Coliseum Commission Drops Suit After Raiders Pay Back Rent

Lawyers for the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission said Thursday that the Raiders football franchise has paid all $184,000 in back rent it owed for playing in the stadium in 1988 and the first games of 1989 and that the commission in return has dropped its lawsuit seeking the rent payments.

Representatives of the Coliseum complex’s private managers, the business partnership of MCA Inc. and Spectacor Management Group, said they viewed the Raider payments after nearly a year of dispute as an overture by team owner Al Davis to resume talks about a Coliseum reconstruction that could keep the Raiders in Los Angeles.

Pending Litigation

But the commission’s chief counsel in the Raiders matter, Marshall Grossman, reiterated his position that no talks can begin until Davis joins in signing a declaration by all parties that whatever is said in the discussions cannot be used in other pending litigation in which the commission is suing the Raiders for $57 million for alleged breach of contract.

The commission has declined to allow the private management representatives, Irving Azoff and Antonio G. Tavares, to hold discussions with Davis until the agreement is signed. And Thursday, Grossman said that a proposed compromise by the private managers is not acceptable because it is not precisely written.

This position, and an extreme coolness by commissioners at a closed meeting Wednesday toward the private managers’ proposal that they be given a ground lease to build a new indoor arena for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball franchise, has led to increasing tension in the relationship between the managers and the commission.

Azoff has said that MCA and Spectacor were under the impression, when they signed on as Coliseum complex managers last year, that their job was to find ways of renovating both the Coliseum and Sports Arena to keep the Raiders and the Clippers as tenants, as well as build new business for the facilities. He said they expected the commission to go along with their suggestions.

On Aug. 16, when the private managers offered to build the Clippers a $100-million indoor arena, commission President Richard Riordan was quick to endorse the offer. “I’m very enthusiastic about this,” he said then. “It’s the type of forward thinking we need to keep teams in the Coliseum complex.”

But Riordan, traveling in Scotland, was present only by speaker-phone when the commission met Wednesday, after several weeks of requests by the private managers for a meeting. Other commissioners were extremely downbeat about the offer.

One alternate commissioner, Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, suggested that the private managers were guilty of a conflict of interest for proposing a lease of land to themselves that would make them money.

Finally, commission Vice President Matthew Grossman, acting as chairman, appointed a committee to indefinitely examine the private lease for a new arena and other options, such as a refurbished Sports Arena. At the same time, the commission refused to discuss new talks with the Raiders because their attorney, Marshall Grossman--no relation to Matthew Grossman--was absent.

Tavares reportedly expressed his disappointment to the commission in forceful terms, telling them that he had expected the Clippers offer and the chance of new talks with the Raiders to get a warm reception. He suggested that without a new arena, the Clippers may depart for Orange County or elsewhere. Tavares noted that Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling has already rejected the idea of refurbishing the Sports Arena.

Tavares would not talk publicly about the situation Thursday. But Azoff expressed concern that the present Coliseum Commission--as past commissions have with other professional teams, such as the Rams--may procrastinate so long that any chance of retaining the Raiders and Clippers in Los Angeles will be lost.

The private managers have said they believe that Davis is having second thoughts about moving the Raiders north and wants to fully explore his Coliseum options. Marshall Grossman, by contrast, has voiced suspicions that Davis would merely use Coliseum talks to scare Oakland and Sacramento into making better offers.

Davis did not return a call asking for comment. The Clippers’ Sterling said he had no comment.

‘A Deadbeat’

Outside Wednesday’s commission meeting, before it was revealed that the Raiders were paying their back rent, one commissioner, Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, told reporters he considered Davis “a deadbeat” for not paying the rent.

Rather than holding talks with Davis, Schabarum suggested the commission ought to pursue its breach of contract lawsuit. He said that Marshall Grossman had advised the commission that the suit could eventually net the commission $30 million after the team had departed for Oakland, Sacramento or elsewhere.