Forget making a deal for Giannis Antetokounmpo or finding a taker for Jerami Grant’s contract by Thursday’s trade deadline.
The Portland Trail Blazers are in a much more urgent race against time.
The NBA franchise is attempting the high-wire act of bringing together state lawmakers, the city of Portland and Multnomah County to secure $600 million in public funding that would pay to modernize the Moda Center and, in theory, secure the NBA team’s future in Portland for at least another generation.
Anything else would be widely seen as an invitation for incoming owner Tom Dundon to start exploring options to move the Blazers out of Portland.
However, sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive the proposal has encountered some resistance at the local level, which has delayed efforts to move forward in Salem. Any bill would need to pass the Legislature by March 8, the end of the 35-day short session.
With the 2030 Women’s Final Four circled on calendars, the need for dramatic renovations to the 30-year-old Moda Center has been a point of emphasis for the Trail Blazers and many local leaders for years.
The issue, however, was pushed into the spotlight last summer after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s comment that “the city of Portland will likely need a new arena” seemed to set the stakes for the franchise’s future.
If you don’t build it, they will go.
Dundon, who led a group that agreed to buy the Blazers last summer for $4.25 billion, is not expected to contribute additional cash to fund the renovation project, tacitly tightening the squeeze on local leaders to either pony up or suffer the consequences.
According to a source with direct knowledge of the proposed package, the state would need to approve $360 million in bonds backed by the income tax of athletes and performers at Moda Center while the city and county would effectively split the remaining $240 million.
That money would be put into the new Oregon Arena Fund and create a joint power of authority, between the state and city, for the state’s highest-traffic entertainment venue.
The city’s contribution, which multiple sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive has the support of Mayor Keith Wilson and City Council President Jamie Dunphy, would primarily be through the city’s Clean Energy Fund. The bulk of the county’s contribution would be through taxes on hotel and car rentals — the same mechanism used to cover $53 million in recent upgrades to Veterans Memorial Coliseum — after debt on the Oregon Convention Center is paid off in 2030.
Those are details that are still being hammered out as the clock continues to tick in Salem.
The intricate funding package is dependent on the cooperation of three governments who are all being asked to work on the Trail Blazers’ sudden and immediate timeline, one in which time and fear can work to the team’s advantage.
“Each of them have different personalities and politics,” one official told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “You’re trying to get three different groups with their own challenges to move at the same speed and move at the same time. I don’t have a clear sense of how patient this new ownership group is.”
The overall package has significant support and many local leaders are rallying behind the civic importance of saving the Trail Blazers. While multiple sources indicated some county leaders have not yet signed off on the proposal, one county commissioner came out strongly in support of the team last week.
“I know many people, not just friends, whose life stories and jobs are intertwined with this storied franchise,” Commissioner Shannon Singleton wrote on Instagram. “Multnomah County needs to show up as a full partner and I am digging in to what it will take to move a Moda Center renovation forward.”
If the proposal fails to win over its skeptics?
Are you ready for the Nashville or Kansas City Trail Blazers?
What happens to Portland’s central city if the Moda Center sits fallow 41 nights a year and the Seattle Trail Blazers become the NBA’s lone anchor in the Pacific Northwest?
How could the city of Portland, which has been beaten and battered and generally mismanaged, overcome the economic and cultural hit of losing the Trail Blazers?
Those are the kinds of existential doomsday questions brought on by the current predicament ensnaring the Trail Blazers and government officials at all levels.
According to multiple sources, state leaders have signaled they are ready to move forward with their piece of the package, when it gets to them, which would ensure roughly $360 million in bonds backed by the income tax of all athletes and performers at Moda Center.
While it is a model similar to the “jock tax” structure the Portland Diamond Project used to get an $800 million commitment for possible Major League Baseball expansion last year, it is not identical. Whereas that relied on new money coming into the state, the Blazers’ proposal requires rerouting existing taxes that currently go to the general fund.
Advocates would counter that if the consequence is that the Trail Blazers leave, those tax dollars leave anyway and it is therefore more wise to reinvest them into a publicly-owned building that drives significant economic impact.
“It’s a short timeline and there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” Oregon Speaker of the House Julie Fahey, a Eugene Democrat, said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board last week. “I think we share the goal of trying to keep the team here. There’s a lot to sort through and we have to vet the legislation. We had many months to vet the baseball legislation last year and to get questions answered.”
Time is not be so plentiful for the Blazers.
The urgency has been brought on by a perfect storm of factors, including the fact that the Blazers lease with the city extends only through 2030 after the sides agreed to a “bridge” agreement last year rather than a long-term extension.
Whether the structure and timeline was intentionally designed by outgoing owner Jody Allen so her successor would have maximum leverage to secure significant public funding is unclear.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter if the value proposition is the Blazers either stay or they go.
Dundon’s deal to buy the Trail Blazers is expected to close this spring, likely before the end of the NBA’s regular season.
If public funding for a large-scale arena renovation is in place when he takes over, there would be little reason for him to consider moving to another market.
Even if Dundon and his partners were inclined to still attempt to relocate to a city with a larger corporate sponsorship base or where local leaders pledge to build a brand new, state-of-the-art building, it is unlikely the NBA would approve a move after Oregon leaders met the moment and threw their weight behind the franchise’s future.
Falling short of that would mean Dundon, who also owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, would be taking over a franchise with an aging building on an expiring lease with no immediate path to funding for renovations, particularly not on a timeline that would allow for a major makeover by the 2030 Final Four.
That outcome would leave every major question unanswered, save one.
Are Portland and Oregon capable of doing what it takes to ensure its prized franchise’s longtime viability?
“This absolutely will send a clear message,” one source said, “that we either can or we can’t.”