Portland has cards to play with Tom Dundon

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Tom Dundon certainly is announcing his presence with authority in the Portland-metropolitan area, now that he’s the presumptive new owner of the Trail Blazers.

“Hey Portland, I’m here to take over your team - and move it if you don’t give me what I want!!!! Ha, ha!”

Now, he hasn’t said that outright - so those are my words being dubbed in if this were on video, but the furor around his new ownership group being put forward by The Oregonian/OregonLive and politicians is that if the public doesn’t pony up and pay for a significant portion of renovating the Moda Center - and right now - then he’s taking the NBA franchise to somewhere that will give him everything he wants, and more.

Somewhere else is Nashville, or St. Louis, or Kansas City, or Vancouver, BC. Or Las Vegas.

Or Seattle.

In the financial poker game that is apparently going on, Dundon holds most of the money cards, while Portland and its basketball fans are mostly left to the art of bluffing (or so it seems), according to media and politicians.

As The Oregonian columnist Bill Oram wrote in a recent column, Dundon knows “his new team’s greatest value lies in his ability to move it.”

But ... Portland has some money cards to play, or bluff with. So, let's play.

There’s the Cleveland Browns to reflect on. And the American Basketball Association, too.

And, the Moda Center works a lot better than the arena the Sonics left Seattle for in 2008. Yes, it’s been 18 years since the Sonics bailed out on Seattle for Oklahoma City, and Seattle has not had basically any interest beyond talk in getting another team since then because it does not have an NBA arena.

Seattle has an NHL arena - for The Kraken, which works just fine. But, not an NBA arena. (The Kraken play to 93 percent capacity on average in Climate Pledge Arena, which seats 18,300 for hockey).

Seattle, a logical destination market of a potential move, would have to build an arena for the Blazers to go there with any kind of financial success, and that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. So, Seattle is out in any real movement discussions - pokerwise.

The other potential cities? Anywhere else would have to deal with Dundon and give him all kinds of concessions, which happens in all of the Big 5 sports. So, assume some city leaders are going to do that somewhere in the Lower 48.

Let’s play a card, Portland, and examine the Browns of the NFL, and their loss of the franchise in 1996. The franchise moved, but the team stayed. How’s that possible? The city and season ticket holders threatened to sue the league, and the NFL still valued the city as an asset so it just, essentially, made Baltimore an expansion franchise - the Ravens - and told Cleveland to build a new stadium if it wanted the Browns back. Cleveland did, and in 1999 the Browns returned to playing with the team history intact, and the league expanded to 31 teams.

The expanded to 32 when Houston joined in 2002, replacing the Oilers, who had moved to Nashville in 1996. Cost of the franchise? $700 million. Forbes has the franchise at around $7.4 billion in 2025. (That’s more then 10 times value expansion. That’s 100 percent times 10. Sports franchises are valuable commodities.)

Portland and Blazers season ticket holders can certainly threaten to sue the league for the franchise history, and the league would probably listen closely because the city is a valuable market that it doesn’t want to lose. It would be a perfect expansion franchise - guaranteed financial success. According to Forbes, the Blazers made more than $100 million in profit last year, so there’s plenty of financially savvy people who would want to own a team in the Rose City, even with its crappy two-decades old arena that still works fine for all kinds of uses.

And, the NBA doesn’t want the Blazers to be a homeless franchise such as the A’s of Major League Baseball - from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland and soon, Las Vegas, where they are absolutely not guaranteed any kind of financial success due to the rise in online gambling and subsequent drop in casino tourism.

The NBA has 30 teams, and any expansion would probably go to 32, so there’s two more expansion teams on the horizon for the league. If the Blazers move from Portland, then one of those expansion teams would probably be located in Portland - if the city renovated the Moda Center along with its new ownership group.

One thing about the potential expansion ownership group is that it might have local connections, something Dundon does not. And, it would have the Blazers nickname and history. Imagine if New Orleans were the Jazz instead of the Pelicans? According to the Forbes insight, the Pelicans are No. 30 of 30 in terms of revenue raised during the previous season, and that’s significantly weighted on local revenue such as tickets sales and sponsorships. The Pels are No. 29 in terms of overall value, too - around $3.55 billion. Think they’d be more valuable as the New Orleans Jazz? Yes.

Any move Tom Dundon makes would have to be approved by the league, and the NBA, I’m thinking, doesn’t want the Blazers anywhere but Portland.

Now, what of the ABA? That’s the league that started in 1967 and ran for a decade before its top four teams: the Nets, Nuggets, Spurs and Pacers; merged into the NBA bringing along things such as the three-point shot with them.

If the NBA fully bailed on Portland, there’s nothing to stop the city from being a marquee market for a new league that might include teams in, say, St. Louis, Kansas City, Nashville, Louisville, Vancouver, B.C., and ... Seattle. Maybe Oakland, too. And, this new league could bump up the game, say, the way the Savannah Bananas are bumping up baseball - playing to very large crowds all over the nation. Maybe there’s a four-point shot out there? Or, a penalty box instead of free throws? Actual traveling calls? Time limits to video reviews? Lower costs to tickets and things like stadium food and drinks?

Portland has options in its poker duel with Tom Dundon, but it seems to be showing all its cards without Dundon saying anything - what a good gambler would do.

So, for Portland to really do anything on the stadium, make anything really happen, Tom Dundon and his future buds in the NBA should show off some cards, and make some form of commitment to Portland’s place in the league beyond just his money is buying the team. The St. Louis Trail Blazers are never going to be worth as much as the Portland Trail Blazers.

Ron Wyden’s energy helped get the WNBA back, and he’s putting plenty of energy into keeping the Blazers here. So is Governor Tina Kotek. But they should also show off some poker skills and drop some hints to the league like “the Browns” and “the ABA” to let Dundon and friends know we have cards, too, and put some of their money and commitment forward.

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