Poll: Biggest fear of the new ownership group (5 Viewers)

[julius]

This just in: City willing to cut off nose to spite face.

 

[Phatguysrule]

Went from saving money on a hotel bill to the guy is going to change Portland's hippy culture and inject some far right politics into the city. That's a reach. Maybe he's just setting the tone that the team is going to be financially conscience and not blow money willy nilly. Doesn't mean he's going to let the team be the Oakland A's. He certainly is capable of putting a successful sports franchise out there as several people have noted with the Hurricanes.

With new ownership there's going to be changes, that's a given. I would be surprised if both Cronin and Splitter are here in a year or two.

I would be surprised if anyone legit would want to hang around in the hotel lobby hours before every evening game...

 

[wizenheimer]

Try this

Should Portlanders Pay Hundreds of Millions for a Refurbished Moda Center? City Councilors Say “Not So Fast”​

With local budget cuts looming and Trail Blazers ownership committing to stay in Portland, some city leaders aren’t ready to pull out the checkbook.
by Abe AsherApril 16, 2026 1:59 pm

The Portland Trail Blazers take on the Charlotte Hornets at the Moda Center on March 10, 2026. Credit: TAYLOR GRIGGS
On the heels of an intense lobbying campaign by the Portland Trail Blazers, the Oregon Legislature last month passed a $365 million funding package to renovate the Moda Center contingent on the Blazers remaining in Portland under new majority owner Tom Dundon.

State leaders trumpeted the passage of the funding package as an economic boon for Portland and a necessary first step to secure the Blazers’ future in the city, pending contributionstotaling well over $200 million from the city of Portland and Multnomah County. Others weren’t quite so pleased.

“There’s been a lot of panic,” Portland City Councilor Steve Novick, who represents District 3 in Southeast Portland, said.

Now, as the city and county weigh contributing hundreds of millions of their own dollars to a renovation project that could cost the public more than the $600 million requested by the team, questions are mounting about the rush to approve funding for arena upgrades and what the public might get in return for any such investment.


“Portlanders need to understand how decisions are being made: what’s on the table, how public dollars would be used,” District 3 Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane said. “So far, the process has kept community in the dark, mostly—and that needs to shift.”

Koyama Lane has been an outspoken critic of the arena funding process for several months. In February, she was the only member of City Council who declined to sign a letter applauding the progress of the funding package for the Moda Center through the State Legislature.


Since then, Koyama Lane has continued to cast a critical eye on the progress of arena funding talks—particularly at a moment when the city and state are facing budget crises that could result in cuts to a variety of essential services.

“I hear folks talking about how this arena has not had a renovation in 30 years—I’m going to hold that at the same time as having taught in our public schools for nearly two decades, where I’ve seen ceiling tiles fall on children’s heads,” Koyama Lane said.


Koyama Lane is far from the only person concerned about the speed at which state and city officials have rushed to sign off on a handout to a Blazers ownership group that just purchased the team for $4.3 billion and is led by an owner whose personal net worth is estimated at more than $2 billion.

Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney, one of three councilors who represents District 2, where the Moda Center is, wants to see the city strike a balance.

“We know that Portlanders feel strongly about keeping this team,” Pirtle-Guiney told the Mercury, but said the city’s deep loyalty shouldn’t translate into a position of weakness when it comes to re-negotiating lease terms at the Moda Center. “We need to make sure that when we enter those negotiations, we get a good deal for all Portlanders.”

Edan Krolewicz began following the Blazers when he was living in Portland in the late 2010s, and though Krolewicz moved back to New York City during the pandemic, his love of the Blazers stuck: he watches every game from his Brooklyn apartment. Krolewicz’s love of Portland stuck too—he and his family are moving back to the city this summer.

When Krolewicz began reading about a potential arena funding deal for the Moda Center over the winter, he quickly developed questions about what a deal would cost and why local officials appeared to be taking such a conciliatory approach to the team and league.

“I think there’s a plausible rationale for doing the renovation—it is an old stadium, we do need to actually renovate it,” Krolewicz, who has launched the website Rip City Not Rip Off, said. “I think it will help all the acts, not just the Blazers, that are there. However, we need to actually make sure that we get a return on the investment.”


Getting a return on an investment in an arena, as Krolewicz has surmised, is difficult. Roger Noll, an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, said public investments in stadiums and arenas are almost always economically inadvisable.

“The reason you can get away with [funding] is not because it creates a commensurate amount of economic activity to justify the cost,” Noll said. “It doesn’t. The reason people are willing to pay it is, they’re being held up. They’re in a situation where they lack economic power compared to the economic power of the team because the team has a unique and irreplaceable product.”

The threat, of course, whether expressed implicitly or explicitly, is that a team that doesn’t receive public funding will move—and there is little question that a desire to keep the Blazers in Portland has been the driving force behind the push to commit public money to the arena project.

But despite Portland’s smaller market size and Dundon’s lack of personal connections to the area, there are questions about how feasible it would be for him to move the team to begin with.

For one, relocating professional sports teams is often an expensive and protracted process: the NBA, for instance, requires teams to pay a fee just to apply for the opportunity to relocate a team and total relocation costs can run into the billions.

Then there are the particulars about where the Blazers might go. In late March, the NBA’s Board of Governors voted unanimously to explore expanding the league to 32 teams by adding new franchises in Seattle and Las Vegas—potentially weakening the market for the Blazers.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has not ruled out the possibility of relocation in recent public comments on the future of the league, but the Blazers, even with the Moda Center aging, do not appear to be prime candidates for relocation anyway.

The Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans, for instance, are both facing expiring leases on their respective arenas at the conclusion of the 2028-2029 season, and both play in considerably smaller media markets than the Blazers do. Earlier this month, Sheel Tyle, a member of the new ownership group who lives in Portland, said relocation is not on the table.

Given all those factors, Novick said he hasn’t seen any compelling reason to be concerned about the Blazers departing—no matter how long it takes to hash out an arena funding deal.

“The [NBA] wouldn’t want to expand to Seattle and then lose Portland and lose the natural rivalry,” Novick said. “Nobody ever explained to me why, if we didn’t act now, then the Blazers would be on a plane out of town on June 26th or something.”

Krolewicz, who sees the odds of relocation as similarly low, said he wants local elected officials to realize they have some amount of leverage in regards to any arena funding deal.

“No one is actually thinking about this as a genuine negotiation,” Krolewicz said. “It’s just like, ‘Hey, we don’t want to be the people who let the Blazers go.’ And the reality is it would cost the Blazers way, way, way more to leave than just stay and participate and pay some money on this.”

What kind of return on investment the city and state might get from a Moda Center funding deal remains to be seen, but arena and stadium deals in other cities provide a template for what Oregonians might expect.

“If you just look at a list of stadium deals over the last decade or so, it’s very clear that a lot of jurisdictions got much more than Portland is seemingly getting: things like rent, payments in lieu of taxes, broad community benefits agreements—it’s pretty standard practice to negotiate,” District 4 Councilor Mitch Green said.

Those payments and benefits are particularly important given how economically damaging public investments in arenas can be for cities and states and given the state-approved money is contingent on contributions from the city and county.

Rip City Not Rip Off, for instance, has called for private investment in the arena renovations, a yearly contribution to the city’s general fund, payments in lieu of taxes, and a longer length of lease. Councilors and unions have also called for enhanced labor protections for Moda Center workers.

Koyama Lane, who is part of a new group formed by Council President Jamie Dunphy to explore the pros and cons of a potential funding deal, said she has been in communication with elected officials across the country who have worked on stadium deals and is planning on sharing her findings with the public in the near future.

The key, Green said, is for the city to understand that the economics of a giveaway for arena funding are not in its favor and act accordingly.

“The first question you need to ask is, are people accepting that as the starting position? Or do they dismiss that as the starting position? And the city of Portland right now seems to have dismissed that as a starting position and has substituted instead basically unscrutinized figures from a pitch deck from the Trail Blazers organization,” Green said.

The particulars of how the city might fund its portion of the renovation costs is not clear, either. Novick and Koyama Lane have both rejected an idea floated by Mayor Keith Wilson to help finance an arena funding deal with millions from the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), with Koyama Lane saying she opposes using PCEF as a “slush fund.”

Novick said he would be more amenable to sending a one-time bond measure to the ballot for voters to approve or reject using their tax money to fund arena upgrades.

“If I thought that additional public investment was absolutely needed, I would probably be willing to send something to the ballot and vote for it myself—but I would be willing to abide by the judgement of my fellow Portlanders as to whether it was worth it to them,” Novick said.

Novick said that, if he does become convinced that public investment is necessary, he would be interested in working with Metro to put a regionwide bond measure on the ballot—a proposal that would lower the per-person cost of the bond.

Green said he would also consider putting arena funding to a vote.

“I suspect that if you laid out some very clear terms in that ballot language that said these are the public benefits we’re expecting, this is the cost, these are the tradeoffs, and then referred it, I think you’d see an overwhelming support for it,” Green said. “But voters are not going to do that if you can’t make the case that we’ve fought for good community benefits.”
TAGGED: BlazersCity CouncilModa CenterNBAPortlandtom dundonTrail Blazers

ABE ASHER​

Abe Asher covers city news, politics, and soccer for the Portland Mercury. His reporting has appeared in The Nation, VICE News, Sahan Journal, and other outlets

IMO, it's good to see that there are some people who at least want to tap the brakes a bit on this dubious funding scheme. The deal that was shoved willy-nilly thru the legislature was rushed to the point of panic; and panic to the point that the state and city seemed almost eager to give away every bit of leverage they actually hold.

the current lease doesn't expire till 2030....4 years. There's time to analyze feasibility of options. The mad rush of the process so far is foolish

 

[Hoopguru]

IMO, it's good to see that there are some people who at least want to tap the brakes a bit on this dubious funding scheme. The deal that was shoved willy-nilly thru the legislature was rushed to the point of panic; and panic to the point that the state and city seemed almost eager to give away every bit of leverage they actually hold.

the current lease doesn't expire till 2030....4 years. There's time to analyze feasibility of options. The mad rush of the process so far is foolish

Thats Dud's take too. But he feels Oregon doesn't have leadership with skills enough to negotiate a decent deal. Of course thats his campaign power point. The Mayor of PDX seems to have a decent business background and comes across amicable. The next few years will be interesting as I think Tom covets developing the arena area as much as the team. Thats what he's done in Carolina.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

I would be surprised if anyone legit would want to hang around in the hotel lobby hours before every evening game...

Boo hoo. There are things I don't really want to do every day at work. This seems like a very minor inconvenience. They could spend that time going over game plans and notes.

 

[GoZers]

I dont think I can articulate it well or really even put my finger on it...he just doesnt seem like a Portland person in that I think he'll clash with people. Most owners have huge egos, but I think his might get in the way of success. Thinking he knows better than everyone, even though he doesnt have the experience in the league. Will he hire the best people and let them do their jobs? I worry about that. He seems like the kind of person who might change from Coke to Pepsi at the practice facility because its cheaper. Its the NBA, there will always people who will work for you because the jobs are so coveted. But will you get the best of the best with him, who knows. I have no doubt he wants to win. Not sure he will be able to listen to other people in order to do it.

 

[Phatguysrule]

Boo hoo. There are things I don't really want to do every day at work. This seems like a very minor inconvenience. They could spend that time going over game plans and notes.

In the hotel lobby?

Why would somebody legit (like a great coach or GM) deal with this rather than going to a team in which they don't have to deal with this?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Someone's luggage will get jacked from the lobby.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

In the hotel lobby?

Why would somebody legit (like a great coach or GM) deal with this rather than going to a team in which they don't have to deal with this?

Maybe in the future they will rent a meeting room for a few hours. That's gotta be cheaper than reserving a bunch of rooms for an extra day/night when they are only used for a couple more hours.
And you know other teams don't do the same thing? I would think it's pretty standard to check out of your room at check out time and move on to the game or next city.
I'm all for Tom spending money fiscally responsibly. It's his right to do so.

 

[Phatguysrule]

Maybe in the future they will rent a meeting room for a few hours. That's gotta be cheaper than reserving a bunch of rooms for an extra day/night when they are only used for a couple more hours.
And you know other teams don't do the same thing? I would think it's pretty standard to check out of your room at check out time and move on to the game or next city.
I'm all for Tom spending money fiscally responsibly. It's his right to do so.

If other teams do the same thing then it wouldn't be worth reporting, would it?

I honestly don't know.

That's my point. If other teams do it then it's not a problem. If they don't... It could be hard to retain talent. Why would they choose to be with a team that imposes more inconveniences?

It's not a criticism, it's just an observation.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

If other teams do the same thing then it wouldn't be worth printing, would it?

I honestly don't know.

That's my point. If other teams do it then it's not a problem. If they don't... It could be hard to retain talent. Why would they choose to be with a team with more inconveniences?

It's not a criticism, it's just an observation.

True. But the local media is always looking for clicks, looking to stir the pot, making a mountain out of a molehill. It's how guys like Crapzano make a living unfortunately.

 

[Phatguysrule]

True. But the local media is always looking for clicks, looking to stir the pot, making a mountain out of a molehill. It's how guys like Crapzano make a living unfortunately.

True. I'm not concerned about it unless we have trouble getting/retaining quality staff.

 

[julius]

IMO, it's good to see that there are some people who at least want to tap the brakes a bit on this dubious funding scheme. The deal that was shoved willy-nilly thru the legislature was rushed to the point of panic; and panic to the point that the state and city seemed almost eager to give away every bit of leverage they actually hold.

the current lease doesn't expire till 2030....4 years. There's time to analyze feasibility of options. The mad rush of the process so far is foolish

Putting it off only makes it more costly and easier for the team owners to justify moving.

Then the RG sits empty for an additional 43 nights a year (min), and continually needs more and more stuff done to fix.

And again, the city was *given* the arena and barely paid for any of it in the first place. This is 100% ok that the city and county pays because the city and county benefits more than they would be paying.

 

[bigbailes]

True. But the local media is always looking for clicks, looking to stir the pot, making a mountain out of a molehill. It's how guys like Crapzano make a living unfortunately.

Seems like this was SI reporting it though and not local guys ... I know everyone loves to hate on the local media, but they wouldn't be reporting this if it wasn't out of the ordinary as it wouldn't generate clicks.

 

[wizenheimer]

Putting it off only makes it more costly and easier for the team owners to justify moving.

Then the RG sits empty for an additional 43 nights a year (min), and continually needs more and more stuff done to fix.

oh look, more "the sky is falling" scare tactics again.....no, sky is not falling, and for the state and local governments to act like it is makes them look foolish

just because Adam Silver, the NBA, and Dundon are working a grift on Oregon taxpayers doesn't mean the governments need to rapidly capitulate and destroy all the leverage they have. And as that article pointed out, the State, City, and County do have a lot of leverage in this situation and the vote recently by the NBA to expand to Seattle and Las Vegas (most likely) by 2027/28 actually transfers significant leverage from the NBA grifters and gives it to the local governments

there is time for an analytical and balanced process. For actual feasibility studies.

one thing I've been pointing at is I have not seen any sort of examination comparing ROI between spending 600-700M an a renovation of a 32 year old building that will be over 50 years old at the end of the debt cycle vs spending 1.2-1.4B on a new state of the art Arena that would be 30 years younger than the Moda at the end of it's debt cycle. A lot of times, especially in commercial construction, the cheaper option is not the smarter option

 

[Pinwheel1]

I am trying to think about how many city commissioners I have ever trusted or respected in the various cities I have lived in.
Not many, and that worries me when it comes to the Blazers.

 

[RR7]

 

[Mediocre Man]

I love the Blazers, but hate the NBA. My fear is he moves the team. If he does though then I never have to worry about it again.

My rational fear is Jerry Jones lite. Meddling….sacrificing future for a name but not a fit….short leash on coach and front office….going cheap

 

[JfizzleBlazer]

We will look back on the Paul Allen days as....

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Basically 3 of these options are them being cheap? I didn't see any poll option that concerns me.

My biggest fear is making a win now move for a star that harms the franchise the next decade. That would be my fear of any new ownership group as it's a common pervasive new owner problem.

I don't have enough knowledge of Dundon to know what his strengths or weaknesses are. I've been encouraged by the Hurricanes success and all of Dundon statements. But ultimately my opinion will be formed by seeing off-season actions and a few years of how the team is run.

 

[e_blazer]

I would offer @THE HCP as tho most obvious and only reasonable answer to this poll. Will the new management keep him around, or kick him out and ruin MrsHCP’s availability? The stuff of nightmares.

 

[Hoopguru]

I dont think I can articulate it well or really even put my finger on it...he just doesnt seem like a Portland person in that I think he'll clash with people. Most owners have huge egos, but I think his might get in the way of success. Thinking he knows better than everyone, even though he doesnt have the experience in the league. Will he hire the best people and let them do their jobs? I worry about that. He seems like the kind of person who might change from Coke to Pepsi at the practice facility because its cheaper. Its the NBA, there will always people who will work for you because the jobs are so coveted. But will you get the best of the best with him, who knows. I have no doubt he wants to win. Not sure he will be able to listen to other people in order to do it.

Cuban as a friend and sounding board, he will advise Tom if there is a coaching / GM search. Mark has had a number of good coaching hires?

 

[Hoopguru]

True. But the local media is always looking for clicks, looking to stir the pot, making a mountain out of a molehill. It's how guys like Crapzano make a living unfortunately.

They can negotiate with A hotel that wants significant return business.

 

[crandc]

Look at every arena and all the fans wearing playoff T shirts. They are, admittedly, cheap quality shirts but so what? Good will is priceless. Will it be sacrificed for a few thousand dollars?

 

[Everything Beagle]

Thats Dud's take too. But he feels Oregon doesn't have leadership with skills enough to negotiate a decent deal. Of course thats his campaign power point. The Mayor of PDX seems to have a decent business background and comes across amicable. The next few years will be interesting as I think Tom covets developing the arena area as much as the team. Thats what he's done in Carolina.

Dudley is just campaigning; I don’t give a shit what his opinion is, nor should anyone involved. He doesn’t have a job here.

 

[Everything Beagle]

Cuban as a friend and sounding board, he will advise Tom if there is a coaching / GM search. Mark has had a number of good coaching hires?

A reminder that Mark owned Dallas, not San Antonio.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

Look at every arena and all the fans wearing playoff T shirts. They are, admittedly, cheap quality shirts but so what? Good will is priceless. Will it be sacrificed for a few thousand dollars?

Almost always a sponsor foots the bill for the cost of the t-shirts in return for their logo being on it. Not something the owner/team pays for. Examples are Moda and Toyota on past t-shirts here in Portland.

 

[Everything Beagle]

What the fuck? I was looking forward to my kids getting a good experience! This is really cheap of them.

 

[Everything Beagle]

Almost always a sponsor foots the bill for the cost of the t-shirts in return for their logo being on it. Not something the owner/team pays for. Examples are Moda and Toyota on past t-shirts here in Portland.

A weird symptom of our team being owned by a kindly old man who happened to be the fourth richest man in the world at the time is assuming we get a little present from Uncle Paul when the team does well.

 

[Hoopguru]

A reminder that Mark owned Dallas, not San Antonio.

I know, but he still hired a few good coaches and gm's.