Looking for money.
No one in Portland, Oregon is calling moving companies asking how much it would cost to move a National Basketball Association franchise from that city to say Louisville, Nashville, Austin, Cincinnati, Raleigh, Vancouver, Mexico City or San Diego in 2030. But there is cause to panic because the new owner of the Portland Trail Blazers franchise, Tom Dundon, might move his business out of the city without a $600 million renovation of the municipality’s venue when his arena lease ends in four years. Dundon does not want to throw any money into renovating the building that opened in 1995. The good news for Dundon is that the state wants the building upgraded but there is a problem. Portland elected officials are not yet on board with spending public money.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed Senate Bill 1501, which approved $365 million in state-issued bonds to renovate the arena. But that doesn’t happen without the city of Portland and Multnomah County throwing in $235 million and Dundon signing a 20-year lease. Portland politicians are not sure how the money will be found. Money is always the problem. Sports owners have a rare business and there are just 30 of these NBA businesses and an owner can always threaten a bunch of politicians with give us public money in some form for a venue or someone else in another town will give us that money. By the way, if you want the business back, you will pay far more money for it than you will now. Dundon played hardball with Raleigh, North Carolina politicians to get not only an upgrade for the arena that his Carolina Hurricanes National Hockey League franchise uses but getting a village built around it as well. The same playbook will be used in Portland.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
