RAIDERS RETURN TO OAKLAND : Now Local NFL Fans to Know How It Feels to Be Free Agents

Last Nov. 13, the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys played “the game of the season,” but it wasn’t televised by Fox in Los Angeles.

A Ram-Raider game that day at Anaheim Stadium had sold out, freeing it to be televised by NBC at 1 p.m.

NFL television policies did not permit Fox to show another 1 p.m. game opposite the Rams and Raiders. The 49er-Cowboy game in San Francisco was also starting at 1.

So Fox gave L.A. Chicago and Miami at 10 a.m., instead of the 49ers’ exciting 21-14 victory over the Cowboys.

Now, with the Raiders presumably gone and the Rams already gone, the Los Angeles market will not be burdened by NFL TV restrictions.

“Yes,” said Val Pinchbeck, the NFL’s director of broadcasting, “the networks will be able to show whatever games they deem to have the most interest in Los Angeles. There will be no restrictions.”

Being in a non-NFL market does have its advantages for television viewers, but there still can be problems.

Orlando, Fla., the nation’s No. 22 market and the largest without an NFL team except for No. 21 Sacramento, learned recently that it will not get as many Miami Dolphin telecasts as usual because it is now a secondary market of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars.

Orlando will get five road Dolphin games instead of eight because the Jaguars deemed Orlando a secondary market, meaning the NBC affiliate in Orlando must show all eight Jaguar road games.

Might L.A. end up a secondary market of the San Diego Chargers?

“No, that’s not going to happen,” Pinchbeck said.

Charger spokesman Bill Johnston also said he did not think that would happen, although he also said it’s too early to address that issue.

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Yes, John Madden talked with Raider owner Al Davis the day before he went on San Francisco radio station KNBR and announced that a move back to Oakland was imminent.

But Madden said Davis did not intentionally plant the story with him.

“Al doesn’t work that way,” Madden said while in Los Angeles at a Fox affiliates’ meeting.

“What Al said indirectly, and what other people I talked to said, led me to speculate the move would be announced any day.”

Pat Summerall, Madden’s broadcast partner, said he was with Madden at a studio in Madden’s hometown of Pleasanton, Calif., working on a new Madden video football game when Davis called late Tuesday afternoon.

Madden, who does a daily five-minute spot by phone at 8:10 a.m. with KNBR morning show hosts Frank Dill and Kevin Radich, had been recently pushing for a Raider move back to Oakland.

A month ago, he began saying it might happen. Wednesday morning, he was more emphatic, saying “an announcement may come today.”

Madden said Davis did not know Madden was going to make such a proclamation.

“Heck, I didn’t even know I was going to say it,” Madden said. “I got on the air and just started going.”

Might Davis be upset?

“He certainly might,” Madden said. “I haven’t talked with him since we talked on Tuesday.”