A Summit Meeting Might Solve Raider Mess

You know, of course, that President Bush has called a meeting with President Gorbachev at Helsinki for the purpose of discussing the residence problem of the Los Angeles Raiders, your oldest permanently established floating franchise.

Bush isn’t asking the Soviets to mediate. What he wants, most of all, is to tap their brains on this vital issue, threatening the sanity of those who follow professional football.

Standing on the doorsill of a new season, which they open Sunday at the Coliseum against Denver, the Raiders are in a delicate stage of negotiation whose details have been gleaned here with no thought to danger or research expense.

To start with, the team is dealing with entities in Los Angeles and in Oakland. In Los Angeles, the Raiders are in continuing discussions with Tom Bradley, mayor; Bill Robertson, member of the Coliseum Commission, and Ed Snider, chief of Spectacor, a firm that manages and, in some cases, builds stadiums.

Spectacor operates the Coliseum, paying a percentage of its take to the commission.

To remain in Los Angeles, where their lease expires the end of 1991, the Raiders are asking that a $58 million lawsuit filed against them by the Coliseum be dismissed.

The lawsuit charges breach of contract, stemming from a failure on the part of the Raiders to build luxury boxes in the stadium as they originally planned.

The Raiders contend they pulled out when the Coliseum welshed on an agreement to renovate the stadium.

For the lawsuit to be dismissed, six of the nine commission votes are required. If they would be forthcoming, it then would be incumbent upon Spectacor to consummate a deal with the Raiders.

It would borrow money to reconstruct the Coliseum into a modern arena seating maybe 62,000. The Coliseum would contribute a certain amount of cash towards this project.

The deal might be no problem if the Raiders weren’t asking for a $10 million deposit, nonrefundable.

They argue that if the deal explodes, they should be rewarded for the time they will have wasted setting up a deal elsewhere.

They collected such a sum from Irwindale, where, indeed, the deal exploded.

Since deals involving the Raiders also have exploded in Los Angeles and Oakland, Spectacor understands the dangers.

Environmentalists are a threat. Taxpayer lawsuits are a threat. Those who would preserve the historic structure of the 67-year-old Coliseum are a threat. Anyone who doesn’t like Al Davis is a threat.

The way the situation is explained here, Spectacor has offered to put up the $10 million deposit, with the proviso that $8 million be returned in the event the deal, for any reason, explodes.

In such circumstances, the Raiders would bag $2 million for their lingering trouble.

The Raiders and Spectacor are still negotiating this figure, but not negotiable on the part of the Raiders would be a decision by the Coliseum to continue the lawsuit.

Oakland, which defaulted once in a deal with the Raiders, recently came back with a new proposition, offering five weeks ago to put up $127 million for a stadium renovation and a $31.9 million loan to the team, repayable with interest two years hence.

Given 45 days to act, the Raiders never had the opportunity within that time frame.

Oakland last week asked for 30 days more, claiming it needed additional time to make engineering surveys and draw up the papers.

Whether the boat is rocking again in Oakland isn’t known.

But even if it isn’t, the L.A. Coliseum Commission contends that if the Raiders can put $10 million into their pants, as a contribution from Spectacor, it is a better deal than borrowing from Oakland.

Now we address reports of the Raiders fleeing immediately to Oakland if they should happen to make a deal there. This intriguing information was repeated by ESPN, whose correspondent assured the republic that chances of such a quick shift were climbing to 90%.

It is possible the correspondent was climbing more than the chances. If the Raiders would attempt to buy out of their Coliseum lease this year, on what figure would they base the payoff?

Would the Coliseum permit them to pay rental on projected attendance this year? Would it be based on last year’s attendance? Or on an attendance average over the past five years?

And how would the Raiders settle with the state, which owns the parking lots? The state uses much of that money to bankroll its museum in Exposition Park.

You are talking about complicated arguments here--so complicated it is most unlikely the Raiders would try to escape the Coliseum at least until the start of 1991.

That’s provided they escape at all.

If they don’t, they are most anxious to move swiftly with Los Angeles negotiators, considering what is happening to Raider gates during this period of indecision.

For the exhibition game with Dallas, the crowd was announced at 28,000. For the one last Saturday with San Diego, it was announced at 25,000.

Such numbers are grim enough, but press box auditors are still submitting the Raiders for a Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

If those crowds were as big as stated, King Hussein is Art Shell.