The Oregon state house voted 43-13 late Friday to approve $365 million in state income tax funds toward a renovation of the Portland Trail Blazers‘ arena, a project that will ultimately cost $600 million, 100% of that coming from public coffers. And it did so before a lease extension with presumptive incoming team owner Tom Dundon, something that prompted The Oregonian to lead off its coverage like so:
While some legislators argued that it was unwise to volunteer Moda Center funding without first negotiating a lease, the Oregon House overwhelmingly passed a bill that clears the way for the state to pay for nearly two-thirds of the renovations that lawmakers hope will keep the Trail Blazers in Portland for at least two more decades.
Because The Oregonian is, by all evidence, a pretty bad newspaper, it then smash cuts to House Majority Leader Ben Bowman asserting that “the Blazers are proof that something can be emotionally meaningful and economically strategic at the same time.” (Say it with me now: “[citation needed]!”) But it did at least highlight the biggest problem with starting the ball rolling on a possible $600 million taxpayer subsidy for a man who made his billions in subprime lending before starting to buy up sports teams (and Major League Pickleball for some reason): Is “hoping” the Blazers will stay in Portland for two more decades enough of a return on that public spending?
This isn’t even a question of whether Dundon will spurn the Oregon taxpayer cash and refuse to sign a lease extension. Rather, as we’ve seen time and again, what a city actually gets out of a lease commitment depends very much on the details, as one cleverly worded state-of-the-art clause, say, can lead to either the team breaking its lease and skipping town or using the threat of that as leverage to gain even more taxpayer cash. The only way that $600 million in taxpayer money is useful, in other words, is as a carrot to extract good lease terms; if Oregon gives the milk away for free, Dundon has no reason to lease the cow, or something like that, it’s a pretty terrible proverb that doesn’t even make much sense where it originated in East Africa.
Still to be decided: another $235 million in redirected county car rental taxes and foregone city and county business taxes on the team’s sale to Dundon. It’s always possible that Portland and Multnomah County could hold out on those in order to try to bring Dundon to the lease negotiating table, but that’s an even smaller cow, more like a calf — you know what, I give up, abandon metaphor. The state of Oregon just promised a big bag of cash to a billionaire who’s buying the local NBA team in exchange for nothing, that’s the only thing you need to know here.
“Is ‘hoping’ the Blazers will stay in Portland for two more decades enough of a return on that public spending?”
As someone who lives in another city that counts an NBA franchise as its sole “major” sports team: you would be surprised.
I always have to preface this by stating that I don’t believe it’s right what many local and state governments are doing with these teams… but unless you’ve spent time in one of these one-horse sports towns — especially in the middle of a stadium financing sagas like this one — you can’t truly understand the desire these places have to be viewed as a prominent (or even major) American city, and the desperation they have to maintain that status.
In cases like these, emotional appeals are often enough to win people over, or at least get them to rationalize what is sure to be a costly public outlay. Which is why I find it curious and funny that teams and politicians would even resort to using any data and numbers to justify what’s eventually and inevitably going to happen.
I tend to agree, Kei. Although, of course, the old “we can’t lose our (insert nick name here)” play is always a falsehood. The Sonics/Saints/Blues/Browns/Oilers (either one)/Vikings etc aren’t ever “ours”. If they were this would not be happening.
I have always favoured total transparency on this stuff though. You can’t make an accurate decision on ‘how to feel’ unless you know what the cost is. Invariably, you do not know what the price of keeping “our” team will be.
Rather than banning these sorts of subsidies (which would be my preference), I would settle for just a requirement that they pay for an independent study conducted by actual economists with ties neither to the team or city to determine WHAT it will cost over the term of the lease/extension/bribery period.
And hey, if 60% of the voters in my city/state feel it’s worth “the price” to bribe the team not to leave for 14-35 years, I can live with it. Or move.
But when you have no clue what it will cost (and lying team employees and shameless shills in the media are telling you you will “make” money on the deal…), it is impossible to make an informed decision.
I certainly don’t object to the idea that city and regional governments should disclose the financial figures associated with these deals. I object to the continued practice of those governing bodies then spinning those figures into convoluted justifications, knowing full well that the public is going to take a bath on it, and everybody except the most ardent cheerleaders of the team (or the city itself) can see that the public is going to take a bath on it.
In situations like these, a truly honest and transparent city/county mayor would make a declaration along the lines of, “It was more important for me that we remained a ‘major league’ city, even under tremendous financial pain, than for us to lose a team that has become our biggest, if not only, marker of identity at the national level.”
That’s basically the polar opposite of what my belief would be, but I would find that easier to respect than the same mayor saying something like, “We’ll get to keep our team, *and* serve the taxpayers of our city at the same time,” because that rarely ever happens… especially in one-horse sports towns, which the NBA has a comparatively larger number of.
Or, to put it more bluntly: these mayors and council members think we’re all idiots. And given how many of them across the continent get re-elected to office *after* they make these lopsided deals — including, again, in my own city — they might not exactly be wrong to think that way.
So the Oregonian has its sports columnist (Bill Oram) who has been advocating for the arena renovation also reporting on the subject? Nice.
Maybe we’ll have to downgrade them to “very bad newspaper.”
Key words for me are “presumptive incoming owner”.
If the league has voted on this I haven’t heard/read about it. I know it’s not like the NBA to reject lunatic tech lords, vile property barons OR subprime loan kings, but it’s not done until it’s done.
And yet the not even owner yet has $365m – nearly ten percent of his proposed purchase price – already stumped for him by taxpayers who (for the most part) won’t be able to afford to go to games anyway.
There are about 2.5 million people in the Portland metro.
The Blazers drew 719,369 last season. Even if absolutely no one went to more than one Blazer game, 72 percent of the population never attends a game. (And it’s probably higher.)
Why should those people have their tax dollars appropriated for this? Because some goobers would cry to think the place they have chosen to live “isn’t big league?” Who GAF?
Oregon Legislatures, How damn stupid are you??? Climate Pledge in Seattle was built by the owners of the Kraken and potential SuperSonics return.
Plus the team was sold to an idiot from the East Cost. I certainly hope you can keep the Blazers in the NW. Unfortunately, I doubt it!