Tagliabue Continues to Testify in Suit

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue testified Wednesday that a 1995 plan to build a stadium at Hollywood Park would have yielded $4.4 million more per year on luxury suites and club seats for a second NFL team at the facility than for the Raider franchise.

Wrapping up six days of testimony in the team’s $1-billion Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit against the league, Tagliabue said under questioning by Raider attorney Joseph Alioto that the proposal would have given the second team more because it would not have to split such premium income with Hollywood Park.

In addition, the deal called for Hollywood Park to make $20 million annually from the Raiders, compared to $7.2 million from a second team. And the second team could have left, presumably for a new stadium of its own, after five years. The Raiders would have been locked in for 20 years.

Alioto said to Tagliabue: “I’ll ask you the question straightaway, sir: The terms [for the second team] are better?”

“No,” Tagliabue said.

Later, when being questioned by league attorney Allen Ruby, Tagliabue said it would be unfair to look at “individual specific numbers” rather than the “totality of the dollars in the aggregate.” The Raiders wouldn’t pay rent and would have had naming-rights advantages, Tagliabue said. An “equitable” calculation, he said, is what the league was “trying to accomplish.”

The issue of a second team is a key in the case.

The league claims the second team was an option only--one the Raiders could have chosen if they wanted not just one but two Super Bowls at the site as well as access to thousands of tickets to those Super Bowls. The Raiders claim the finances of the deal could only work with more than one Super Bowl, making any “choice” a sham.

The team claims the only choice it had when the Hollywood Park deal could not be closed was to return to Oakland. It also claims it still owns the L.A. market for NFL football. In all, the Raiders are seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The NFL denies any wrongdoing.

Throughout the first two weeks of the case, with Tagliabue on the stand, the Raiders have hammered at the notion that no other team in recent NFL history, in planning for a new stadium, has had to consider the notion of a second team sharing the grounds.

The New York Giants and New York Jets share Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., but the Jets moved in years after the stadium opened.

Plainly put, the Raiders’ position is that the league wanted them out of Los Angeles. Among other reasons, the league could in theory then put an expansion franchise here--which would generate an expansion fee of hundreds of millions of dollars to be shared among the league’s other clubs.

Tagliabue has strongly disputed that position. He testified repeatedly that the league worked hard to keep the Raiders in L.A. Ruby said to him on Wednesday: “The Raiders contend that the league . . . forced them out of Los Angeles. True or false?”

“False,” Tagliabue responded.

Following Tagliabue to the stand was Carmen Policy, president of the Cleveland Browns, who testified that “certain people” in the league felt in 1995 that a “fresh start” in Los Angeles would be in the league’s “best interests.”

Under questioning by Alioto, Policy--a former San Francisco 49er executive--testified that some owners felt, “If Al wanted to go to Oakland, let him go to Oakland.” He did not say who or how many.

Ruby did not get to ask Policy questions on Wednesday; Policy is due to return to the stand today.