The long-anticipated sale of the Portland Trail Blazers is underway.
The estate of the late tech billionaire Paul Allen announced Tuesday morning that the franchise is for sale. The announcement from Allen’s estate, which is controlled by his sister, Jody Allen, comes more than six years after his death.
Jody Allen is obligated by Allen’s trust to sell his assets—including the Blazers, the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Sounders—but the timing of when a Blazers sale would commence had been a mystery. In recent weeks, scuttlebutt grew in government circles that a sale was imminent, but no city officials would confirm that.
Blazers spokeswoman Natalie King wrote in a brief statement this morning: “Today the Estate of Paul G. Allen is announcing the start of a formal process to sell the Portland Trail Blazers. This is an expected milestone following Paul’s death, who had directed his sports holdings to be sold with all Estate proceeds being directed to philanthropy.”
The Blazers will fetch a pretty penny. The most recent valuation of NBA teams by CNBC estimated the Trail Blazers are worth $3.65 billion. The Boston Celtics recently sold for $6.1 billion, while the smaller-market Minnesota Timberwolves sold for $1.5 billion.
Allen has rejected multiple overtures from Nike founder Phil Knight in 2022 to purchase the franchise for $2 billion. Knight is an obvious frontrunner to buy the team now—in no small part because he pledged to keep the Blazers in Portland, a stated desire of the league—but relations between him and Jody Allen are known to be frosty.
The announcement of the Blazers sale arrives the morning after the NBA Draft Lottery. That’s probably not a coincidence: Had the Blazers won the first pick in the draft (and the rights to select Duke phenom Cooper Flagg), that good luck might have added significantly to a sale price.
As it stands, the Blazers will pick 11th, and are still without a franchise cornerstone two years after trading longtime star Damian Lillard to the Milwaukie Bucks. The team is developing a number of young and promising players—including the high-flying Shaedon Sharpe—but hasn’t had a winning season since 2021.
Any sale must be ratified by the NBA Board of Governors.