Deal’s Language Bothered Raiders

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue admitted in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday that he changed critical language in an option agreement on a proposed football stadium for the Raiders at Hollywood Park, but denied charges he did so to sabotage the deal.

Tagliabue was called back to the witness stand by the NFL’s legal defense on the final day of testimony in the Raiders’ $1-billion lawsuit against the league, but he spent much of the day being grilled by Raider attorney Joseph Alioto. Alioto asserted that the commissioner went against his own league president and members of a special committee in pushing for language that would allow a second team to begin playing at the Inglewood facility concurrently with the Raiders.

The Raiders had been assured up until June 6, 1995, that they would have at least a two-year head start on a second team. They are maintaining in their lawsuit that the league reneged on key points in the stadium deal, forcing them to abandon the Hollywood Park project and return to Oakland in the summer of 1995.

Tagliabue testified he changed an option agreement dated June 6 in order to give the league more “flexibility.” The original language stated the league would decide on a second team for Hollywood Park 30 days after the Raiders’ first game in the new stadium. If construction was on schedule, that would have been in October 1997.

“I didn’t think it made any sense,” Tagliabue said. “It was too rigid.”

So Tagliabue had the language changed to stipulate a league decision would be made “no later” than March of the year after the Raiders’ first season at Hollywood Park.

That, Tagliabue said, would give league officials more time to assess the Raiders’ success in the new stadium and the prospects for a second team.

What bothered the Raiders were the added words “no later,” meaning the decision could come much sooner, in time for the new team to start playing along with the Raiders in 1997.

Why were those words added?

The reason was never explained in court, but outside, a league official said it was to placate the Fox network, which had lost its L.A. area NFC team with the departure of the Rams from Anaheim a few month earlier.

“We wanted it later, not earlier,” testified Tagliabue, referring to a second team.

Alioto asked Tagliabue why he had not discussed the change in language with Raider owner Al Davis in a phone conversation the two had on June 9. Tagliabue said he was under the impression that Davis had been informed of the change by Hollywood Park chief executive R.D. Hubbard.

Tagliabue testified that, if he had known Davis was unhappy with the amended agreement, he would have tried to satisfy the Raider owner’s objections.

Alioto stressed to the jury through his questioning that the very idea of dictating to a team it must share its stadium is unprecedented in league history.

Tagliabue said the Raiders had the right to resist a second club. “We gave them the option,” he testified.

But he conceded that would have meant the awarding of only one Super Bowl, rather than the two to be granted if there were two teams. According to previous testimony, Hollywood Park officials needed two Super Bowls to make the stadium a financial success.

Asked if the idea of the second team was his, Tagliabue said: “Defeat is an orphan, but victory has a thousand fathers. In this case, it’s hard to remember who the father was.”

He said he thought it was Kansas City Chief owner Lamar Hunt.

Alioto asked Tagliabue about a stipulation that the Raiders could not share in profits generated by the second team even though that team would be allowed to charge lower prices than the Raiders.

“Knowing that the second team could [come in at the same time], charge less and would have only a five-year lease [as opposed to the Raiders’ 20-year lease], you understood that the Raiders would be unsuccessful,” Alioto said to Tagliabue.

“No, that’s completely wrong,” responded Tagliabue.

The commissioner said that, while the Raiders couldn’t receive any revenue from the second team, they could have adjusted their 50-50 split with Hollywood Park based on the fact that stadium officials would be receiving added money from the second team.

“They could have readjusted their revenue to make it 60-40,” Tagliabue testified.

Outside the courtroom, NFL attorney Allen Ruby said the whole issue was a moot point.

“Now that we are at the end [of the trial],” Ruby said, “we can say there is not a shred of evidence, not from the NFL, not from the Raiders, not from Hollywood Park, that anybody intended to actually place a second team in Hollywood Park.”

Also at issue in Monday’s session were positions previously taken by both sides regarding territorial rights to the Los Angeles area. In their lawsuit, the Raiders claim they still hold those rights.

The NFL presented a Raider petition from the 1980s in which the team maintained it only had the right to play in the Coliseum.

In response, the Raiders presented a counterclaim, written by Tagliabue when he was an NFL attorney in the ‘80s, in which he said, “The Raider relocation substantially diminished or destroyed what the NFL could have obtained by selling the right to generate an NFL franchise in Los Angeles.”

The NFL will close out its case with the reading of depositions today.

Jury instructions will be given Wednesday, with final arguments Thursday and Friday, and jury deliberations expected to begin Monday.