BERKELEY – The University of California and the Santa Clara Stadium Authority are excited to announce that they have partnered to host Cal’s home football game vs. Oregon at Levi’s® Stadium in Santa Clara next fall.

With a Friday night home game against the Ducks scheduled for Oct. 24, 2014, the move not only allows the Golden Bears to participate in the first-ever collegiate football game at Levi’s® Stadium, but it also gives the campus and new Chancellor Nicholas Dirks more time to fully engage with faculty, students, staff and the surrounding community on how best to manage weeknight games in Berkeley.

“Playing the first college football game at Levi’s® Stadium provides an exceptional opportunity for our student-athletes, alumni, students and fans to be some of the first to experience the new venue, one that will soon play host to a Super Bowl,” Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour said. “I’d like to thank the Santa Clara Stadium Authority for allowing us to reach an agreement to play at the new stadium. At the same time, it gives our campus the ability to fully study the effects of weeknight games and develop solutions that not only minimize the impact when school is in session, but also accommodate our tens of thousands of fans coming to California Memorial Stadium.”

Levi’s® Stadium is scheduled to open for the 2014 football season as the new home for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. The $1.2 billion facility seats 68,500 and will serve as the site for Super Bowl L in 2016 and the annual Fight Hunger Bowl beginning next year.

“Northern California has a tremendously rich history of college football,” said Paraag Marathe, COO of the 49ers who booked the event on behalf of the Stadium Authority. “We are very excited to be able to showcase two of the game’s most storied programs at Levi’s® Stadium. This matchup is exactly the caliber of event we will continue to bring to the premier outdoor sports and entertainment venue in the world.”

“I know that our players will embrace the chance to play Oregon at Levi's Stadium next fall, and I'm sure our fans will create a great atmosphere for our team,” Cal head coach Sonny Dykes said. “This is a special opportunity to play in a stadium where the Super Bowl will be held in the near future and one that we feel can generate a tremendous overall experience for everyone involved.”

The Cal vs. Oregon contest will be televised nationally by either ESPN or FOX, with the network to be designated at a later date. The remainder of the conference schedule will be announced by the Pac-12 Conference just after the start of the New Year. The Bears have three previously announced non-conference games on the docket –at Northwestern Aug. 30, and home games vs. Sacramento State Sept. 6 and BYU Nov. 29. The unique characteristics of playing the Cal-Oregon game at Levi’s® Stadium are expected to produce as much as a seven-figure dollar increase in incremental net revenue for the athletic department relative to a home game.

Ticket Information

In all, Cal will host six games on campus in 2014, including Stanford, UCLA and Washington, with five away contests and the one home game in Santa Clara. Cal season-ticket holders will have the opportunity to opt-in to purchase seats to the Cal-Oregon game in addition to the six-game Memorial Stadium package.

Full season-ticket holders will be able to purchase tickets to the Cal-Oregon game at a special discounted rate, and ESP members will receive complimentary tickets and parking equivalent to their normal allocation. Cal students will have access to tickets at a significant discount and complimentary transportation to the game. Specific inventory has been reserved for Levi’s® Stadium Builders License (SBL) holders who, along with suite holders, will have access to tickets prior to the general public for this event.

The season-ticket renewal period for Cal football begins on Monday, Dec. 16 when 2013 ticket holders can purchase seats for next season. At that time, they will also have the option to buy tickets to the Cal-Oregon matchup.

Additional information regarding tickets, suite availability, parking and transportation, will be available after details are finalized. For questions, fans are encouraged to contact the Cal customer service team at (800) GO BEARS (462-3277) or by clicking here.

Weeknight Games in Berkeley

“Once we learned that we would be hosting Oregon on a Friday night, we put a lot of thought into how best to manage the game,” Barbour said. “We consulted with campus leadership, alumni and members of our staff and relied on our experience from the 2012 season. Ultimately, we want to provide our student-athletes with a world-class collegiate experience. After analyzing a number of factors, including the on-campus impact on fans for a weeknight game, we reached the conclusion that playing the Friday game against Oregon at Levi's® Stadium is the best solution for the upcoming season.”

Under the current Pac-12 media rights agreement, each conference school will host a weeknight game two times in a three-year period. Cal played its first weeknight game on campus on Friday, Nov. 2, 2012, vs. Washington.

Before Cal is scheduled to hold another weeknight football game in Berkeley, the University has committed to looking at how these games impact on the campus and what steps can be taken to make them more enjoyable and accessible to fans while preserving a full day of instruction, study, research and work for faculty, staff and students.

“Going into last year’s game, we understood that there would be challenges on campus,” Barbour said. “And that’s exactly what we saw. We need to find a way to successfully host occasional weeknight games with minimal disruption to the normal schedule for the university and surrounding community.”