Two days into the week, and Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon’s strategy for getting arena renovation money is becoming clear: Send team officials to talk to the media under cover of anonymity to sell his $600 million demand. That’s a typical enough gambit — though finding two media suckers in a row to agree to print your unnamed quotes, The Oregonian last night after The Athletic on Sunday, is impressive — but what’s breaking new ground is that Blazers officials have introduced negging to the sports subsidy game, declaring that really it’s Oregon taxpayers who would be getting a “sweetheart deal” by only giving Dundon $600 million:
The official said one “very real” potential outcome of that meeting could be the ownership group resetting the negotiations and starting over, including tossing aside the $365 million commitment the state made earlier this year. … The official added, “The deal doesn’t get better. It gets worse with time.” …
The team official argued that “the city of Portland doesn’t even recognize that they got a sweetheart deal,” suggesting that an arena renovation is far less expensive for the public than had ownership pressed for a new facility. …
The team official stressed a move is not the Blazers’ preferred outcome but did not rule it out.
If Dundon were to attempt to move the Blazers to another market, he would likely have to pay a steep penalty to the league. That may not necessarily be the deterrent some relocation skeptics believe it would be for the famously thrifty owner.
“It’s not like we lose money moving the team,” the team official said. “We might spend money, but we don’t lose money. It might be OK to spend a billion dollars on a relocation fee if the valuation of the team doubles.
“Of course you would do that.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, but in short: Dundon’s execs are claiming that their boss’s offer to take $600 million in tax money while paying no rent or property taxes is really doing Portland a favor, because he could either 1) demand even more money for renovations, 2) demand even more money for a whole new arena, or 3) move the team to a more lucrative market, even if it costs $1 billion in relocation fees. For the Blazers’ value to double, in case you’re wondering, according to Forbes figures they would have to become the fourth-most valuable team in the NBA, behind only the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and New York Knicks. Where on earth they could make that happen is one of many followup questions that it would be good to ask — but which no other news outlets can, because the Blazers Deep Throats aren’t taking questions, they’re only issuing statements.
Responding to resistance from elected officials to giving you everything you want by threatening to demand even more, meanwhile — and at a time when his lease actually prohibits him from seeking out new cities to relocate to for another four years — is a bold move, but then, Dundon has always been known for his unorthodox business practices. If the next anonymously sourced article claims that if Portland doesn’t approve its share of the $600 million immediately Dundon will shoot a dog, don’t act all surprised.
At this point, franchise valuations are in the Tyson Zone. You could tell me any number and I’d believe it. The Seahawks are suddenly worth $10B? Okay. Angel City FC is worth $340M? Got it. The Trail Blazers are going to be worth $8.5B somewhere? Sure, why not?
There is no anchor to reality anymore. This is where we are.
I’d never heard of the Mr Cheeseface cover on National Lampoon, but found/read the below article. Heartbreaking and very interesting.
I love your links Neil. Always good stuff!
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/who-shot-mr-cheeseface-the-vermont-demise-of-a-famous-mutt-23671435/
This is really just an old car dealer trick… “you have a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy this (piece of shit) today for $36,000. The only thing certain is that next year’s model will be much more. How much? Well, who can say? But more. Way more. Your discount is already built into the MSRP and you should be thankful we are willing to sell you this left over unwanted end of model year auto for the full MSRP. Because next year’s model will cost more. So go ahead and wait for next year. You can only lose by not buying today”.
That never worked on me or most of the people I know. But since scumbag car sales people (or predatory lenders) are still doing it, I guess it must work “enough” to keep the grift going.
If it were me I would call The Predatory Lender’s ™ bluff immediately. Go ahead and move your team. Of course, you can’t even talk about it until 2030… but go ahead and plan for it… if you can convince the league to NOT take expansion money from Seattle or Vegas (where you will not control the arena you play in, btw…) maybe you can play them off against each other.
Or, you know, move to Tulsa or Reno or Louisville or Greensboro or… San Diego or St. Louis or…
Hmmm. Wait a minute… sounds to me like there aren’t any better markets than Portland out there to move to – if you take the two prospective expansion cities off the list (and the NBA will make sure of that, unless DumDum is willing to effectively pay the expansion fee to usurp one of those markets).
Portland is negotiating against itself. It should stop doing that immediately.
Expansion teams are probably going to pay an expansion fee of at least $7 billion each. Based on that, it seems optimistic for Dumdum to suggest that a Blazers’ relocation fee would be “only” $1 billion.
Seattle Sonics fan here. This corrupt current Blazer owner is a sham and I feel for PDX. The Blazers are an institution in PDX. The MODO Center isn’t a bad arena, of course an update is needed by not by extortion!
So Mr Owner wants to be like the Warriors? Wait until he finds out the Warriors paid to build their arena in San Francisco. They could afford it, they’re making tons of money and SF was never going to pay for an arena.
He should do the same
Typical negotiation tactic, try to limit the time for a decision. Makes you wonder who has he already got in his pocket?