RAIDERS RETURN TO OAKLAND : Racetrack to Continue NFL Pursuit : Hollywood Park: Hubbard says plans remain to build a stadium and land a pro franchise.

Two weeks ago on a Friday night, Al Davis watched the end of the Orlando Magic-Houston Rocket NBA playoff game, fiddled around the house and drove to Hollywood Park.

He arrived after 11 p.m. Racing stopped at 11:30 p.m. Davis and R.D. Hubbard, chairman of Hollywood Park, stayed much longer. When the meeting broke up in the early hours of the morning, the two shook hands and a deal was in place.

Hubbard went home happy. Davis went home and thought about things. In the morning, Hubbard told his staff to prepare for a news conference to announce that the Raiders would be coming to Hollywood Park.

And then Davis called. He had more demands. The deal was off.

Such has been the life of R.D. Hubbard over the past few months. Dealing with the unpredictable Davis has taken its toll.

The on-again, off-again deal started to fall apart after that Friday night meeting. Hubbard, who doesn’t like to deal with the media, had reporters coming over for an announcement and he didn’t have anything to announce. So he threw down the gauntlet. He said he had made his final proposal and that was it.

Hubbard stuck with that offer. And Al Davis went to Oakland. On Friday night, they had dinner. Business is business, nothing personal.

“We’re disappointed and we still hope that something can happen,” Hubbard said Friday. “We worked hard to make it happen.”

Hubbard and Hollywood Park must now work even harder because their status as the front-runner in building a stadium is in jeopardy. The NFL certainly wanted to work with Hollywood Park and the Raiders, but without the Raiders, the racetrack lost some ground.

“We’re going to continue to work with the league and continue with the EIR [environmental impact report] and continue to go forward to build a new stadium at Hollywood Park with an NFL franchise,” Hubbard said.

The fact that they’ve been working on this project for a while is to their benefit. But now, the competition is much tougher.

Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney, has already contacted owners about building a football-only stadium next to Anaheim Stadium. He even proposes to build a football fantasy world next to the stadium.

“It’s still early to speculate,” said Bill Robertson, director of public relations for Disney Sports Enterprises. “We’re interested in being interested. We’ll formulate more ideas and opinions and move forward. Right now we don’t have a comment as to what could happen or should happen.”

Among the obstacles to Disney adding football to its sports empire that already includes the Mighty Ducks and an agreement to become part-owner of the Angels are NFL rules against corporate ownership. Eisner is considered wary of personally owning a sports team because of perceptions it would divert from his direction of the entertainment conglomerate.

Michael Ovitz, the head of Creative Artists Agency, has also contacted the league about building a stadium in the Los Angeles area.

The Rose Bowl has met with an architectural group to discuss making its stadium ready for a full-time NFL tenant. And there are groups in El Segundo and Long Beach that are likely to be heard from.

But Hubbard, ever the optimist, still thinks it can happen.

“Hollywood Park could still have a stadium ready by 1997,” he said.

All he would need is someone to play in it.

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Times staff writer Robyn Norwood contributed to this story.