Another topic about which Al and I disagreed was the issue of television blackouts. We argued about this for decades – really, until nearly the end of his life.
Although rules concerning television blackouts are evolving (and although laws related thereto may change), those rules (which dictated that unless a game was sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff, it could not be televised live in the market of the home team) existed throughout my career.
From the outset of my career it was my steadfast view that televising one’s games in one’s home market is absolutely, positively, unequivocally the single most important marketing tool available to a team. To allow games to be blacked out in one’s home market is bad business. Why would an organization want residents of its own market watching other teams? That’s dumb. Why would an organization want children in its own market growing up with an affinity for other teams? That’s dumb. Organizations shouldn’t want and shouldn’t allow this to happen and I said it just that clearly to Al: it’s dumb.
There existed a number of rules and tools available to clubs so that they could avoid blackouts. Premium seating (club seats, seats in suites) didn’t count for purposes of the blackout rule and clubs could adjust manifests to reduce the amount of nonpremium seating so that not every nonpremium seat in the stadium need be sold in order to avoid a blackout. Clubs accomplished this by tarping off large sections of seating or by killing a few seats in each row – a single seat here, a couple of seats there – in a manner that was unnoticeable to fans and cameras but effective in that thousands fewer seats needed to be sold.
Clubs could also reduce the effective price of a ticket by creatively bundling it with food and beverage, merchandise, or both. Clubs could also offer experiential opportunities or special access with tickets. Clubs could create incentives for local media partners and other business partners to purchase blocks of tickets. Clubs could quiety purchase their own tickets and donate them to charities and community groups if they so desired. There was simply no reason to allow a game to be blacked out and I tried to convince Al of that for many years.
Al vehemently disagreed with me about this and for decades, when the team was in Los Angeles and when it was back in Oakland, we fought about this. Al did not believe that we should have to engage in creative sales efforts to entice fans to purchase tickets. On one particular occasion on which I presented to him some creative, aggressive ticket sales ideas created by the ticket department that we hoped to implement, he responded: “Oh fuck, they [the fans] should just come.” I never shared that response with our ticket department.
Most clubs engaged in all sorts of creative marketing initiatives designed to avoid blackouts, a few clubs reduced manifests in large chunks (with tarps), more clubs than most anyone would imagine killed thousands of seats in a manner that was imperceptible, and a fair number of clubs bought their own tickets – all to achieve “sellouts.” Al refused to allow us to do such things.
This not only harmed us, it harmed the league as a whole, as it was bad for the league’s broadcast partners. To state the obvious, those broadcast partners do not want to black games out, particularly in large markets, such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area. For decades, the league prevailed upon me in every which way to find a way to get our games “sold out,” so that they could be televised in our market. I never shared with anyone at the league that we were unable to do so because of the prohibitions Al placed on us. The week of every home game, I dreaded the umpteen calls I would receive from the league on this topic.
Toward the end of his life, when we were having one of our many arguments about this, Al told me that I should do as I wished – not only for the upcoming game but also from that point forward. It struck me as tremendously odd that he not only relented for the upcoming game – which he had done infrequently over the years – but that he relented with respect to all games in the future. I didn’t think he was conceding the point because I’d finally convinced him that this was smart business; I thought he was simply tired of arguing with me about it.
I was thrilled to gather a team of employees together and to enlist their help in effectuating this goal. They designed and implemented creative and aggressive marketing strategies and incented sponsors and media partners to work with us to fill the stadium. From that game until I left, only one regular-season game was blacked out.
* * *
Al trusted me. I knew that. And I know that people believed that because he trusted me, I could convince him to change his mind. Heck, as noted earlier, there were people who believed that I controlled Al. But as much as Al trusted me, I could rarely change his mind on matters of significance.
There was, though, an issue I believed to be of paramount importance about which I was able to change his mind. It took decades but I eventually convinced him that litigation is not a good business strategy or practice.
Before going further, I want to note that while Al and the Raiders were often perceived as litigious, the team was most often the defendant in the litigation in which we were embroiled. But Al did love to counterclaim with zeal.
One morning, shortly after the news broke that Al had decided to move the team from Los Angeles back to Oakland, I glanced at the Los Angeles Times as I was getting ready to leave for the office. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a short blurb stating the league had filed a lawsuit against us over the impending move. That’s how we learned that we had been sued: I read it in the newspaper.
I immediately called our lead lawyer, Jeff, and said: “Have you seen the Los Angeles Times this morning?”
Jeff responded a bit impatiently that he had not looked at the paper as he was trying to get ready to leave for the office.
“Well, you’d better look at it now,” I said, “because the league filed a lawsuit against us before the court closed last night.” So we were the defendants. But we counterclaimed with a vengeance.
A few years later, I again learned of a lawsuit filed against us – in this instance by the City of Oakland and Alameda County and related municipal entities – after it was filed. I was in a meeting in my office when someone walked in with a fax (we used faxes back then) and said, “You’d better look at this.” It was a note from a lawyer for the Joint Powers Authority that oversaw and operated the stadium in which we played. The note explained that outside counsel Jeff Kessler would be holding a press conference at City Hall to announce that the city and the county had filed a lawsuit against us. The note stated that the press conference would begin momentarily and as I read it, our phones began ringing like crazy and satellite trucks began pulling into our parking lot. Again we were the defendants, and again, we counterclaimed with a vengeance.
A few years later, while the litigation with both the NFL and the city and county was festering, Al asked me to join him, Jeff Birren, and our outside lawyers at a mandatory court conference. While Al and some of the league and city and county officials were in chambers, representatives of all the parties were in a separate conference room. I was in that room, as was Jeff Kessler. At one point, I turned to him and asked: “Why did you sue us?”
His response was staggering – I will always remember it. In a heavy New York accent, he uttered these words that I can still hear today (accent and all): “Amy, everyone sues to gain leverage in negotiations.” For a moment or two, I was speechless and I stared at him with what I was later told by someone in the room was a look of utter incredulity and disgust on my face.
Finally, I said, “Jeff, do you really think that suing Al Davis was the smartest thing to do?”
So, in each of those two instances, the organization was the defendant, not the plaintiff. I’m not sure why, all these years later, even after leaving the organization, I feel such a need to explain that we were the defendant, but we were. I still feel like a kid saying, “But he started it.”
Some would say that Al’s behavior – the organization’s behavior, our collective behavior – spurred people to sue us. That’s fair to an extent, even if exaggerated or overstated. Certainly, in that era, at a minimum we did not take steps to avoid litigation. And Al sure did like to counterclaim with gusto.
Although I’d tried unsuccessfully for many years to convince Al that it was in our best interest to settle all significant lawsuits (the ones involving the league and the municipalities), I was finally able to do so in the decade before his death, and that was a very satisfying accomplishment.
Al shared with me on a few occasions after we settled the litigation that he only agreed to do so because he understood that it was important to me. He told me that I was the only person who could have convinced him to do so. That was a special moment and it touched me deeply. I told him how much I appreciated that and then I told him if ever he threatened to litigate again, I would chain myself to his leg to prevent it. He looked at me and said: “I believe you.”
When he subsequently started making adversarial or litigious noises, I’d remind him of that threat, and we would laugh – but his laugh wasn’t gleeful, as was mine; his laugh was mirthless.