August 27, 2003

Davis awarded $34 mil in stadium suit

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis won his suit against the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum yesterday, but was awarded only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars he said he was due, after moving his team back to Oakland from L.A. A jury agreed that Davis had lost money as a result of mismanagement by the coliseum that resulted in poor ticket sales, awarding him $34 million in damages. If it's ever paid - both sides are appealing, and the coliseum is a nonprofit corporation with no assets - the verdict will bring the total public cost of bringing back the Raiders to $201 million, plus the mutilation of a once-attractive baseball stadium.