Expert Retained to Negotiate Coliseum Management Deal

The Coliseum Commission on Wednesday hired an expert on sports-stadium financing to negotiate a deal by Feb. 1 for the private management of the Coliseum-Sports Arena complex, and General Manager Joel Ralph said a preferred bidder will be selected “within a week.”

Acting with dispatch in the absence of its outgoing president, Alexander Haagen, the commission voted unanimously to retain the services of Lawrence G. Greenberg, a recently retired partner in the accounting firm of Coopers and Lybrand.

Greenberg will be paid $210 an hour, up to a maximum of $60,000, to evaluate the two existing private management bids and then negotiate a deal. Greenberg was identified as the project manager for the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis and as having played a major role in arranging financing for the Hoosierdome in Indianapolis and Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami.

Greenberg could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Any deal he negotiated would be subject to the approval of the commission.

The two business groups bidding for a private management contract are a partnership of MCA Inc.’s Music Entertainment Group and Spectacor Management, and a partnership of Weintraub International Enterprises and Madison Square Garden Corp.

The MCA-Spectacor bid at present calls for larger payments to the commission than the Weintraub-Madison Square Garden one, and Irving Azoff, head of Music Entertainment Group, said Wednesday that he has been told by Coliseum officials that his group will almost certainly be the preferred bidder. Negotiations then would go forward with that group.

Ralph did not say who is likely to be the preferred bidder. However, he referred to unspecified “gray areas” in the Weintraub bid and said he and Greenberg would be in touch soon with Weintraub about them.

Ralph said he would sit in with Greenberg on virtually all talks, and he expressed hope that a deal would be ready for approval by the commission within six weeks, about 10 days before the Feb. 1 deadline.

There is a sense of urgency about the matter because of recent suggestions that negotiations might resume with the Los Angeles Raiders over terms to keep the professional football team playing in the Coliseum should the Raiders’ deal to move to Irwindale collapse.

Haagen, who had a falling out last spring with Raiders owner Al Davis before Davis’ decision to go to Irwindale, said last Friday that he will leave the Coliseum Commission when his term as president expires in February. This presumably would smooth the way for a new round of talks with the Raiders.

Haagen was in Europe Wednesday and unavailable for comment. When he is in the chair, discussions often last for hours. Wednesday’s decision took less than one hour.

The MCA-Spectacor bid calls for $10 million in initial investments to improve the Sports Arena, and it says that if the Raiders remain at the Coliseum, the partners will pay the Coliseum Commission $1 million a year.

If the Raiders go ahead with their plans to leave, the payments would be $525,000 a year, plus 20% of any net operating income of more than $1.78 million a year.

The Weintraub-Madison Square Garden bid calls for initial improvements, if the Raiders remain in the Coliseum, totaling $5 million for the Sports Arena and $3 million for the Coliseum.

The partners in this case would retain the first $500,000 in annual operating income but pay the commission half of the next $500,000 and 25% of anything beyond $1 million.

Both bidding groups have said they might be prepared to improve their bids in formal negotiations.