NEWS ANALYSIS : Time Is Nearing for Raiders Owner Davis to Show His Hand

After nearly three years of skillfully soliciting ever more lucrative offers from various cities desiring to be the home of his football team, Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis may soon find himself at last constrained to show his hand more openly.

If he doesn’t give some public indication of his direction, the balloon of expanding offers could burst, and he could find himself with less-attractive options. On Thursday, Oakland raised the bidding to new heights with a $660-million offer, up slightly from figures cited by officials there earlier.

The next month could be crucial. This has become clear from recent comments made by principals among bidders in Sacramento, Oakland and Los Angeles, and especially by certain deadlines in the three cities, now fast approaching:

- Sacramento authorities have put a Feb. 28 deadline on their offer of $50 million in public money as a “franchise fee” to the Raiders for moving to the state capital. Municipal leaders have indicated in recent days that the offer--which would complement a much larger offer from private businessmen--won’t be extended without solid assurance that the Raiders are coming.

- Oakland, which unveiled details of its $660-million offer to the Raiders on Thursday, has scheduled a March 12 vote on approval of the offer by the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Without those approvals, the Oakland offer, a considerable risk of taxpayer money, would be dead.

- The deadline for introduction of state legislation that would allow a way around environmental or historic preservation hurdles to a quick demolition and reconstruction of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is March 2. If no such legislation is forthcoming, Los Angeles faces long delays in proceeding with any Coliseum reconstruction project.

Davis has suggested that in that event, he would want an up-front payment of millions of dollars to keep him playing in Los Angeles pending a later decision on the feasibility of the Coliseum project. But this idea is not popular with the Los Angeles bidders, who recall that Irwindale made such a payment of $10 million to Davis in 1987, only to lose the money when it was unable to deliver on its promises of a stadium there.

People close to the situation point out that should the Sacramento offer be allowed to lapse, Davis would be left with only two live bidders--Oakland and Los Angeles--and there could be a temptation in both those cities to pare down the bids.

Renovation, instead of reconstruction, of the Los Angeles Coliseum is mentioned as a possibility, while the legislative bodies in Oakland might be tempted to cut back on the size of an offer that could commit area taxpayers for years.

According to this theory, Davis is at his strongest now, with all three bids still open.

In Sacramento this week, pessimism about the likelihood of that city winning the Raiders was expressed by Gregg Lukenbill, the developer who has been the prime mover for businessmen seeking to build Davis a $120-million stadium there. He said his communications with Davis recently have been difficult and added darkly, “We have what he wants, but we’re in the wrong market for it.”

He said Davis has seemed reluctant lately to decide to move from a huge metropolis such as Los Angeles to medium-sized Sacramento.

Davis, as one might expect given the need to keep all three bids alive while he makes up his mind, was saying privately this week that Sacramento remains a real possibility.

The Raiders owner for years has been an extremely adroit negotiator who seldom if ever makes an offer of his own while waiting for the bids to keep going up. But he may soon be forced to say more, and say it publicly, if he wants to keep Sacramento or the others hanging. Either that, or make up his mind and announce where his team will play in the future.

In Oakland, confidence was expressed by officials Thursday that Davis’ choice will be to move there. “We have flat cleaned out the competition,” said Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata, a prime booster and negotiator for the plan, which has far larger dollar amounts in its guarantees than any made in either Sacramento or Los Angeles.

Perata added, “The indication has been given every step of the way” that Davis would accept the Oakland offer if it wins municipal and county approval. But he conceded that Davis had not approved the deal yet, nor had he spoken to Davis about it.

The Oakland plan, as described Thursday, would give the Raiders $59.9 million in government “loans” as a franchise fee and put $53.5 million into expanding the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to 63,500 seats from its current 50,000. Also, 67 more luxury boxes would be built.

In addition, the Raiders would be guaranteed by the city and county $27.8 million in ticket revenues each year through the 15-year term of the lease, and would receive other revenue guarantees totaling $130 million more.

The local governments would raise money for the initial loans to the Raiders through the sale of bonds that would be repaid by ticket sale receipts beyond those turned over to the team. Although officials express confidence the ticket receipts would be sufficient to avoid taxpayer liability, the taxpayers would be liable in case of a shortfall.