I feel like the NBA should come up with a rule where the owners have to be a fan of the team. This guy clearly doesn’t give a fuck.

The grizzlies current owner makes a fortune bypassing sanctions to sell network equipment to Russia that allows Russian drone technology to bomb Ukraine, per Pablo Torre.

They might move to Seattle for all we know. There is no competition in all the PNW I don’t understand why you would move. They even get fans down from Vancouver

FWIW, I think the owners will deny a move request. There’s a couple of sensible reasons (Portland is willing to contribute substantially to the project, the team makes money, they have a long history, etc. etc.). But more importantly El Cheapo keeps embarrassing them. Never underestimate a billionaires willingness to be petty.

I would be heartbroken if my Steelers ever left Pittsburgh..

But are these guys actual “owners” of these teams or not?

If I own something then I should have the right to move it anywhere I want.

If I’m just a privileged “temporary governor”
then nah… the team should “belong” to the city.

Not even wanting to pay up for the coach is a new level of cheap that I feel like the NBA hasn’t seen since the 70s/80s.

His hockey team just won the Stanley Cup.

His hockey team just won the Stanley cup.

Ultimately the players are the ones that play

Paul Allen died before either team was sold

You literally had two replies to your comment, so calm the fuck down. 

Paul Allen died in 2018 and expressed most of the money made had to go to philanthropic causes. So you’re very loud and wrong.

first reply is a Warriors flair

complaining about replies from “PNW bitches”

get your ass back to 3rd grade geography class or whatever

That’s how Stern operated but I wouldn’t really say that’s how Silver has operated. They’ve made efforts to kneecap bigger market teams from just spending shitloads of money to win.

That’s what the 1999, 2011, and 2016 CBAs all incentivized. Stern was the commissioner for 2 of the 3.

The luxury tax was introduced in 1999, and it only escalated in successive CBAs. The problem with the luxury tax was that it was able to put small market teams in the red, whereas bigger markets were generally able to find a sweet spot where they’d: 1) Operate in the black; 2) Go *just* deep enough into the tax to keep smaller markets from competing for high end talent.

Inevitably, the league’s top end talent agglomerated in big markets. And once talent agglomeration led to big market teams winning, even more high end talent wanted to play for those big markets - sometimes for a pay-cut. Positive feedback loop go burrrr.

The aprons introduced by the 2023 CBA fix this problem by adding non-monetary penalties to big spenders. They take most of the big market advantage away because of how hard it is to win without roster flexibility. When a team locks themselves into the 2nd apron, they need everything to go right. One thing goes wrong - such as a bad injury to a star player, shitty coaching, or fundamentally garbage roster construction - and you just end up dishing out $$$$$ to lose for multiple years. When shit hits the fan, there are no good ways out of 2nd apron hell.

Holy overreaction 

Excuse you, cricket doesn’t even have one ad break per hour.  It’s the opposite of American sports.  You can watch 7 hours of cricket in a day and only see like 15 minutes of ads.

Ok I actually think this changes the dynamic a little bit. I hate billionaires and I think Tom DumbDon will need to pitch in, but if the city gets to bring in money for leasing the venue for events including the Blazers, maybe this makes sense? Need a Blazers fan to counter

The commissioner has admitted the product is ass saying it’s just a highlight league.

If you don’t have an interest in the team playing, almost all of the regular season games are terrible to watch with exception of a few that have playoff implications.

Even a bunch of the playoff games are just blowouts back and forth.

The renovation cost is way too fucking high, especially without Dundon throwing in any of his own cash nor making commitments to invest in the surrounding area.

The Pacers & City of Indianapolis have a similar agreement as the Blazers & City of Portland:

• The City (i.e taxpayers) owns the stadium.
• The team “leases” the stadium for about $1/year.
• Team manages the stadium. This means the team gets to books all events, and collect all associated revenue. This is true for both NBA & non-NBA events.
• Team does not pay property taxes because they do not technically own the stadium.
• City collects ticket taxes on all events booked at the stadium, and these monies are meant to pay back stadium bonds.

For comparison, Gainbridge’s recent remodel cost roughly $400M and…

• $65M came from the Pacers’ owners.
• $25M came from the Eli Lilly Endowment. (Unrelated 3rd party!)
• \(300M-\)310M came from the government. Some infrastructure money from the City of Indianapolis, but the vast majority came from the Marion County CIB.
  • The Marion County CIB broadly collects ticket & tourism taxes across Indianapolis, and ultimately takes in way more money than it spends. (Complicated situation, but this wasn’t true before hosting the Super Bowl in 2012. Somehow we parlayed hosting the SB into a thriving sports & convention tourism industry.)
  • Generally a good situation because most of the CIB’s money comes from tourists and those who actually utilize the CIB’s infrastructure, although it’s kind of absurd how much money the CIB keeps in reserves given that the State doesn’t allow CIB reserves to be used on anything other than reinvestment into the convention/sports tourism industrial complex: stadiums, the convention center, convention hotels, and etc. Part of the problem is that it was never anticipated that the CIB would generate huge surpluses.

The Pacers’ owners then spent another ~$500M+ of their own money developing real estate immediately surrounding Gainbridge. The hotels, restaurants/bars, and concert venue that they’ve built/are building generate hospitality taxes, which work to pay back public financing (and further build up the reserves of the god damn CIB).

Meanwhile, Dundon asking the taxpayers for a $600M renovation and he does not/will not throw any of his money into the pot and/or commit investing in the area around the arena. He’s absolutely operating on bullshit right now, either trying to move the team or just lost like a deer in headlights.

____

This section of my post might be pure hopium, but I really don’t think that a majority of NBA owners would sign off on Dundon moving the team unless he finds a way to move to a substantially better market. And more generally speaking, I just don’t think that a consensus of NBA owners like the fact that Dundon is trying to run an NBA team as if it’s an NHL team.

One of the primary reasons why the median NBA team is worth so much more than the median NHL team is because NBA teams spend more money. It’s a Grade A example of spending more money to make more money/get better returns. If you cheap out on operating expenses, your franchise (and even other franchises within the same league) will gain equity much more slowly or straight-up lose value, while simultaneously opening the door for other leagues gain ground on you.

Then there’s the fact that professional sports teams are used by their owners as financial instruments. Instead of selling assets and generating huge capital gains tax liabilities, team owners fund their lavish lifestyles by putting their franchises up as collateral for low-interest bank loans. We can be nearly certain that a majority of owners leverage their respective teams in this way. None of these owners should support a peer whose profound cheapness risks devaluing the NBA and/or losing ground to leagues that are currently less valuable.

Finally, opportunity cost is a pretty important thing to consider in all this mess. Moving to a worse market just to dodge a short term capital expenditure is a terrible play, and I’m not convinced that there are better markets for the Trailblazers than Portland. In the long term, Dundon will make more money by fronting the cash to stay in Portland than he could make by moving the team to a market that, for 20+ years, makes less money & sees less compound appreciation. And unlike the NBA of the early 2000s, NBA teams are SO valuable relative to the cost of NBA arenas that fronting a decent chunk of construction/renovation costs should be the obvious choice in most circumstances. There are only two exceptions I can think of:

1. The city/state is asking the team to throw in an unreasonably high amount of money towards the stadium. This is only really possible in small & medium markets. Big market teams should have the means to fund 100% of construction costs (or close to it). Portland is a small-medium market, but Portland & Oregon are set to pay 100% of renovation costs. So it’s not applicable.
2. The owner is so incredibly cheap or cash poor that they are a liability to the whole league, and the majority of other NBA owners should be pissed off. This seems to be where Dundon is with the Blazers.
   1. It’s not even like Portland asked Dundon to contribute anything. He’s just being a dick, seemingly because he wants to treat his NBA team like an NHL team. And, as I explained above, I don’t think the other owners would be cool w/ this.

The most frustrating part is about $250 million of that, the biggest line item, is to upgrade the suites to be more fancy and bougie. They specifically say in their request how that’s their highest revenue source. The thing inflating the cost is better seating for rich shits.

It has that vibe but where’s he going to move it? Like when Clay Bennett bought the Sonics it was extremely obvious where it was going.

The City of Portland has already secured the $600 million. This ass hat wants more.

man I miss the A’s, and I grew up a Giants fan

Not having ANY basketball in the PNW is stupid as fuck.

Expansion is absolutely happening. They have multiple bids in Las Vegas as we speak The bids will probably pick up in Seattle since the Seahawks have been sold. Also the Pacific Northwest is major area with a a lot of people. The NBA absolutely needs a team there. I just don’t think the NBA wants 2 teams there.

Most of his issues as an owner towards the end were because he didn’t want to own the team anymore. It took him a long time to be able to sell the team AND secure their long term future in Milwaukee.

It’s a big reason why the Bucks just sort of treaded after for a decade.

St. Louis Rams’ fan checking in, hope you both have cold pillows and find $20 in your pocket.

Looked it up and the city owns the arena but only makes 6% of ticket sales (for non Blazer events too apparently?)which they should request to increase as a condition if they’re asking for more taxpayer funds.

And the Blazers don’t have to pay property taxes since they don’t own the arena. This guy is mad entitled lmao.

Honestly Portland’s downtown issues are an even worse problem than the owner (not that it gives him a free pass). Portland might be the worst metro area for tourists of its size in the entire country, the budget has been mismanaged for years, the taxes actively chase companies away, it’s just terrible.

It was done to save the team on property taxes. Basically the blazers got to keep using the building like they owned it since it was built by Allen, but they wouldn’t have to pay taxes or maintenance. Absolutely a value to the team owner to avoid all cost related to owning the building with the only downside being its “old”.

You’re right technically but the framings pretty off. The old owner gave the arena to the city knowing she could sell the franchise for more because the new owner could then extort taxpayers easily. He bought the team at the price he did with the understanding he’d be able to do this and leverage the position 

They clearly hate money then because they already walked away from a much bigger media market in seattle. 

The NBA is set to field bids from multiple potential ownership groups. There is a lot of money in Seattle. There is a decent chance that an ownership group with no ties to the Kracken wins the bid for Seattle’s expansion team, and will build their own basketball-specific arena.

Arenas that can accommodate NHL rinks without losing much seating capacity tend to be sub-optimal for basketball. Seating area spread too wide when it should be closer & steeper instead.

They approved looking for bids from those two cities specifically, but they didn’t actually approve expansion yet.

Las Vegas Trail Blazers

Tbf I’m not sure how the MLB works/if they hold the same kind of mafioso tendencies as the current NBA leadership. All I know is that city leadership should not fold so easily and get something back from Dundon/Blazers org

An exsisting franchise is a lot better than starting from scratch

Seattle also has at least 2 other major sports team. Portland doesn’t. They’re about to have none for a decade or more. The new owner can suck a bag of dicks.