Over the past week, the Oregon media ecosystem has been flooded with growing hysteria that the incoming owner, Tom Dundon, intends to move the Portland Trail Blazers when he takes over.
The lead sports columnist for The Oregonian has gone so far as to declare the team “as good as gone.”
What has transpired to lead to the sudden proclamation of impending doom?
Absolutely nothing.
Let’s all settle down for a minute.
Dundon doesn’t even own the team yet. The NBA has not even approved his ownership bid. His public statements about the team’s future consist of a few text messages to media outlets, saying he would talk more once the sale is finalized.
Some of the state’s media elite, who appear to have not been paying attention for years, suddenly just woke up to the fact that the Moda Center needs renovation, and the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the State of Oregon will probably have to pay for most of it.
This was a problem that needed to be addressed for years. But nobody did. If only someone could have warned them that this exact situation might happen. Now the NBA can use the state of the Moda Center as a hostage.
To be clear, the Portland Trail Blazers could absolutely be moved. But threatening a move as a nuclear option in negotiations is much different than actually moving a team to a new market.
Every NBA owner wants an arena that lets them make money hand over fist while paying as little as possible for the privilege. This is also what the NBA wants. Relocation is the league’s ultimate bargaining chip.
However, the league has been reluctant to use it in the Adam Silver era. Since Silver took over in 2014, the farthest a team has moved is to cross the Hudson River from Newark, New Jersey, to Brooklyn, New York (Nets), and across the San Francisco Bay from Oakland to San Francisco (Warriors).
Dundon has no local ties to Portland, but he also didn’t purchase the team with the express intent of moving it, as Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett did when he purchased the Seattle Supersonics and eventually moved them to Oklahoma, or as Chris Larson tried to do when he attempted to purchase the Sacramento Kings and move them to Seattle. Dundon, who is nominally based in Dallas, Texas, owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and also dabbles in other sports ventures, ranging from pro pickleball to spring football leagues.
His main concern is making money, and he would prefer to have an arena in the best spot to do that. Later this year, the NBA is expected to vote on the possibility of expansion. How that vote goes may well determine how much pressure is applied to get a new publicly funded arena in Portland. The leading expansion cities are Seattle and Las Vegas. In either city, you could realistically drop in an NBA team tomorrow and be good to go. If the NBA board of governors approves expansion franchises to the two cities, the markets that could conceivably support an NBA franchise dwindle considerably. The Memphis Grizzlies have been struggling for years and could also potentially be looking for a new home soon. If the NBA rejects expansion, it could use Seattle and Vegas as potential landing spots for the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies. However, with expansion teams in Seattle and Vegas, the NBA would have to look at secondary markets, most of which have already had teams and lost them at one point, such as Vancouver (ironically, the Grizzlies original home), St. Louis, Kansas City, San Diego, or maybe Nashville.
However, all that is outside Portland’s control. All the city (and its partners at the state and Multnomah County) can do now is put forward its best possible offer to rebuild or replace the Moda Center. And they appear to be doing their best to do that.
Portland is hoping to tap into its Climate Fund to pay for some of its share of the renovations. The state Senate saw a new bill introduced this week to divert taxes from players at the Moda Center to fund some of its commitments. In return, the state government is asking the team to commit to staying in the arena for the next three decades. For the first time in a long time, public policymakers appear to understand the stakes and are moving quickly to have funding on the table when Dundon takes over the team. Could Dundon and Silver simply flip that table and say a renovated Moda Center isn’t good enough, that Portland needs an entirely new arena? Certainly, but they also know the economic climate nationwide. Publicly funded sports arenas are never a good deal for the public. They never have been. Getting them built is a matter of civic pride, not smart economic investment. More cities realize that, and fewer cities, especially the mid-major markets that the NBA would be looking at if Seattle and Las Vegas are off the table, have the cash to build a new one.
Would Silver and Dundon be willing to look a gift horse in the mouth and say they want a bigger horse? They could, but it would be terrible for the business of the NBA. What motivation would any future market have to offer 100% public financing if they knew even that would not be enough to keep their team?
In the end, negotiations could still fall apart, and the Trail Blazers could still move. We’ll know how serious the NBA is about playing hardball with the expansion vote. Until then, everyone should take a moment and calm down, because even if they were late in recognizing what needed to be done, Portland and the State of Oregon finally appear to be making the right moves and getting their ducks in a row.
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