In a turn of events this week that should shock no one, the subprime-lending, cheapskate owner of the Portland Trail Blazers chose to act exactly like a subprime-lending, cheapskate.
The Trail Blazers took the axe to most of their broadcast department, cutting their studio team, producers, and on-air talent, including their primary TV and radio broadcast voices. At the same time, the team scoffed at a term sheet delivered to them by the City of Portland as a starting point for negotiations for Moda Center renovations.
The scorched tactics have resurfaced worries that owner Tom Dundon may be looking to move the team out of Portland.
However, when you have an individual with a reputation as a notorious cheapskate (Dundon) negotiating with a group with a reputation for being notorious idiots (Portland City Council), the truth probably exists somewhere in the area between the insults both sides are flinging at each other.
Dundon could move the team, but he’s stuck in Portland through 2030, unless he wants to pay to break the team’s current lease, either through a settlement with the city or fighting the lease itself in court. Somehow groups opposing the city paying to renovate Moda Center just discovered this fact, and treat it as if it’s a reason not even to start negotiating until 2030. It is absolutely in Dundon’s best interest not to simply reject every offer local governments bring to him. Riding out four years of an empty stadium that’s receiving no upgrades for his team and potentially fighting lawsuits is not a great way to generate the revenue he appears to need badly. On the other hand, every year that local governments don’t take things seriously is another year of leverage flushed down the toilet. Dundon wants the best deal he can get. The State of Oregon, Portland, and the surrounding areas want the best deal they can get. If the team stays, Portland gets to keep its first big league franchise and the Moda Center gets better. If Dundon leaves, he will need to absorb the losses of the next four years, fight off lawsuits, pay relocation fees, and hope he can get a better arena deal from some other city.
However, the number of cities that would take an NBA team is dwindling. After several decades of stalling, the league is actually moving forward with getting a team in Las Vegas and getting one back in Seattle. Arenas are ready, potential ownership groups have been identified, and owners around the league are probably already doing the math on how many new yachts or jets they can buy with several hundred dollars in expansion fees from both teams. There is no chance they will allow Dundon to poach one of those markets. If he wants to move, it would have to be somewhere else. The NBA may head off that idea anyway by getting teams in place in those two markets before Dundon is even able to look for a new home. The Trail Blazers let fly the notion that Dundon could move the team because the valuation of the team could double if it did. Tom Dundon may want the team’s valuation to equal that of the Lakers or Knicks. I would like a magical unicorn. Both have an equal chance of happening. With Vegas and Seattle off the table, relocation candidates would include litany of prior NBA failures like Vancouver (moved team to Memphis), Nashville (may be relocation target for Memphis if Memphis also makes good on their relocation threat), Memphis (because why not) Kansas City (moved team to Sacramento), San Diego (moved team to Los Angeles) or somewhere like Columbus, Ohio (has never had an NBA team because it’s Columbus, Ohio) or Raleigh, North Carolina (Maybe a state that barely supports one NBA team could suddenly support two!) None of those are exactly huge possibilities to spike the valuation of the team. Maybe Kansas City will fork over money to upgrade the NHL-ready arena for the NHL team it never got in 2007 to be ready for the NBA, or maybe Dundon would find himself negotiating similar terms to what he’s getting from Portland. He has no way to know before 2030.
None of that means that local politicians should not take this process seriously. If the negotiations drag on into 2029, the more likelihood there is either a) the state, the city, Multnomah County or all three give away the store and make an incredibly bad deal to keep the Trail Blazers in Portland or b) the state, the city, Multnomah County – or possibly all three — faceplant in the negotiations and the Trail Blazers do somehow find a new home outside of Portland. Instead of negotiating through the press or through catty social media posts directed at the Trail Blazers or at each other, they need to sit down and hammer out a deal that benefits the entire region. The sooner they all manage to do that, the better.
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