The way this week has gone, you can be forgiven if you just want to avoid the news entirely. If you’ve come here to be cheered up by some less depressing news … that’s never a good idea, but there are maybe some amusing bits, and nobody has gotten killed (so far), so I guess those are pluses!
Feel free to try to find the glass half full in these items:
- The Portland Trail Blazers owners are about to ask that Oregon hand over all state income taxes paid by home and road players and staff to help fund a $600 million renovation of their 30-year-old arena. (The cost is estimated at $20 million a year, which if salaries rise enough could easily end up amounting to $600 million worth of future taxes.) The Oregonian notes: “Team employees, notably players who earn millions, have been paying into the state’s general fund for decades, dating back to the franchise’s founding in 1970. Will lawmakers have the stomach to divert those funds from essential services to rebuild an arena that is home to a team that will soon be owned by a Texas billionaire?” Then it says that “the income tax dollars the general fund would lose in this proposal will vanish anyway if the Blazers relocate,” which, no they wouldn’t, not if Portlanders spent their basketball ticket dollars elsewhere locally, which the numbers show is what would mostly happen. Securing approval of the tax money before Tom Dundon (the aforementioned billionaire) officially steps in as owner, one source told the Oregonian, “guarantees the Blazers’ future,” though they didn’t say what kind of lease extension Dundon would agree to in exchange, so it’s always possible it would only guarantee the Blazers’ future until it’s time to ask for more tax money again.
- Hillsborough County is discussing paying for $250 million in renovations to the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s arena in exchange for a six-year lease extension until 2043, which has some Tampa Sports Authority officials worried the Buccaneers and Rays owners may make similar demands if the arena project is approved. Also that would be $41.7 million per year of lease extension, which would be close to the record for most expensive ever.
- New Jersey’s proposed $300 million Devils arena subsidy only has a few days left of the legislative session for approval, and “some lawmakers,” per New Jersey Digest, have “raised concerns” that rushing a major tax break through in a lame-deck session with a lame-duck governor might not be the best of ideas. Not that state legislatures don’t do it all the time, but not the best of ideas does check out if you’re a fan of transparency and due diligence and all the other democracy things that are out of fashion right now.
- Kansas officials want to make clear that the state could still build a Kansas City Royals stadium, just not with STAR bonds since the deadline for those expired at the end of 2025, so they’re just for the Chiefs and for Barbie/Hot Wheels theme parks. And the state doesn’t really have many other good revenue sources, says house speaker Dan Hawkins: “It would be tough to use those and develop enough money to really support a stadium, and so, I just can’t see that happening.”
- The Ohio judge who issued a 14-day temporary restraining order against the use of unclaimed private funds to pay $600 million toward a new Cleveland Browns stadium has extended it indefinitely while he hears arguments on whether to issue a permanent injunction.
Tom Dundon? The guy who made millions on subprime auto loans and (perhaps rightly, but still shittily) ended the AAF? That guy?
Yeah, you want to give that guy money.
This is never going to end, is it? We are going to continue this nonsensical addiction to sports until the day when you call 911 and no one answers. And maybe past that even.
In Kansas City you call 911 and usually you get a busy signal. And it has been that way for years. Hasn’t stopped the mayor from wanting to spend taxpayer dollars on a downtown baseball stadium.
I now have a Public Enemy earworm.
Whole lotta governments treating their people like the ace that can’t beat the trey.
I am not sure this is true. I think Tom Dundon made his fortune licensing his name to Dick Wolf to use as a sound effect at the beginning of every Law & Order episode.
That’s right. Dude gets paid a nickel whenever those two notes are played anywhere in the world. He’s worth $785,000,000,000. Facts
That’s a switch up… Dundon’s history is in predatory lending… and at least according to court records, ‘non credible testimony’.
Meanwhile most bios of him feature references to his many business ventures that include phrases like “under investigation by attorneys general in multiple states over predatory lending practices”.
So, when the team says this deal will “ensure the Blazers’ future”, exactly what future does that ensure?
Mr. Dundon’s business history is, IMO, dishonest and disreputable. He would not be the only NBA owner to whom these monikers could be applied (in a couple of cases, they are almost identical), but you do wonder why the NBA would agree to accept a prospective owner of this, um, calibre.
Forgot link, sorry:
https://www.propublica.org/article/tom-dundon-portland-trail-blazers-subprime-loans
It “ensures the Blazers’ future” by renting the owner’s undying loyalty only as long as it takes until it’s time to revisit the grift for more free money.
I was wondering if it ‘ensured the Blazers future’ in Austin or Frisco or… maybe they could become the Amarillo Armadillos etc…
The city sure seems to be putting the cart before the horse here IMO. Shouldn’t they wait to see if the prospective purchaser is actually approved by the NBA before bribing him?
Alternately, if they said something like “we’d be prepared to work with the right owner going forward, but at this time…” hint hint.
Of course, it’s possible they are terrified that if they don’t shovel money to the first guy who comes along (no matter how horrific his business history may be) the league will mark them with a scarlet letter.
I have reached my free article limit with the Tampa Bay Times, so I don’t know if it is mentioned in the linked article. But the Lightning, under a previous owner, received several millions of dollars of essentially free arena upgrades for hosting the Republican convention the year that Clint Eastwood went onstage and talked with an empty chair.
Archive.ph has the TB Times article.
Meet new Cannibal Barbie. Watch her cannibalize amusement park business from nearby Six Flags World’s of Fun. A Barbie/Hot Wheels Park will follow a predictable pattern. A decent first year (although way bellow projections). A disappointing second year. Rumors of closing by year 3. If Bonner Springs really wants more visitors, they should drop the second ‘n’ in Bonner.
Mattel cannot even open their first park in Arizona (first date was February of 2022 and it has yet to open). The KC one is never happening.
If they were to adopt your suggestion for an innovative new business strategy, exploring a relocation to Nevada might be wise… but even though the Nevada legislature has committed to subsidizing some really poorly thought-out boondoggles, it remains to be seen if they have any appetite for subsidizing, ahem, full-service adult hospitality businesses.
Perhaps Tom Dundon could loan the Blazers the money for the renovation?
Perhaps –
Operationally speaking he sure as heck isn’t making that coin as owner of the small market NHL Hurricanes. In order to pursue this transaction he is poised to sell a minority interest in a team that realistically only sees black when it performs on the ice – which to his credit it has as of late, but watch out when their product becomes mediocre again.
Dundon receives tax subsidies for some of his TopGolf facilities as well, notably in Brighton NY and Mobile AL (Thanks Gemini for the data pull).
He’d be near the bottom in terms of “net” worth with respect to NBA ownership. This one is a HUGE reach.
The valuations I’ve seen have Carolina in the middle of the pack. One had them 15th. Another 17th.
All things considered, that’s a pretty good NHL operation, not least of all because the good people of the NC Triangle not only support the team, they have also heavily subsidized the arena.
But I don’t see how selling a piece of an NHL team worth $2bn does much to help him buy an NBA franchise worth $4bn.
Supposedly, he also wants to bring an MLB team to Raleigh-Durham. Sure. Why not?
https://www.wral.com/sports/carolina-hurricanes-tom-dundon-selling-part-of-hurricanes-reports-december-2025/
Well, the good folks of NC currently support the team because the product is good and has been for the last five years or so. There’s no guarantee of that given lean Lea years of very very low attendance – yes under Karmonos, but it’s still a precedent to note. Raleigh isn’t Buffalo. If the team stinks, Lenovo will be back to empty. Dundon knows this which is why he’s capitalizing on the worth of the Hurricanes now, while the value is at its peak.
Excellent points. I do recall many years where the team were drawing less (and losing more money) than they were in Hartford (if we concede that they were actually “losing” money in Hartford).
White collar criminals generally understand selling high.
I would imagine after raising capital from ‘canes ‘investors’ – who as minority partners don’t need as much NHL vetting as the primary owner does – the subprime car loan king will soon offer them the chance to become majority owners… and take his windfall to a more stable investment.
Or just start yet another distressed lending business that runs a semi-legal bustout on unsuspecting low income workers.
It has been my experience that scumbags gonna scumbag.
Has anyone noticed that these types of stadium/arena deals are never funded by special taxes on subprime car loans, cable/RSN channels or mortgages?
Just so called tourist taxes (which often apply as much to local residents as to genuine tourists).
Isn’t that, you know, kinda weird?
All the fanboys playing Franchise Roulette want the NHL in Atlanta because “TV Markets”. Never mind that the NHL has failed twice already in ATL. Now we learn the outfit wanting to be third time lucky is now playing hard to get.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/01/13/group-seeking-atlanta-nhl-franchise-has-not-been-in-contact-with-league-in-several-months/