Tagliabue: NFL Wanted the Raiders to Stay in L.A.

Despite Raider owner Al Davis’ dalliances with other cities, the NFL tried hard to keep the team in Los Angeles until it bolted for Oakland in 1995, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue testified Tuesday.

Called back to the stand on the sixth day of the Raiders’ $1-billion lawsuit against the league in Los Angeles Superior Court, Tagliabue said Davis flirted with Oakland in 1990 and in 1994 fielded inquiries from Baltimore, Memphis, Tenn., Orlando, Fla., and from Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

After the Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles in January 1994, damaging the Coliseum, where the Raiders were playing, Tagliabue said the league even undertook a campaign to film promotional ads for the Raiders and then to air them on NBC, which at the time televised AFC games.

Given that, league attorney Allen Ruby asked Tagliabue, did Davis ever inquire why the league would try “so hard” in 1994 to keep the Raiders in Los Angeles but want them to move in 1995? No, Tagliabue said.

Ruby followed that question with another: “What do you think about that notion, Mr. Tagliabue?”

Tagliabue responded: “Not very much, to put it mildly.”

The commissioner’s testimony was intended by the league to rebut the Raiders’ claim that the league sought to drive the team out of L.A. and thus interfered with a proposed $250-million stadium at Hollywood Park.

Ruby guided Tagliabue through a string of events in 1994 and 1995, building toward what appeared to be a deal for a stadium at Hollywood Park--one that never was consummated.

Tagliabue testified that Davis told him in a phone call on June 9, 1995, that he was “going to do the deal” at Hollywood Park and keep the team in Los Angeles.

On June 10, however, a news conference at which Tagliabue said he understood the deal was going to be announced turned out to be a dud. There was no deal. On June 23, the Raiders announced they were going to Oakland.

Davis, outside court, chafed at the suggestion that Tagliabue had accurately relayed his end of the June 9 phone call, calling Tagliabue’s recitation “another lie in a raft of lies.”