Modell Favored 2-Team Market

Art Modell, owner of the Baltimore Ravens, said in a 1997 deposition that he believed a second team was desirable in the Los Angeles market but should not be required at a new Raider stadium.

If a second team was approved, the Raiders should be given a two-year head start in the new stadium to establish themselves, Modell said in the deposition read Thursday by Raider attorneys in the team’s lawsuit against the NFL.

The Raiders’ $1-billion lawsuit claims that the NFL forced them out of the Los Angeles market by pushing for a second team to play at a stadium proposed in 1995 at Hollywood Park. The Raiders returned to Oakland when the stadium deal failed to develop.

“If this was going to be a two-team venue, the Raiders should be the first team to go in there and establish itself,” Modell said.

NFL attorney Allen Ruby said outside court that the league merely wanted an option to put a second team in Los Angeles as a way to satisfy television networks with contracts to broadcast NFL games.

“The option was never exercised, no one disputes that,” Ruby said. “Nothing was ever put into motion.”

In his deposition, Modell also said the league discussed the possibility of holding a number of Super Bowls at the new stadium if a second team was playing there.

“I was enthralled with the idea of a semi-permanent home for the Super Bowl in Los Angeles,” Modell said. “It’s one of the nation’s best markets.”

Raider attorneys also read from depositions given by former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1981.

The Raiders have contended that a payment made by the NFL in 1960 to the Chicago Cardinals when the team moved to St. Louis constituted a league policy to pay teams that relocate. The deposition given by Rozelle explained the terms of that payment.