A professional soccer team affiliated with Major League Soccer’s Next Pro league is coming to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, with play slated to start at the historic Kezar Stadium within the next two years.
The deal to use the stadium, which opened in 1925 and was later the original home of the San Francisco 49ers pro football team, was described by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office as a public-private partnership that will include the new franchise making $10 million worth of upgrades to the stadium at the southeast corner of the park, while preserving it for public and high school sports.
Golden City Football Club was co-founded by Marc Rohrer, a Wells Fargo financial advisor and former professional German soccer player, according to his LinkedIn profile, and Geoff Oltmans, a managing director at the tech-focused private equity firm Silver Lake Technology Management.
The two have been longtime advisors on the Bay Area Development Council, one of several regional councils that are affiliated with the U.S. Soccer Federation and seek to grow the sport by finding new investors, markets and communities to expand professional and developmental play.
The two said in a joint statement that they were “thrilled” to bring professional soccer to the city.
“Launching Golden City Football Club isn’t just about fielding a team; it’s about creating new opportunities for our community, families, and athletes to experience together the world’s most accessible and unifying sport,” the statement from Rohrer and Oltmans said.
The team will play in MLS’ Next Pro league, founded in 2022, that is designed to cap its youth developmental league, MLS Next, with a pathway to top MLS clubs, which are called MLS first teams by the organization.
The leagues do not operate with a relegation or promotion system as with many international soccer leagues, but instead operate like Major League Baseball’s Minor League, where players can play at a professional level and be called up to sign contracts with teams in the majors, but teams do not switch between leagues depending on their performance.
Some teams are affiliated with MLS first franchises, but Golden City Football Club will operate independently. It is expected to start play in either 2026 or 2027 in the league that currently has 29 teams, not including GCFC.
Lurie and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, whose District 5 includes the stadium, will introduce a resolution at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday to finalize the 15-year agreement to use Kezar. The deal has two optional extensions of five years each.
“This announcement is more than just a new team — it represents a new era for San Francisco sports,” Lurie said in a statement. “The new GCFC team will bring new life to Kezar Stadium and the neighborhoods around it, and investments in the stadium will benefit the whole community.”
The partnership will have Golden City FC invest in a new, natural grass field, all new seating for the 10,000-seat stadium, a high-definition LED scoreboard and modern sound system. Improvements will also include a new concession area, accessibility redesigns, and a renovated press box.
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