Raiders owner Al Davis finally admits under oath he made millions on move back to Oakland

[FENWAY]

July 3, 2003
SportsLine.com wire reports


SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Raiders owner Al Davis acknowledged during cross-examination Thursday that he and co-owners earned millions of dollars after the team moved back to Oakland despite his claims that the franchise shift was a financial disaster.

Davis acknowledged that $24 million was paid to partners -- including $7 million to himself -- in the first three years after the Raiders returned to Oakland from Los Angeles.

Those cash payments -- one of the attractions of moving to Oakland -- surpassed the nearly $6 million the owners received in their last three years in Los Angeles.

The lawyer representing the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum said Davis got richer from the move, contrary to his claims that he was defrauded in a bad business deal by stadium officials who lured him back on a false promise of a packed stadium.

"This was the first time this morning when people learned how much Mr. Davis earned personally from all this," lawyer James Brosnahan said outside of court. "You would think that listening to him talk for the last five years that he was going to be homeless."

Davis revealed distribution payments to co-owners during cross-examination in his $1 billion fraud case against the coliseum, its lead negotiator, Ed DeSilva, and the defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

He has insisted during most of his five days on the witness stand that he has lost money in Oakland and the value of the team has plummeted. He said it would have been worth more if he moved to Baltimore or if the NFL hadn't killed a deal for him to build a stadium in the Los Angeles area.

"Right now we're 30th in the league of 32 teams in revenue," Davis said outside of court. "We're struggling for our life."

Davis' lawyer said the payments Davis and his seven limited partners received were a fraction of what they should have earned if the coliseum was sold out as promised.

Davis, who turns 74 on Friday, is the team's managing general partner. He owns 38 percent of the team he joined in 1963 as coach and general manager, gradually accumulating shares after being elevated to partner.

In questioning that has appeared to irritate and amuse Davis, he has repeatedly maintained that he was guaranteed a sellout by coliseum officials. He said the promise could not be put in writing because if there were guarantees, taxpayers would revolt -- as they did when the team prepared to move to Oakland in 1990.

Davis acknowledged that he should not have relied on Oakland officials to sell tickets.

"Here's the thing where I made the mistake," Davis said at a news conference in 1996 that was played for jurors in Sacramento County Superior Court. "I admit that I made the mistake. I should have presold it to know whether it could be done or not."

Davis said he was unaware of problems with ticket sales as he inked the 15-year deal to return on Aug. 7, 1995. He said he wasn't told thousands of licenses to buy season tickets were in limbo because credit cards had been rejected and checks had bounced.

However, notes taken by coliseum officials at a meeting with Davis in the hours before he signed the deal showed that others jotted down his concerns along with the numbers of seats that remained unsold.

"I don't know when these notes were written, but Al Davis was in the room and these things were not said," Davis testified.