Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:34:00

The stadium that proved Sacramento was a soccer city went up in a matter of months on the state fairgrounds. Heart Health Park at 1600 Exposition Boulevard, on the Cal Expo grounds, opened on 20 June 2014 as Bonney Field, a roughly 3-million-dollar, 8,000-seat pop-up built at speed for Sacramento Republic FC's debut USL season - and the club promptly sold out every remaining home date on its way to winning the 2014 USL championship in the stadium's first year. The formula was deliberately simple: bleacher stands hard against a full-sized natural grass pitch, funded through a partnership of Ovations Food Services, Cal Expo and the club. Demand rewrote the plans immediately. A January 2015 expansion added seating on the north endline and east sideline, lifting capacity to today's 11,569, and the venue became the model other ambitious lower-division American clubs copied - the first purpose-built "pop-up stadium" of its kind in the league. Naming rights travelled from Bonney Plumbing to Papa Murphy's Park in March 2017 and to Heart Health Park in 2021 under Western Health Advantage. The PRO Rugby competition's Sacramento Express shared the ground in 2016, and international friendlies, concerts and fair-season events fill the calendar around Republic FC. The atmosphere carried the club's MLS ambitions for a decade: Republic FC's famously loud supporters made the compact ground one of the USL Championship's best home fields, including the 2022 run to the US Open Cup final that beat three MLS sides. The next chapter is under construction - Republic Stadium at the downtown Railyards, a 20,000-plus-seat soccer-first venue backed by tribal owner Wilton Rancheria, is slated to open in 2028 as the club's permanent home. Until then the Cal Expo ground remains what it has been since 2014: proof of concept turned beloved home, ten minutes from downtown with the state fair for a neighbour.