PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – A group of former Trail Blazers players, team officials and local business leaders have launched a campaign to prevent the team’s future owner from potentially moving the Blazers to another city.
The Rip City Forever campaign was formed in an effort to create a game plan before a new ownership group buys the Blazers from the Paul Allen estate.
The group, led by former NBA player Chris Dudley, former team executives Marshall Glickman and Erin Hubert, and local business leaders Joth Rucci and Ryan Buchanan, says they want to show the NBA that Portland is ready to invest in the team’s future and its arena.
“The city of Portland, the state of Oregon, whether we like it or not, we are in a national competition over the Blazers and the game has already started and we need to be prepared,” Dudley said.
This comes after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Portland likely needing a new arena will be a challenge for prospective ownership groups interested in the team at a news conference in July.
Rip City Forever addressed a letter to Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson on Wednesday, asking them to support renovations to the Moda Center to reduce the risk of the next Blazers owner potentially moving the team to a different city.
The group says they are partnering with the Oregon Community Foundation to explore options for a renovated or new arena, and to accept donations for feasibility studies.
Governor Kotek and Mayor Wilson had already sent a letter to Silver on Tuesday emphasizing their commitment to renovating the Moda Center.
“The Blazers are in our DNA, and at the center of what makes this community so special. We mean that literally. The Moda Centers its near the middle of the city, within reach of every corner,” said Kotek and Wilson in the letter. “That’s by design, and we want to keep it that way. We also want to be loud and clear that as the Governor of Oregon and Mayor of Portland, we fully support renovating the Moda Center to become a point of pride for the Blazers and for our city. We are prepared to explore the public-private partnerships needed to make it happen.”
Rip City Forever set up a petition on their website to garner community support for upgrading the Moda Center. So far, according to Dudley, the petition has received an average of 75 new signatures an hour.
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