Adam Silver: Portland needs a new arena, will be a challenge for new owner

[zzaj]

I've been a Vegas local for multiple years now, I can guarantee you from first hand experience this is not how the LV area works.

Gambling and local professional sports have some overlap, but not nearly enough to really matter.

The Yang / China impact is also - while a thing - not nearly as important to a move than you might think from what people connected to that sort of thing have reported. Blazers will get a short-term boost, but if Yang flames out in the big-boy league, it's not going to matter. And again, as far as a move out of Portland goes, I don't see much of a connection. If there is any conspiracy with the Yang pick, it's simply to boost the final sale price of the team by a few million, nothing at all to do with any potential move.

Ya'll have to understand, if there is a chance for a move out of Portland, it's going to be years out still. So many of these things like Yang's impact can't be foretold at this point in time because none of us can tell the future.

Please be kind and explain how LV now works. Before sports teams, LV used boxing to bring in the gamblers.

Since 1975, I have been to LV about 3 dozen times. I stopped going when everything became a tourist trap rip off. So I am out of touch.

LV was so much better when the mob ran it.

Vegas is definitely spendy now on the strip. I have never been but have enough secondhand accounts of how much the tourist areas charge for everything. You might as well be in Hawaii and have the ocean mountains and landscape for the amount youre paying to stay in Vegas now. Of course the travel deals can make vegas nice sometimes so I get that side of things but for food/drinks/souvenirs etc you'll definitely be paying as if youre at a destination location which is nuts to me for a town without a ton of natural beauty as best as I can tell

Really besides gambling money driving everything i dont get the lure of Vegas. Teams there are being valued as if theyre one of the best sports markets in America but you cant convince me the Lakers/clips Knicks mavs warriors rockets and Celtics aren't worth possibly double or at least 50 percent more than a vegas team would be worth given the size of those TV markets and economic value those cities provide. Now of course bidders could and likely would disagree but I think in terms of return on investment small market teams provide a far fairer value than vegas and frankly large market teams do in terms of profitability

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

[DusterBuster]

Not sure why all three teams moved out of East Bay? i posted this info to get a feel of the owners and politicians mind set. We will not know anything untill the new owners make a move.

However, this does reveal an agenda that "may" involve the Blazers future. It is very clear Las Vegas wants pro sports teams to attrack gamblers from out of their local area.

Q. Which NBA team would attrack the most gamblers from out of the LV area?

I believe a case can be made that at this time, that team is the Blazers. Reason, Yang, and the huge China market no other NBA player, or team, would attrack.

I would not be suprised if a LV backed buyer/group makes a serious run at buying the Blazers. But that is pure speculation on my part.

I've been a Vegas local for multiple years now, I can guarantee you from first hand experience this is not how the LV area works.

Gambling and local professional sports have some overlap, but not nearly enough to really matter.

The Yang / China impact is also - while a thing - not nearly as important to a move than you might think from what people connected to that sort of thing have reported. Blazers will get a short-term boost, but if Yang flames out in the big-boy league, it's not going to matter. And again, as far as a move out of Portland goes, I don't see much of a connection. If there is any conspiracy with the Yang pick, it's simply to boost the final sale price of the team by a few million, nothing at all to do with any potential move.

Ya'll have to understand, if there is a chance for a move out of Portland, it's going to be years out still. So many of these things like Yang's impact can't be foretold at this point in time because none of us can tell the future.

Please be kind and explain how LV now works. Before sports teams, LV used boxing to bring in the gamblers.

Since 1975, I have been to LV about 3 dozen times. I stopped going when everything became a tourist trap rip off. So I am out of touch.

LV was so much better when the mob ran it.

Woof... this is a very long answer for a short question.

Short as I can explain it, Vegas has spent the last handful of years very much catering to "whales". Why you see it becoming more tourist trappy than ever is the casinos have decided they make more from a small handful of the 1% than they do catering to casual tourists. Like yourself, many other people who've stopped coming since everything became a rip off because the Strip wants those big money tourists who come in and spend for a weekend and leave. Those people, by in large, are not really here for local sporting events. Not to say there's zero crossover, and depending on the league, there can be heavier crossover. For instance, the NFL will have a greater crossover due to the scarcity of games. Even more amplified for a single weekend event like F1.

Leagues like the WNBA, NHL, soon-to-be MLB, and maybe someday, the NBA, are far more "local" sports events. So many games per season, the draw for non-local sports fans is far less. All these leagues would certainly draw the big-events like All Star games and such which brings in the "whales", but game-in / game-out, it's locals going to games because they want to goto games just like any other city. Visitors or locals alike betting on games are doing so across multiple teams and leagues.

TRIGGER WARNING, I'm gonna touch on some political things... Comments made below are truly made without bias and just meant to represent very real-world impact of what has changed in the USA since Jan 2025. Any statement made below that needs citation, I can provide:

Back to the city in general, due to the current federal administration, the city itself has gotten hammered on the tourism side of things. This happens every 4-8 years, some world "event" will cause tourism to drop, but there's always a rally after a period of time. The Fontainebleau is a good example. Started construction in 2007, Great Recession in 2008, construction stopped and tourism died in 2009. Tourism started rebounding about 10 years later, construction restarted 12 years later and opened in 2023.

On the magnitude of "world events", Trump getting reelected with his pro-nationalist sentiments has had a very distinct impact on the city. One of the biggest international tourist groups (Canadians) has been all but non-existent. Follow any local Vegas account, they will tell you how much that event has impacted the city. It's not to the level of the GR or COVID impact, but it's been impactful enough that Vegas has started to bring back locals-discounts that up until this year long been gone once the city decided they no longer needed locals support. You can see it in even the little things around the city; resorts opening up their pool areas w/ free daybeds and cabanas back to locals for free mid-week, relaxing paid parking rules, etc.

END TRIGGER WARNING

Getting back to an NBA team in Vegas, a team moving here would have way less to do with gambling or tourism than most people outside of Vegas would believe. And look, that's for understandable reasons, this entire city is build on tourism and gambling (and alcohol, the Cleveland Clinic site in the city is built by a mob-connected owner who is also the largest alcohol distributor in the state). However, it's still a rapidly growing city that has proven it can sustain more local-centric sports leagues.

My one concern for Vegas is they're doing what they have historically ALWAYS done, they lean too heavily into one specific thing. Around 5-10 years ago, they decided they want to become the sports capital of the USA with every major league here. To their credit as a city as compared to somewhere like Portland, when they set their mind to something, they do it. The city and it's roads are constantly under construction, but they also have far more lanes and smoother roads than Portland could ever dream of. The flip side of that - as with the Disney-fication of Vegas in the early-90's - when they lean so hard into a specific "thing", they also end up devaluing it and spreading it too thin across multiple competitors.

If/when the NBA ever gets to Vegas, it's going to be one of the last major sports league in town. They'll already have the WNBA, NHL, NFL, MLB (interesting race what gets done first, NBA team or the A's ballpark on the old Trop site), NASCAR and F1. Only sports league they're missing would is MLS, and they're interested in bringing that in as well right now. That's an insane amount of sports options for a city half the size of Portland, but it shows the desire the city has to just get **** done.

I suspect by now, the numbers are in largely if a franchise is viable in Vegas and I suspect the answer is yes even with all the competition. The biggest attendee competition for the NBA will be the NHL team. The Knights are basically Vegas' Blazers, even with the Raiders here. MLB and WNBA are an offset seasonal draw and F1/NASCAR are more of "events" than leagues. NFL is in its own stratosphere (pun not intended).

Why I would be somewhat concerned with the Blazers moving to Vegas is if the sale of the team evolves into any kind of back and forth with the new owners and the arena, Vegas will be used as leverage against the city of Portland. Full stop, book it now. It won't be Seattle, it will be Vegas. Seattle ownership group has been very clear they have no interest in taking a team from a city. Vegas has no such qualms, they have NBA quality arenas locked and loaded. I can't speak to the ownership groups looking to get a team to Vegas if they have the same issues with moving a franchise here... My best guess would be no, but I don't know for sure as I haven't heard anything to contradict that.

[DusterBuster]

Please be kind and explain how LV now works. Before sports teams, LV used boxing to bring in the gamblers.

Since 1975, I have been to LV about 3 dozen times. I stopped going when everything became a tourist trap rip off. So I am out of touch.

LV was so much better when the mob ran it.

Vegas is definitely spendy now on the strip. I have never been but have enough secondhand accounts of how much the tourist areas charge for everything. You might as well be in Hawaii and have the ocean mountains and landscape for the amount youre paying to stay in Vegas now. Of course the travel deals can make vegas nice sometimes so I get that side of things but for food/drinks/souvenirs etc you'll definitely be paying as if youre at a destination location which is nuts to me for a town without a ton of natural beauty as best as I can tell

Really besides gambling money driving everything i dont get the lure of Vegas. Teams there are being valued as if theyre one of the best sports markets in America but you cant convince me the Lakers/clips Knicks mavs warriors rockets and Celtics aren't worth possibly double or at least 50 percent more than a vegas team would be worth given the size of those TV markets and economic value those cities provide. Now of course bidders could and likely would disagree but I think in terms of return on investment small market teams provide a far fairer value than vegas and frankly large market teams do in terms of profitability

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

Without repeating myself too much from my previous post, the allure is simply having a local city government eager to work with the league. There's FAR too much weight put on tourism and gambling as why ownership groups want to be in Vegas as opposed to teams and franchise owners want to work with local governments who don't put up roadblocks at every turn when franchises and cities need to deal with each other.

For better or worse, Vegas local government is a rubber stamp to any big business. Want to build a new arena? Cool, we'll just blow up this crappy old casino and build it on that site. Want to dig tunnels under our city for the next 5 years so you have single lane roads for Tesla only vehicles? Knock yourself out!

Meanwhile in Portland, the Memorial Colosseum still stands next to the now too old "new" arena and a huge part of the city around those two arenas is a ghost town because the local government won't do anything without 30 different subcommittees providing their reports on the impact to everything from noise position, surrounding tree population or migrating birds.

[oldfishermen]

I for one, will always be a Trailblazers fan, even if they relocate to Las Vegas or Seattle or heck even Winnipeg. The city on the jersey does not matter to me, I root for the franchise, the leadership, the players, the history, not some arbitrary location where they play basketball.

The Trailblazers, above all else! Silver, are you listening?!

I've been a Vegas local for multiple years now, I can guarantee you from first hand experience this is not how the LV area works.

Gambling and local professional sports have some overlap, but not nearly enough to really matter.

The Yang / China impact is also - while a thing - not nearly as important to a move than you might think from what people connected to that sort of thing have reported. Blazers will get a short-term boost, but if Yang flames out in the big-boy league, it's not going to matter. And again, as far as a move out of Portland goes, I don't see much of a connection. If there is any conspiracy with the Yang pick, it's simply to boost the final sale price of the team by a few million, nothing at all to do with any potential move.

Ya'll have to understand, if there is a chance for a move out of Portland, it's going to be years out still. So many of these things like Yang's impact can't be foretold at this point in time because none of us can tell the future.

Please be kind and explain how LV now works. Before sports teams, LV used boxing to bring in the gamblers.

Since 1975, I have been to LV about 3 dozen times. I stopped going when everything became a tourist trap rip off. So I am out of touch.

LV was so much better when the mob ran it.

Woof... this is a very long answer for a short question.

Short as I can explain it, Vegas has spent the last handful of years very much catering to "whales". Why you see it becoming more tourist trappy than ever is the casinos have decided they make more from a small handful of the 1% than they do catering to casual tourists. Like yourself, many other people who've stopped coming since everything became a rip off because the Strip wants those big money tourists who come in and spend for a weekend and leave. Those people, by in large, are not really here for local sporting events. Not to say there's zero crossover, and depending on the league, there can be heavier crossover. For instance, the NFL will have a greater crossover due to the scarcity of games. Even more amplified for a single weekend event like F1.

Leagues like the WNBA, NHL, soon-to-be MLB, and maybe someday, the NBA, are far more "local" sports events. So many games per season, the draw for non-local sports fans is far less. All these leagues would certainly draw the big-events like All Star games and such which brings in the "whales", but game-in / game-out, it's locals going to games because they want to goto games just like any other city. Visitors or locals alike betting on games are doing so across multiple teams and leagues.

TRIGGER WARNING, I'm gonna touch on some political things... Comments made below are truly made without bias and just meant to represent very real-world impact of what has changed in the USA since Jan 2025. Any statement made below that needs citation, I can provide:

Back to the city in general, due to the current federal administration, the city itself has gotten hammered on the tourism side of things. This happens every 4-8 years, some world "event" will cause tourism to drop, but there's always a rally after a period of time. The Fontainebleau is a good example. Started construction in 2007, Great Recession in 2008, construction stopped and tourism died in 2009. Tourism started rebounding about 10 years later, construction restarted 12 years later and opened in 2023.

On the magnitude of "world events", Trump getting reelected with his pro-nationalist sentiments has had a very distinct impact on the city. One of the biggest international tourist groups (Canadians) has been all but non-existent. Follow any local Vegas account, they will tell you how much that event has impacted the city. It's not to the level of the GR or COVID impact, but it's been impactful enough that Vegas has started to bring back locals-discounts that up until this year long been gone once the city decided they no longer needed locals support. You can see it in even the little things around the city; resorts opening up their pool areas w/ free daybeds and cabanas back to locals for free mid-week, relaxing paid parking rules, etc.

END TRIGGER WARNING

Getting back to an NBA team in Vegas, a team moving here would have way less to do with gambling or tourism than most people outside of Vegas would believe. And look, that's for understandable reasons, this entire city is build on tourism and gambling (and alcohol, the Cleveland Clinic site in the city is built by a mob-connected owner who is also the largest alcohol distributor in the state). However, it's still a rapidly growing city that has proven it can sustain more local-centric sports leagues.

My one concern for Vegas is they're doing what they have historically ALWAYS done, they lean too heavily into one specific thing. Around 5-10 years ago, they decided they want to become the sports capital of the USA with every major league here. To their credit as a city as compared to somewhere like Portland, when they set their mind to something, they do it. The city and it's roads are constantly under construction, but they also have far more lanes and smoother roads than Portland could ever dream of. The flip side of that - as with the Disney-fication of Vegas in the early-90's - when they lean so hard into a specific "thing", they also end up devaluing it and spreading it too thin across multiple competitors.

If/when the NBA ever gets to Vegas, it's going to be one of the last major sports league in town. They'll already have the WNBA, NHL, NFL, MLB (interesting race what gets done first, NBA team or the A's ballpark on the old Trop site), NASCAR and F1. Only sports league they're missing would is MLS, and they're interested in bringing that in as well right now. That's an insane amount of sports options for a city half the size of Portland, but it shows the desire the city has to just get **** done.

I suspect by now, the numbers are in largely if a franchise is viable in Vegas and I suspect the answer is yes even with all the competition. The biggest attendee competition for the NBA will be the NHL team. The Knights are basically Vegas' Blazers, even with the Raiders here. MLB and WNBA are an offset seasonal draw and F1/NASCAR are more of "events" than leagues. NFL is in its own stratosphere (pun not intended).

Why I would be somewhat concerned with the Blazers moving to Vegas is if the sale of the team evolves into any kind of back and forth with the new owners and the arena, Vegas will be used as leverage against the city of Portland. Full stop, book it now. It won't be Seattle, it will be Vegas. Seattle ownership group has been very clear they have no interest in taking a team from a city. Vegas has no such qualms, they have NBA quality arenas locked and loaded. I can't speak to the ownership groups looking to get a team to Vegas if they have the same issues with moving a franchise here... My best guess would be no, but I don't know for sure as I haven't heard anything to contradict that.

I will agree overall visits to LV are down. However, there has been an increase in the number of people attending one of over 22,000 conventions or tradeshows in LV.

Many people attending conventions are light gamblers, if they gamble. They are looking for good reasonable entertainment and food, such as a sports event. Example, While attending a convention in LV, I took in a Jai Alai game.

Is LV going out of the convention business?

[DusterBuster]

I will agree overall visits to LV are down. However, there has been an increase in the number of people attending one of over 22,000 conventions or tradeshows in LV.

Many people attending conventions are light gamblers, if they gamble. They are looking for good reasonable entertainment and food, such as a sports event. Example, While attending a convention in LV, I took in a Jai Alai game.

Is LV going out of the convention business?

This is accurate, but those conventions haven't made up the loss in tourism. I have receipts I can provide for that if you need the citation. It's not an agree or disagree thing as I'm not giving opinions, I'm sharing facts of what the city is experiencing.

While I can appreciate the antidotal evidence, living here gives you a much better idea of the day in and day out impacts. Certainly convention-goes will go out for a night on the town, no question. It's helping keep the city afloat on the tourism side while traditional visitations from tourist and International travelers are down.

And to your other question, absolutely not. They're still leaning heavily into the convention business. They have a whole new wing/expansion of the main convention center here opening soon and The Loop was created specific for conventions in mind.

Conventions are still going strong and the city still actively supporting it, but that vertical alone is not making up the significant tourism drop since Jan 25.

Again tho, none of these things really have much of an impact on a pro sports team here in Vegas, especially one with a long-season like the NBA.

[zzaj]

Vegas is definitely spendy now on the strip. I have never been but have enough secondhand accounts of how much the tourist areas charge for everything. You might as well be in Hawaii and have the ocean mountains and landscape for the amount youre paying to stay in Vegas now. Of course the travel deals can make vegas nice sometimes so I get that side of things but for food/drinks/souvenirs etc you'll definitely be paying as if youre at a destination location which is nuts to me for a town without a ton of natural beauty as best as I can tell

Really besides gambling money driving everything i dont get the lure of Vegas. Teams there are being valued as if theyre one of the best sports markets in America but you cant convince me the Lakers/clips Knicks mavs warriors rockets and Celtics aren't worth possibly double or at least 50 percent more than a vegas team would be worth given the size of those TV markets and economic value those cities provide. Now of course bidders could and likely would disagree but I think in terms of return on investment small market teams provide a far fairer value than vegas and frankly large market teams do in terms of profitability

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

Without repeating myself too much from my previous post, the allure is simply having a local city government eager to work with the league. There's FAR too much weight put on tourism and gambling as why ownership groups want to be in Vegas as opposed to teams and franchise owners want to work with local governments who don't put up roadblocks at every turn when franchises and cities need to deal with each other.

For better or worse, Vegas local government is a rubber stamp to any big business. Want to build a new arena? Cool, we'll just blow up this crappy old casino and build it on that site. Want to dig tunnels under our city for the next 5 years so you have single lane roads for Tesla only vehicles? Knock yourself out!

Meanwhile in Portland, the Memorial Colosseum still stands next to the now too old "new" arena and a huge part of the city around those two arenas is a ghost town because the local government won't do anything without 30 different subcommittees providing their reports on the impact to everything from noise position, surrounding tree population or migrating birds.

Your local context is appreciated, Duster...thx!

[PDXKnight]

Please be kind and explain how LV now works. Before sports teams, LV used boxing to bring in the gamblers.

Since 1975, I have been to LV about 3 dozen times. I stopped going when everything became a tourist trap rip off. So I am out of touch.

LV was so much better when the mob ran it.

Vegas is definitely spendy now on the strip. I have never been but have enough secondhand accounts of how much the tourist areas charge for everything. You might as well be in Hawaii and have the ocean mountains and landscape for the amount youre paying to stay in Vegas now. Of course the travel deals can make vegas nice sometimes so I get that side of things but for food/drinks/souvenirs etc you'll definitely be paying as if youre at a destination location which is nuts to me for a town without a ton of natural beauty as best as I can tell

Really besides gambling money driving everything i dont get the lure of Vegas. Teams there are being valued as if theyre one of the best sports markets in America but you cant convince me the Lakers/clips Knicks mavs warriors rockets and Celtics aren't worth possibly double or at least 50 percent more than a vegas team would be worth given the size of those TV markets and economic value those cities provide. Now of course bidders could and likely would disagree but I think in terms of return on investment small market teams provide a far fairer value than vegas and frankly large market teams do in terms of profitability

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

Its certainly not a lock people go to sports games especially the nba when its up against hockey and the reality that many people probably visit vegas for the weekend more than anything id imagine. Local fan support is necessary for any sport and theres no way theyd have more local fans than the Blazers. I dont see unlv drawing more fans than the oregon ducks, sports fans in the nw turn up when you give them somrthing to root for and frankly they do pretty well for being peddled a mediocre product as well

[DusterBuster]

Vegas is definitely spendy now on the strip. I have never been but have enough secondhand accounts of how much the tourist areas charge for everything. You might as well be in Hawaii and have the ocean mountains and landscape for the amount youre paying to stay in Vegas now. Of course the travel deals can make vegas nice sometimes so I get that side of things but for food/drinks/souvenirs etc you'll definitely be paying as if youre at a destination location which is nuts to me for a town without a ton of natural beauty as best as I can tell

Really besides gambling money driving everything i dont get the lure of Vegas. Teams there are being valued as if theyre one of the best sports markets in America but you cant convince me the Lakers/clips Knicks mavs warriors rockets and Celtics aren't worth possibly double or at least 50 percent more than a vegas team would be worth given the size of those TV markets and economic value those cities provide. Now of course bidders could and likely would disagree but I think in terms of return on investment small market teams provide a far fairer value than vegas and frankly large market teams do in terms of profitability

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

Its certainly not a lock people go to sports games especially the nba when its up against hockey and the reality that many people probably visit vegas for the weekend more than anything id imagine. Local fan support is necessary for any sport and theres no way theyd have more local fans than the Blazers. I dont see unlv drawing more fans than the oregon ducks, sports fans in the nw turn up when you give them somrthing to root for and frankly they do pretty well for being peddled a mediocre product as well

In terms of local-support, I agree here. Fan support is far greater in Portland than Vegas. Vegas would still be better than say... New Orleans... but a team in Vegas would be much more more akin to the Heat. Fans will show when the team is good, but if the team sucks, they'll be over at the NHL team across the street. More options mean less desire to support a team when they suck because you can just tune back in when they get good.

Comparing UNLV to the Ducks is apples to oranges however, not buying that argument as a good thing to point to. UNLV is a pretty run-of-the-mill college sports program whereas the Ducks are arguably one of the top 5 best run programs in the country and way bigger financial backing second to none. Like comparing the Lakers to a team like the Hawks.

Unfortunately, local fan support is only a part of the equation here for owners, and debatable on how big of a part.

[oldfishermen]

I also don't understand the allure of Las Vegas. Probably because gambling to me feels like a waste of money...and i'd rather go to a real city or place rather than a 5$ cheap copy of the real thing.

I think part of the appeal is they think tourism money will be big at games. I just don't think that tourists are going to include an NBA, NFL or MLB game in their weekend in Vegas plans.

Its certainly not a lock people go to sports games especially the nba when its up against hockey and the reality that many people probably visit vegas for the weekend more than anything id imagine. Local fan support is necessary for any sport and theres no way theyd have more local fans than the Blazers. I dont see unlv drawing more fans than the oregon ducks, sports fans in the nw turn up when you give them somrthing to root for and frankly they do pretty well for being peddled a mediocre product as well

In terms of local-support, I agree here. Fan support is far greater in Portland than Vegas. Vegas would still be better than say... New Orleans... but a team in Vegas would be much more more akin to the Heat. Fans will show when the team is good, but if the team sucks, they'll be over at the NHL team across the street. More options mean less desire to support a team when they suck because you can just tune back in when they get good.

Comparing UNLV to the Ducks is apples to oranges however, not buying that argument as a good thing to point to. UNLV is a pretty run-of-the-mill college sports program whereas the Ducks are arguably one of the top 5 best run programs in the country and way bigger financial backing second to none. Like comparing the Lakers to a team like the Hawks.

Unfortunately, local fan support is only a part of the equation here for owners, and debatable on how big of a part.

About 40,000,000 people visit LV every year. That is more than 100,000 people looking to be entertained, everyday.

NBA fans visiting LV would welcome the opportunity to get a taste of the LV arena and local BB culture. More so if it is their team playing.

Don't under-value visiting fans, and their hunger for new experiences when away from home.

[DusterBuster]

Its certainly not a lock people go to sports games especially the nba when its up against hockey and the reality that many people probably visit vegas for the weekend more than anything id imagine. Local fan support is necessary for any sport and theres no way theyd have more local fans than the Blazers. I dont see unlv drawing more fans than the oregon ducks, sports fans in the nw turn up when you give them somrthing to root for and frankly they do pretty well for being peddled a mediocre product as well

In terms of local-support, I agree here. Fan support is far greater in Portland than Vegas. Vegas would still be better than say... New Orleans... but a team in Vegas would be much more more akin to the Heat. Fans will show when the team is good, but if the team sucks, they'll be over at the NHL team across the street. More options mean less desire to support a team when they suck because you can just tune back in when they get good.

Comparing UNLV to the Ducks is apples to oranges however, not buying that argument as a good thing to point to. UNLV is a pretty run-of-the-mill college sports program whereas the Ducks are arguably one of the top 5 best run programs in the country and way bigger financial backing second to none. Like comparing the Lakers to a team like the Hawks.

Unfortunately, local fan support is only a part of the equation here for owners, and debatable on how big of a part.

About 40,000,000 people visit LV every year. That is more than 100,000 people looking to be entertained, everyday.

NBA fans visiting LV would welcome the opportunity to get a taste of the LV arena and local BB culture. More so if it is their team playing.

Don't under-value visiting fans, and their hunger for new experiences when away from home.

I'm not saying is not a factor at all, but it's not as big a factor as you're making it out to be. Using the Knights as an example (much closer analog than the NFL due to games played, season played in and general popularity), it's estimated about 2-10% of tickets sales are tourists. Likely on the lower end of that number, but with as good as the Knights have been and with playoff games, might be higher. The Knights have even had to limit ticket sales for tourists so locals don't get locked out of games. I would suspect the NBA to be roughly the same situation.

Again, not insignificant, but it's just simply not as big of a draw as you're making it out to be. There's no hard and fast numbers here, but lets take your 100k visitors a day number. Only a percentage of those are going to be sports fans that might even consider taking in a game as part of their trip. They also have to be a fan of the sport and usually having some sort of a rooting interest. General visitor to Vegas isn't going to go to a sporting event in the city, they'll be going to a musical performance, gamble or party. People who come to Vegas and take in a game/sporting event likely are in town FOR that specific reason, so it's not a good metric to just point out a random number of visitors per day to the city as why you think that's going to be some big huge reason they want the team here.

Where the tourist / visitor ticket sales would be somewhat impactful is for any nearby NBA city. For instance, if the Clippers, Lakers, Jazz or Suns are playing in town, that's when you might see the share of local to visitor ticket sales spike and start pushing that 10% range since it's a relatively short drive from LA, Phoenix and SLC (around 5hrs) and people can justify catching a game and making a short weekend trip out of it. By in large tho, incidental random visitor deciding to see a sporting event like the WNBA or NHL during a vacation is quite low - not significant a percentage of sales that any real franchise ownership group would actually care about it.

When it comes to luring tourists in for sport, Vegas wants bigger spectacle events. College football championships, Superbowl, F1, All Star Weekends, MMA, Wrestmania, etc. They want events like those to supplement what they can get from locals for the standard game-to-game seasons of professional sports. Regular season games side just aren't major visitor draws, that's just a prove fact here in Vegas over the last few years, not an opinion.

Hell, even the Raiders regular season ticket sales are struggling (I actually have a friend who works in the marketing dept for the Raiders, so I know this first hand).

[PDXKnight]

In terms of local-support, I agree here. Fan support is far greater in Portland than Vegas. Vegas would still be better than say... New Orleans... but a team in Vegas would be much more more akin to the Heat. Fans will show when the team is good, but if the team sucks, they'll be over at the NHL team across the street. More options mean less desire to support a team when they suck because you can just tune back in when they get good.

Comparing UNLV to the Ducks is apples to oranges however, not buying that argument as a good thing to point to. UNLV is a pretty run-of-the-mill college sports program whereas the Ducks are arguably one of the top 5 best run programs in the country and way bigger financial backing second to none. Like comparing the Lakers to a team like the Hawks.

Unfortunately, local fan support is only a part of the equation here for owners, and debatable on how big of a part.

About 40,000,000 people visit LV every year. That is more than 100,000 people looking to be entertained, everyday.

NBA fans visiting LV would welcome the opportunity to get a taste of the LV arena and local BB culture. More so if it is their team playing.

Don't under-value visiting fans, and their hunger for new experiences when away from home.

I'm not saying is not a factor at all, but it's not as big a factor as you're making it out to be. Using the Knights as an example (much closer analog than the NFL due to games played, season played in and general popularity), it's estimated about 2-10% of tickets sales are tourists. Likely on the lower end of that number, but with as good as the Knights have been and with playoff games, might be higher. The Knights have even had to limit ticket sales for tourists so locals don't get locked out of games. I would suspect the NBA to be roughly the same situation.

Again, not insignificant, but it's just simply not as big of a draw as you're making it out to be. There's no hard and fast numbers here, but lets take your 100k visitors a day number. Only a percentage of those are going to be sports fans that might even consider taking in a game as part of their trip. They also have to be a fan of the sport and usually having some sort of a rooting interest. General visitor to Vegas isn't going to go to a sporting event in the city, they'll be going to a musical performance, gamble or party. People who come to Vegas and take in a game/sporting event likely are in town FOR that specific reason, so it's not a good metric to just point out a random number of visitors per day to the city as why you think that's going to be some big huge reason they want the team here.

Where the tourist / visitor ticket sales would be somewhat impactful is for any nearby NBA city. For instance, if the Clippers, Lakers, Jazz or Suns are playing in town, that's when you might see the share of local to visitor ticket sales spike and start pushing that 10% range since it's a relatively short drive from LA, Phoenix and SLC (around 5hrs) and people can justify catching a game and making a short weekend trip out of it. By in large tho, incidental random visitor deciding to see a sporting event like the WNBA or NHL during a vacation is quite low - not significant a percentage of sales that any real franchise ownership group would actually care about it.

When it comes to luring tourists in for sport, Vegas wants bigger spectacle events. College football championships, Superbowl, F1, All Star Weekends, MMA, Wrestmania, etc. They want events like those to supplement what they can get from locals for the standard game-to-game seasons of professional sports. Regular season games side just aren't major visitor draws, that's just a prove fact here in Vegas over the last few years, not an opinion.

Hell, even the Raiders regular season ticket sales are struggling (I actually have a friend who works in the marketing dept for the Raiders, so I know this first hand).

Yeah to me a vegas sports team feels like fools gold at least in terms of support

I dont know about you all but I wouldnt travel somewhere for a professional sports event (im excluding unique events like boxing/mma) unless I was a fan of the team or if I was in town and the tickets were free. I dont imagine very many tourists would occupy much of their vacation with an nba NHL or MLB game. NFL at once a week feels like its more plausible than 82 games or 162? In MLB. Plus baseball isnt even there yet but there will be 4 pro sports competing for fans in a pretty small sports region in terms of population.

Now of course butts in tbe seat isn't the only gauge but feels pretty odd we are at a point where we completely sacrifice ticket sales for the sake of betting and television

[Wizenheimer]

the problem with trying to gauge franchise value is the formula seems to be rapidly evolving. There seem to be dozens of methods for monetizing value.

I'd expect that Las Vegas would at least hit the nba average in attendance, gate revenue, etc. But there are naming rights deals, luxury suits, in- game advertising (which might be a goldmine in Vegas), partnerships with hotels and restaurants....I'm probably not naming but a small part of potential revenue streams. And a new arena probably super-charges profit opportunity

[oldfishermen]

About 40,000,000 people visit LV every year. That is more than 100,000 people looking to be entertained, everyday.

NBA fans visiting LV would welcome the opportunity to get a taste of the LV arena and local BB culture. More so if it is their team playing.

Don't under-value visiting fans, and their hunger for new experiences when away from home.

I'm not saying is not a factor at all, but it's not as big a factor as you're making it out to be. Using the Knights as an example (much closer analog than the NFL due to games played, season played in and general popularity), it's estimated about 2-10% of tickets sales are tourists. Likely on the lower end of that number, but with as good as the Knights have been and with playoff games, might be higher. The Knights have even had to limit ticket sales for tourists so locals don't get locked out of games. I would suspect the NBA to be roughly the same situation.

Again, not insignificant, but it's just simply not as big of a draw as you're making it out to be. There's no hard and fast numbers here, but lets take your 100k visitors a day number. Only a percentage of those are going to be sports fans that might even consider taking in a game as part of their trip. They also have to be a fan of the sport and usually having some sort of a rooting interest. General visitor to Vegas isn't going to go to a sporting event in the city, they'll be going to a musical performance, gamble or party. People who come to Vegas and take in a game/sporting event likely are in town FOR that specific reason, so it's not a good metric to just point out a random number of visitors per day to the city as why you think that's going to be some big huge reason they want the team here.

Where the tourist / visitor ticket sales would be somewhat impactful is for any nearby NBA city. For instance, if the Clippers, Lakers, Jazz or Suns are playing in town, that's when you might see the share of local to visitor ticket sales spike and start pushing that 10% range since it's a relatively short drive from LA, Phoenix and SLC (around 5hrs) and people can justify catching a game and making a short weekend trip out of it. By in large tho, incidental random visitor deciding to see a sporting event like the WNBA or NHL during a vacation is quite low - not significant a percentage of sales that any real franchise ownership group would actually care about it.

When it comes to luring tourists in for sport, Vegas wants bigger spectacle events. College football championships, Superbowl, F1, All Star Weekends, MMA, Wrestmania, etc. They want events like those to supplement what they can get from locals for the standard game-to-game seasons of professional sports. Regular season games side just aren't major visitor draws, that's just a prove fact here in Vegas over the last few years, not an opinion.

Hell, even the Raiders regular season ticket sales are struggling (I actually have a friend who works in the marketing dept for the Raiders, so I know this first hand).

Yeah to me a vegas sports team feels like fools gold at least in terms of support

I dont know about you all but I wouldnt travel somewhere for a professional sports event (im excluding unique events like boxing/mma) unless I was a fan of the team or if I was in town and the tickets were free. I dont imagine very many tourists would occupy much of their vacation with an nba NHL or MLB game. NFL at once a week feels like its more plausible than 82 games or 162? In MLB. Plus baseball isnt even there yet but there will be 4 pro sports competing for fans in a pretty small sports region in terms of population.

Now of course butts in tbe seat isn't the only gauge but feels pretty odd we are at a point where we completely sacrifice ticket sales for the sake of betting and television

This battle is not worth fighting, so my last post on this topic.

After further research, the number of tourists in the seats at Raiders and Knights home games ranges from 10-50%.

There is a very active secondary market for ticket sales. Plus some tourists may be given tickets by local businesses. Which explains the locals buying the tickets, which are used by tourists.

[DusterBuster]

Yeah to me a vegas sports team feels like fools gold at least in terms of support

The support for the Knights is out of this world across the city by locals, Aces is pretty high too (WNBA). It's not fools gold, it's just as deep and passionate as the city of Portland is about the Blazers.

I dont know about you all but I wouldnt travel somewhere for a professional sports event (im excluding unique events like boxing/mma) unless I was a fan of the team or if I was in town and the tickets were free. I dont imagine very many tourists would occupy much of their vacation with an nba NHL or MLB game. NFL at once a week feels like its more plausible than 82 games or 162? In MLB. Plus baseball isnt even there yet but there will be 4 pro sports competing for fans in a pretty small sports region in terms of population.

Now of course butts in tbe seat isn't the only gauge but feels pretty odd we are at a point where we completely sacrifice ticket sales for the sake of betting and television

Again, what is fools gold as I've been trying to explain to oldfisher is the visitor/tourism angle. That's just really not a big factor. It comes into play for the NFL because of so few games. It somewhat comes into play during the playoff runs for the Knights since they're perennially a deep playoff team right now. Finally, it's a massive factor for one-off sporting events, but that should go without saying.

As for tourists in town for the weekend, you're very right, the likelihood of many of them going to games is pretty low as numbers have bore out. Nothing official, but again rumblings of people who've tried to gauge it say around 2-10% of attendees are from out of town. This would seem to be logical, you can get 2% attendance at games from visitors by the random travelers or nearby major league cities when fans want to catch an away game. It's not nothing, but it's pretty insignificant when compared to the bigger factors owners are looking at when bringing a team to Vegas.

The Raiders are the only "visitor" outlier. During the NFL season on Sundays, if you go anywhere near the Strip, you'll see a collection of opposing teams jerseys. The NFL is it's own beast and not a good comparison for the NBA and this discussion imo.

I'll again still push back on Vegas not being a good sport city. It is, but it's far closer to a Miami where you have almost every major sports franchise as well. If the team is bad, you have options of what you want to do with your time and money on a night out. If the team is good, it's going to be an expensive and mostly hard to get ticket. There's also a prevailing theory in the city that the reason for the locals support for the Knights and Aces being so much higher than the Raiders is that those two teams were "Vegas Born" as expansions, so the city has a stronger connection to them than they do the Raiders. The Raiders also have stunk for a couple seasons too, so there's that as well.

The MLB will be an interesting test case for that scenario. While I can see an NBA team here, the MLB is a weird fit, especially with needing an arena built from the ground up. The A's owners are dirt cheap and have zero interest to spend, plus - unless you're unaware - it's hot as balls here in the summer (though we've had a rather mild one this year). MLB is probably the least supported major sports league as far as I'm aware and no one seemed clamoring for baseball in Vegas. Best I can tell is they just want it since they're trying to collect major sports leagues like Pokemon cards.

I suspect support for an NBA franchise would follow a similar path based on how the city gets the team. If it's via another franchise moving, it tends to have a real dampening of enthusiasm vs the city feeling like something is home grown.

And I'll repeat again, moving franchises to Vegas genuinely has next to nothing to do with gambling (as well as tourism). It truly doesn't. I know people not from Vegas think all Vegas is is gambling and tourism, and while it's certainly a major part of the economy, what most people think of when they hear "Vegas" is not what the city is actually like. It's still just a city like anywhere else outside of the Strip and Fremont St. It's also a rapidly growing city, as well as a centrally located near multiple major SW cities all an afternoon's worth drive away and cheap flights. Where tourist tickets largely lay is with sports fans from SoCal, Utah and Arizona.

So why there's a push for Vegas has everything to do with a motivated and willing city council to quickly move through all red tape to accomplish their years long goal of being a sports mecca of America. There's also proven support for teams - when they're good. They'll also support teams when they're bad, but evidence has shown that support is far stronger for Vegas created teams and not relocated existing franchises.

[DusterBuster]

the problem with trying to gauge franchise value is the formula seems to be rapidly evolving. There seem to be dozens of methods for monetizing value.

I'd expect that Las Vegas would at least hit the nba average in attendance, gate revenue, etc. But there are naming rights deals, luxury suits, in- game advertising (which might be a goldmine in Vegas), partnerships with hotels and restaurants....I'm probably not naming but a small part of potential revenue streams. And a new arena probably super-charges profit opportunity

Bingo. This is where the real money is at. Far more than anything to do with tourism. Huge money with the partnerships, plus close proximity to SoCal and much more favorable tax laws in NV vs CA.

That's the main thing I'm trying to get at here. This idea that tourism and gambling are the main driving forces of teams coming to Vegas is somewhere between grossly overrated to flatly inaccurate.

[Wizenheimer]

I can't read it because I don't have a subscription, but it looks like there is an interesting article on the push for a new arena at OLive:

"A coalition that cuts across Oregon’s captains of industry and former Portland Trail Blazers are pushing Gov. Tina Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson to heed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver when he says Rip City “likely needs a new arena” to keep the team here."

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/07/new-trail-blazers-arena-portland-business-execs-former-players-press-case-to-keep-team-in-rip-city.html

maybe somebody can post the pertinent parts

I've been thinking since Silver said what he said that it wasn't a random comment but was actually specific to the sale of the Blazers and feedback he's had from those involved. I'm not convinced a renovation of the Moda will keep the team in Portland. Besides that, the Moda would need a major renovation and that can't happen overnight or in an off-season that lasts 6 months. It would likely shut down the Moda for a couple of years. Where does Portland play in those seasons?

[BigPuma]

Honest question - what would be better about a new arena than the current moda center? Most of my in person basketball watching has been either in the Dean Dome to watch UNC or the Blazers. haven't been to a lot of other stadiums. Both are very similar. It seems to me like Moda gets about as many people as possible as close to the court as possible with pretty good sight lines. I can't imagine more people having a better view without making the seats very cramped or the aisles even narrower or steeper. From most seats you have reasonable access to the concourse, and the concourse has plenty of space to sell whatever food and drinks and swag.

I'm sure the answer is something about luxury boxes and revenue. But as far as fans watching the game, what are we going to improve?

[PDXKnight]

the problem with trying to gauge franchise value is the formula seems to be rapidly evolving. There seem to be dozens of methods for monetizing value.

I'd expect that Las Vegas would at least hit the nba average in attendance, gate revenue, etc. But there are naming rights deals, luxury suits, in- game advertising (which might be a goldmine in Vegas), partnerships with hotels and restaurants....I'm probably not naming but a small part of potential revenue streams. And a new arena probably super-charges profit opportunity

Bingo. This is where the real money is at. Far more than anything to do with tourism. Huge money with the partnerships, plus close proximity to SoCal and much more favorable tax laws in NV vs CA.

That's the main thing I'm trying to get at here. This idea that tourism and gambling are the main driving forces of teams coming to Vegas is somewhere between grossly overrated to flatly inaccurate.

OK ill give you that not entirely tourism and gambling. But id still think a damn near monopoly on the pro sports market in Portland ought to be enough incentive to not move. The nba should be pushing Memphis or NO out behind the scenes or get to work on expansion asap as it would feel like a travesty if Portland gets shafted when going by numbers theres about 10 teams in lesser TV/media markets

[DusterBuster]

the problem with trying to gauge franchise value is the formula seems to be rapidly evolving. There seem to be dozens of methods for monetizing value.

I'd expect that Las Vegas would at least hit the nba average in attendance, gate revenue, etc. But there are naming rights deals, luxury suits, in- game advertising (which might be a goldmine in Vegas), partnerships with hotels and restaurants....I'm probably not naming but a small part of potential revenue streams. And a new arena probably super-charges profit opportunity

Bingo. This is where the real money is at. Far more than anything to do with tourism. Huge money with the partnerships, plus close proximity to SoCal and much more favorable tax laws in NV vs CA.

That's the main thing I'm trying to get at here. This idea that tourism and gambling are the main driving forces of teams coming to Vegas is somewhere between grossly overrated to flatly inaccurate.

OK ill give you that not entirely tourism and gambling. But id still think a damn near monopoly on the pro sports market in Portland ought to be enough incentive to not move. The nba should be pushing Memphis or NO out behind the scenes or get to work on expansion asap as it would feel like a travesty if Portland gets shafted when going by numbers theres about 10 teams in lesser TV/media markets

It's certainly something, but it's far from "enough".

Totally agree, there are other teams more in need of a move from a local fan support perspective, but it's just simply not as black and white as that.

As for the Oregonian article, if you have a Multnomah Library card number and pin, you should be able to access digital versions of the Oregonian. I used mine to check if that article was up yet and it wasn't, so no luck.

That said, while it's nice to have a good ol' coalition... I'm not holding my breath they can do anything to push this forward with Kotek and Wilson.

[DusterBuster]

Kotek and Wilson released a joint statement on the arena issue:

https://www.portland.gov/mayor/keith-wilson/news/2025/7/30/mayor-wilson-and-governor-kotek-issue-joint-letter-supporting

The pertinent comments from the city officials are here:

The Moda Center sits near the middle of the city, within reach of every corner. That’s by design, and we want to keep it that way. We also want to be loud and clear that as the Governor of Oregon and Mayor of Portland, we fully support renovating the Moda Center to become a point of pride for the Blazers and for our city. We are prepared to explore the public-private partnerships needed to make it happen.

Good they're willing to start looking into options, but I'm curious to see how the push and pull of renovations vs new arena take shape...