The jury in the Oakland Raiders vs. NFL case Monday reached an overwhelming verdict in favor of the NFL and its teams.
The seven-man, five-woman jury ruled 9-3 in favor of the NFL on all counts. The state court verdict required a minimum three-quarters vote of the 12 jurors.
The League released the following:
STATEMENT FROM A LEAGUE SPOKESMAN:
We are pleased and gratified by today’s verdict. The jury upheld the NFL’s position on all issues in the case.
The truth regarding what happened is found in the Raiders’ own June 23, 1995 media release announcing their decision to leave Los Angeles. It stated: "The Raiders organization has chosen to relocate to Oakland."
The Raiders voluntarily gave up the Hollywood Park stadium opportunity in Los Angeles. They did so, as they said at the time, because of the generous financial terms offered by the Oakland entities.
The evidence showed that the NFL had offered the Raiders and the Hollywood Park project more support than any other stadium project, before or since. That financial support simply was not enough to satisfy the Raiders. They elected, instead, to abandon Los Angeles in 1995 for up-front money and promise of sell-outs in Oakland.
The notion that the Raiders "own" the Los Angeles market also was entirely unsupported by the evidence in this case. The Raiders abandoned Los Angeles when they returned to Oakland in 1995, just as they deserted Oakland in 1982 when they moved to the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Over the last six years, the Raiders have brought dozens of different claims against the NFL in four separate California courts. With today’s verdict, all but a handful of these claims have now been decided in the League’s favor.
This process has been enormously costly in terms of both litigation expenses and time invested by League and club executives. We look forward to returning our full-time focus to the game on the field.