Are the Trail Blazers moving away from Portland now!?

Portland Trailblazers. What do these three teams have in common just off the top of your head? The Portland Trailblazers, the Seattle Sounders, and the Seattle Seahawks. Any ideas? By a show of hands. All owned by Paul Allen. Paul Allen. He of Microsoft fame fame. Paul Allen’s dead. When Paul Allen died, he had a will. And the will said that these teams will be put in a trust. That trust will be run by my cis. These teams will then be sold in a reasonable time and the proceeds of such sale will go to my philanthropic efforts. That seems clear. That was 7 years ago. I’m not trying to assume Mr. Allen here, nor do I want to disturb the mort. But were Paul Allen to be asked in some sort of afterlife as he’s sitting up there smoking a sig looking down at all that he created and wondering why he can’t get a good Wi-Fi connection. My guess is he would say to you that 7 years seems a little long to have the sister not having sold the team. So big news yesterday. Step one, the Trailblazers are going to be sold. And you wouldn’t believe who bought them because in a move that was not expected in the industry, Tom Dundan has agreed to buy the Trailblazers. You may not know who that is unless you’re in Raleigh. And to the 1%, it’s under 1% it rounds up. So it’s like 79% of you in the Raleigh area, thank you for joining us. Congratulations. Your owner is now going to be shleing back and forth to the Pacific Northwest. Not totally crazy because in the EPLL you’ve got American owners who shle across the pond every month in Gandhtic. So it’s not a huge thing. But if you think that you’re getting a team in Raleigh, an NBA team to be like a brother team to those hugely successful Charlotte Hornets, news flash, NGTH, not going to happen. It is sort of big news that the Carolina Hurricanes owner is going to bid about $4 billion as a valuation of the Trailblazers. And the reason why it’s fascinating to me is we’ll talk about in a minute team valuations and the significance of these studies that come out and then what the numbers are for the NFL, etc., and MLB and the NBA. But you’ve got the Trailblazers in at $4 billion valuation. Sportico came out with the valuations and Sporico came out with this purchase and ESPN shams uh had the scoop that it was going to be in the $4 billion range. And here’s the interesting part about this. What is his plan other than getting Lillard back? Because remember, they’re in a bit of an old arena. They had a lease that was running out in 20125. That was this year. There was a ton of talk about relocation. The lease has been extended to 2030, but after 2030, the Trailblazers really have no place to play. They’re trying to get financing for a new building in Portland, but it hasn’t happened yet. and query. If Portland’s trying to get an MLB team, are there only one source of cash and now two uses, which would be a ballpark for baseball and an arena for basketball? The answer is that no one knows exactly for sure what’s happening. Either an MLB relocation or what’s going to happen with the Portland Arena. The only thing we do know is they don’t have a lot of time. Because while we’re here in 2025, you’d say, “Oh, we got 5 years. What’s the big deal? These things take years, as you know. And all the Trailblazers have done recently. All they’ve done is they cut a deal to extend the lease from 25 to 30. They did a smart deal with the city of Portland, which gave them the arena back, so it’s not privately owned, so they can save property taxes. Gave them the land under and wrote it and got a check for $7 million. All of which goes to their bottom line because you don’t own the arena. You don’t need to own the land. And it’s way better for property taxes if you don’t own either. But that’s not a new arena solution. That’s like lipstick on a pig. That’s figuring out how do we deal with the acute issue we have today and then worry about tomorrow tomorrow. And then of course you pass the buck completely by just selling the team. So, while Paul Allen and his foundations will get the benefit of this sale, and his sister will step back to only running the Sounders and the Seahawks, you have to realize that for the NBA, this transaction matters. They’ve wanted this transaction to happen. Adam Silver has been talking about this transaction. They’ve wanted the Trailblazers to be moved because there was some thought that Paul Allen’s sister was not running the team in a way that Adam Silver would have liked her to have run the team. We’re going to find out here shortly what exactly Dundan has in store for his team. And all I can say is that when you put together a limited partnership group and you include someone who lives in Portland, it feels better to everybody. And one of the limited partners of Dundan is a guy who is Portland based. So, does that mean anything? No, it actually doesn’t. Does it mean anything when the Trailblazers did this deal to sell the arena back and the land? Does it actually mean that a new one’s going to be built? No, it really doesn’t. These are just separate business deals. When you’re buying a team, you want to get local limited partners just like we did. But when you move the team, you take the loc local partners with you. It’s all a very interesting dance that people play when they’re buying a team and they’re doing it because of you. They’re doing it because they somehow want to look as though they are local, that they’re team players. And just because you bring someone in who’s from Portland, can you imagine the introductory press conference, this guy who owns the Hurricanes will sit down in front of a microphone and he will talk to you about his team and how much he feels about the team on the field and how committed he is to the community and what a part of it he wants to be. And then when asked about, hey, what about the new arena? You look right in the camera, right in the camera, your first press conference and you say, hey, we’re going to get to work on that right now. We are going to absolutely move every stone, unearth every bit of plan we can in order to make sure that this happens for you, the fan, which also happens to be famous last words before you relocate. However, the Trailblazers aren’t going to relocate. Adam Silver right now has no interest in relocation. He is all about expansion. And we know from baseball when someone in a league is about expansion, you can’t be messing with relocation, it screws it up. Just like Oakland relocating to Vegas definitely has an impact on expansion. So Koka, I’m so positive that Portland’s going to stay in Portland that I feel like adding to my weight to seize for today. So, August 14th, 2025. Hold your breath, everyone in the Pacific Northwest. Hold it. Hold it. Wait to see. The Trailblazers will not relocate.

#basketball #trailblazers #nba

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19 comments

  1. The good news is that Charlotte has a team. The bad news is that the arena where the Blazers play in Portland needs hundreds of millions in renovations. Phil Knight of Nike wanted to buy the team a few years ago but he's too old now. That would've guaranteed them staying in Portland or at least Oregon because Knight is a big Portland guy. While they won't move to North Carolina, they'll be enticed to move to a community that offers to pick up the tab for an arena. I think the state of Oregon/City of Portland are trying to get ahead of this and see if they can do the renovations without the owner having to foot a lot of the bill. Not to mention the optics of Seattle, Vancouver and then Portland losing their teams leaving the Northwest without a team would be incredibly bad for the NBA. We'll see.

  5. Very obviously no. The main guy in the ownership group is based out of Raleigh, the nc already has a team.

    This did just kill any chance at baseball in NC though, because he was the lead on that.

  6. There’s an arena and a basketball market in Seattle, which is where Allen has NFL and MLS teams. But the NBA wants Seattle for expansion fees.

  7. They arent moving, Top 15 revenue teams with a 68 percent playoff appearance rate a Nba title and 3 finals and a State that will pay for arenas. It would make no sense.

  9. Rip City is Portland and nowhere else. New owner has confirmed this. Going to be a goldmine now with Yang Hansen. Just need to figure out what to do about the arena, renovate or build new.

  11. Paul Allen has said on more than one occassion when he sells the team he would want it to remain in Portland. The new owner understands that. You should stick to stories you know something about

  12. Raleigh’s arena has an agreement with NC State anyway. I believe that includes a non-compete clause.

    One columnist last year mentioned, when the city took over Moda Center, that the state and city would be on the hook for arena improvements or replacement. The MLB2PDX legislation (SB 110) can be amended to help out the Blazers, and certainly set a precedent to do so. I harbor no illusions that the Blazers would move if that doesn’t pass- and we could be an initiative petition away from bringing such an amendment to a vote of Oregonians (max in favor is 35%). But I suspect the legislature will do it and I can’t be sure an opposition could organize here to get a petition passed around.

  13. Thought experiment. If the city of Portland would sell Moda to the Blazers for $1, and the Blazers do a Delta Center style reboot with revenue recapture rights, the city would avoid the liability for either renovation, or worse, a new arena, and the Blazers would gain passive income from the rentals at the arena. Being a thirty-year old building means that it's way past depreciation, so giving it away isn't an insane idea. What would be insane is that the Blazers move to Seattle and Moda becomes an instant ruin…

  14. I’m in the < 1%……love the show! I don’t think anyone around here expects Dundon to move the team to Raleigh (would be nice but NGH).

  17. Dundon buying the Blazers significantly lowers the already low odds that the they would move. He already has one local investor involved in the ownership group, and word is he is recruiting other local investors like Tim Boyle to join the ownership group.

  18. Curious as to what Portland would prefer – 1 – renovate or build a new arena for the NBA …….OR …2- put money towards a MLB stadium – either expansion or a current team moving there . Not sure the city or state of Oregon can afford to do both . Interesting dilemma.

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