Bluffing, seizing leverage part of game in high-stakes negotiations

01:36 PM CDT on Monday, June 14, 2004

By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News

When the Dallas Cowboys announced last week that they were suspending negotiations with Dallas County to build a new stadium, they might have said: We're taking a break.

The process of negotiating public financing for a professional sports stadium is a long and fitful one. Like poker players, the parties huff and bluff. Like car buyers, they say they don't need what the other side is selling, or could buy it elsewhere.

But more often than not, the two sides get together and complete a deal, several stadium experts and negotiators said.

"These things are all about leverage," said Len Perna, a former general counsel for the Dallas Stars who helped negotiate American Airlines Center. "You stake out your ground as convincingly as you can, and you try to herd all your constituencies into a consensus behind you.

"There are multiple conversations going on at various levels, and all of that eventually boils into a deal if people work hard enough."

Mr. Perna and others predict that a stormy romance between the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas County is just starting. Even if the Cowboys flirt with others, there are only so many local governments that can raise the hundreds of millions the football team wants.

"They will talk to other counties and cities, and try to create a horse race," said Mr. Perna, a consultant who brokers stadium deals. "It is a little bump in the road. The deal is far from done."

Representatives of the Cowboys have declined to comment publicly since they suspended negotiations on Tuesday. But a person involved in the negotiations who requested anonymity said the team's announcement was carefully worded.

"The Cowboys were very specific to use the term 'suspended' rather than 'terminate,' " the person said.

Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, whose legacy is keeping the basketball and hockey teams in the city, said county leaders sympathetic to the stadium shouldn't worry.

"I don't know if I would be overly concerned if I was the county," Mr. Kirk said. "If Fair Park is the best place for the Cowboys, it's in the Cowboys' interests to make that happen."

County Commissioner John Wiley Price, whose fondness for a stadium deal has run hot and cold, said he is pessimistic about further negotiations.

"They left the door open, but I really don't think there is anything else that is going to occur there," Mr. Price said.

Still, if it did, it would not be the first time that a moribund deal was jolted back to life.

The New England Patriots' dalliance with the governments of three states lasted a decade. Team owner Robert Kraft first tried to move from Foxborough, Mass., to South Boston. He later walked away from a $1 billion deal with Connecticut and financed his own stadium in Foxborough, where he started.

In Houston, several key politicians did not support a 1999 referendum for a basketball arena, and it failed. But the pro-arena group tweaked their campaign message, gathered more endorsements and won a vote in 2000.

Houston attorney Gene Locke helped broker that deal for the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority and now represents Dallas County. He declined to comment about the future between Dallas County and the Cowboys but noted there were "stops and starts in negotiations between the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority and the Houston Rockets."

"At various times, an impasse seemed inevitable," Mr. Locke said. "Ultimately, a deal was struck."

The deal that built American Airlines Center also cleared several hurdles, negotiators said. Ross Perot Jr., who owned the Dallas Mavericks, kept Dallas biting its nails as he scouted suburban sites by helicopter.

Financially, the suburban competition was realistic. Basketball arenas are cheaper than domed football stadiums. Garland offered to pay half the cost of a new arena and meant it. Lewisville voters held a referendum – which narrowly failed – to tax themselves to build it.

"John Ware must have come into my office every Monday and said, 'Your deal is not going to get done,' " Mr. Kirk said, referring to the former Dallas city manager. "And every day I had a call from the press saying, 'They are going to Irving,' or 'They are going to Frisco.' "

The Cowboys stadium is different, consultants said. Most suburban cities cannot afford to subsidize a $654 million project. The Cowboys have requested $425 million in public funding.

Going forward, Mr. Perna said, Dallas County and Dallas City Hall need to know how much financial aid other local governments could supply.

"The people representing Dallas County and the city of Dallas have to know whether anything truly could happen in another jurisdiction," Mr. Perna said. "If you can remove that threat, you have taken away a significant amount of leverage from the Cowboys."

The Cowboys know the answer to that question, but they won't betray any figures. Bill Rhoda, a Plano-based consultant who performed such analyses for the Mavs and Stars, declined to comment on his findings.

Some Dallas business leaders are desperate to lure the team to Fair Park. Some City Council members have even worried they might already have lost the Cowboys.

Actually, Dallas lost the Cowboys in 1971, when the team moved to Irving. But the threat to withdraw what has been offered – the Cowboys coming home – is a powerful one.

"The power they have is there is only one Dallas Cowboys," Mr. Perna said.

Cowboys officials have said they would examine sites in Arlington, Grapevine and other parts of Tarrant County. No one believes the team would leave North Texas entirely.

Then again, few believed the Baltimore Colts or Cleveland Browns would leave their cities.

"We didn't think it would happen, and we didn't think the NFL would let it happen," said Herbert J. Belgrad, a Baltimore attorney who was chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority. "When you start to play brinksmanship and politics, you better make up your mind, because you could wake up one morning and find you misjudged the situation, and it's too late."

E-mail dmichaels@dallasnews.com