Oilers Reach Settlement To Probably Allow Move

After 14 hours of negotiations, Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams and Astrodome manager Drayton McLane Jr. reached a deal Thursday that likely will allow the NFL team to play in Tennessee this fall.

Adams and McLane worked for two days with a court-appointed mediator to resolve disputes over a canceled preseason game in 1995 and the remaining year of the Oilers’ lease at the Astrodome.

Neither side would discuss details of the settlement and the mediator said both sides have agreed the discussions will remain confidential.

Adams, however, said he planned to have the Oilers train at Tennessee State in Nashville this summer. The team’s new permanent practice facility isn’t supposed to be ready until Aug. 15.

“The settlement includes the termination of the Oilers lease and the resolution of the lawsuit over the 1995 game,” Alice Oliver-Parrott, the mediator, said. “The settlement, however, has a number of conditions which will take time to be satisfied.”