroken. The Ballers are going to deliver good vibes again to Oakland and the broader East Bay.” The privately owned staff performed their first season in 2024 within the new 4,000-capacity Raimondi Park, which drew baseball lovers for its first season with a novel supply that allowed greater than 2,200 followers to purchase a share within the staff and take seats on its board; the minimal buy-in is $510, a nod to the Bay Space’s space code.
$hort Dogg instructed THR that he thinks the Ballers are a shining instance of what his metropolis’s worth proposition. “Oakland is the connection, it’s the varied metropolis of all walks of life and cultures. We respect one another’s originality, you may be you and along with your folks,” he mentioned. “It’s ‘I f–ok with you regardless.”
And, not for nothing, the “Blow the Whistle” MC — who mentioned he labored as a vendor on the previous Oakland Coliseum in highschool — loves the identify, too. “If I can’t brag on a big-league franchise I can brag on being a Baller,” he mentioned of the staff whose identify is a pointed rejoinder to former MLB staff the A’s. The 2 musicians purchased in as a part of the second spherical of neighborhood funding that opened this week, geared toward elevating $2 million.
Whereas the quantity of Armstrong and Too $hort’s funding has not been revealed, one of many Ballers’ co-founders, Bryan Carmel, mentioned their stake isn’t just one other instance of a celeb swooping in to try to goose a staff’s prospects, a la Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ buy of revival of Welsh soccer staff Wrexham, chronicled on the FX sequence Welcome to Wrexham.
Carmel mentioned Armstrong’s relationship with the Ballers started when the rocker and his spouse showed up at a game last year. “I appeared over and there they had been, sitting in entrance of my dad and mom,” Carmel mentioned. “After which I appeared once more and so they had been on the merch stand and Billie Joe was shopping for a T-shirt. It was loopy as a result of we had been enjoying Inexperienced Day songs earlier — not as a result of he was there however simply because we’re an Oakland membership so we play Inexperienced Day songs.”
Armstrong spray-painted the Oakland B’s identify over the Oakland A’s brand on the Rogers Heart in Toronto final yr.
“Sports activities within the Bay Space have been reworking during the last couple of years. We’ve had some emotional goodbyes to groups we grew up with, however lately there was a significant shift,” Armstrong instructed The Athletic. “The Oakland Ballers and the Oakland Roots and Soul signify every thing I like and grew up on within the Bay Space. The welcoming environment, DIY perspective and the folks behind it make me proud to be an investor and help the subsequent technology of groups youngsters within the Bay can be pleased with.”
The Ballers hosted an open try-out final yr that led to the signing of history-making right-handed pitcher Kelsie Whitmore, their first feminine participant and, in 2022, the primary lady to signal knowledgeable contract with a Main League Baseball Accomplice League staff. The staff will kick off their second season on Mary 20.
