Future of the Trailblazers

[wco81]

New owner might want a new arena sooner than later.

Sounds like attendance is great but in order to boost revenues, they'd want to raise ticket prices.

The Forbes valuations put the Warriors at $3.5 billion and almost $900 million of that is for the arena. They don't even own Oracle so I don't understand that, unless they're already putting a value on the new arena before it's even open.

The Blazers come in at a $1.6 billion valuation. The Knicks at $4.1 billion is the highest and that includes $1 billion for old MSG but they spent a ton of money to renovate and if they own that arena, they can get a lot of non basketball related revenues in the offseason.

So the new owner will probably talk about a new arena shortly after they take over, because one way to have high payrolls, even pay luxury taxes, is to raise revenues.

[monopoman]

The last thing I would worry about as a Blazers fan, is that the Blazers might be moved to Seattle. Seattle couldn't keep the team they had. I worry more that Portland might not be any better than Seattle, which could put our franchise in jeopardy.

If you watch the detailed documentary about how the Sonics were moved it was almost a con job by the new owner. He lied throughout the process multiple times to the public and used some dirty tactics to get it moved, it's basically why no team has moved since. They talked about moving the Kings that never happened, and with how solid our attendance is year in year out moving the Blazers would be really **** stupid.

I mean the only thing the Blazers don't have here is a huge market but plenty of teams are in that same position, and moving to a larger market isn't that great because you are contending with usually 2 teams in that area.

[wco81]

Article covers a lot of the same ground as this and other thread.

https://es.pn/2JOPomh


But the main thrust is that the team faces huge financial decisions in the next couple of years, despite the uncertain status of ownership.

If the team is to be put up for sale, would they make all of the long term commitments outlined in the article?

And how are these big contract decisions affected by the playoffs run the Blazers just completed?

Natural inclination may be to keep as much of the roster intact as possible and run it again. But it would depend a lot on the timeline for the sale of the franchise.

Even without the financial implications of all these looming contract extensions, prospective new owners are going to want some clarity on the arena situation. Just extending Lillard will result in a big payroll for the next 6 years, so new owners are going to want to see some path to increasing revenues.

[DusterBuster]

Article covers a lot of the same ground as this and other thread.

https://es.pn/2JOPomh


But the main thrust is that the team faces huge financial decisions in the next couple of years, despite the uncertain status of ownership.

If the team is to be put up for sale, would they make all of the long term commitments outlined in the article?

And how are these big contract decisions affected by the playoffs run the Blazers just completed?

Natural inclination may be to keep as much of the roster intact as possible and run it again. But it would depend a lot on the timeline for the sale of the franchise.

Even without the financial implications of all these looming contract extensions, prospective new owners are going to want some clarity on the arena situation. Just extending Lillard will result in a big payroll for the next 6 years, so new owners are going to want to see some path to increasing revenues.

At this point, I'm just not convinced Jodie Allen's totally committed to selling the team. It would certainly be nice to get a public declaration about it, but I'm guessing we'll start to hear more one way or another about it this summer.

For me, I'm just assuming everything is business as usual until we hear otherwise.

[d-train]

I remember when Paul Allen bought the team. Blazers fans didn't know the team was for sale until Paul bought it.

[DusterBuster]

I remember when Paul Allen bought the team. Blazers fans didn't know the team was for sale until Paul bought it.

Granted, but that also wasn't in the information age of twitter and instant news updates. You really cant compare the speed of news getting out in the late 80's to how news comes out nowadays.

[d-train]

I remember when Paul Allen bought the team. Blazers fans didn't know the team was for sale until Paul bought it.

Granted, but that also wasn't in the information age of twitter and instant news updates. You really cant compare the speed of news getting out in the late 80's to how news comes out nowadays.

It could also be the way the deal supposedly happened. The story was Paul Allen contacted Bob Whitsitt and asked him to help him buy a NBA team. Whitsitt put Allen in contact with Larry Weinberg and a deal was made. The inference is the team wasn't for sale until Allen bought it. I never believed the team wasn't for sale. The team was too expensive for Weinberg.

[JasonStern]

NBA team valuations have bubbled quite a bit over the last few years. There's plenty of billionaires that would consider spending $180 million on a toy investment, but there's substantially fewer both willing and in a position to spend $1,800 million.

[DusterBuster]

According to what 1080 said about Jodie, the prevailing rumblings around One Center Quart now is that Jodie plans on keeping the Blazers. They said part of that is to honor her brother and what she believes her Paul would have wanted by keeping this in the family, then partly by the fact that the Blazers are one of the easier companies to manage and make money from in Paul's portfolio. So all in all, it sounds like it may be pretty quiet on the ol' team sale front.

[wco81]

So Stotts got an extension but that's not as major a financial commitment as Lillard's impending extension and decisions about other players, including those whose contracts are up and potential acquisitions.

Are the Blazers in repeater tax? According to this site, they had the 4th highest payroll this year at just over $128 million:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cap/

For 2019-20 season, they're at $121 million but that's before they make moves to re-sign some players and acquire new ones. So it seems luxury taxes are in the cards.

Again, that fact will impact ownership, perhaps the current owner's willingness to keep the team or for potential owners to buy it.

[Epicurus]

Once again I ask: What is a luxury tax of any amount to be levied to a double decamillionaire? I guess rather than face a tax or penalty they could give the money to a charity, but what of their own material life is lost because of the tax or penalty?

[wco81]

If she inherited all of Paul's estate, that would be over ten billion?

So a deca-billionaire.

Sure if she had to pay $30 million a year in luxury taxes or even $100 million, she could afford to do it.

But would she want to?

Even if the Blazers win championships and the city adores her and all that, it doesn't sound like she's passionate about the NBA.

Hell look at the Warriors situation. A lot of fans here wanted Larry Ellis to buy the team. He is worth north of $40 billion and he reportedly spent tens or hundreds of millions for America's Cup.

But when it came down to it, he was outbid by Lacob and Gruber, who have a fraction of his money.

Ellis really wanted to buy an NBA team and even supposedly considered buying the Grizzlies and moving them to San Jose. But I guess his NBA passion didn't exceed a certain dollar amount.

[d-train]

Paul Allen let his Stadium go into bankruptcy for an amount of money that was peanuts to him. He decided on principle he wasn't going to be cheated. So, you never know what a person is going to care about. Paul Allen didn't care about the embarrassment of bankruptcy and the public airing of a bad financial decision, but he did care about being cheated.

[JasonStern]

if you look at all of the business and philanthropic ventures that Vulcan Inc. is involved with, I imagine several of them are of more interest to Jody Allen than the Blazers. but it does seem like she wouldn't sell unless it was to a passionate owner that would do the franchise right. problem then is the craigslist dilemma. ever try to sell a car for under $3,000? you're likely to get plenty of hits. ever try to sell a car for over $30,000? not many people readily have access to that kind of cash. so yeah, I imagine some effort will be spent to ensure that the Blazers are profitable - avoid the luxury tax, keep Dame happy, etc. as long as the franchise is profitable and appreciating, there's really no rush to sell or reason to take a less than fair market value offer.

[DusterBuster]

if you look at all of the business and philanthropic ventures that Vulcan Inc. is involved with, I imagine several of them are of more interest to Jody Allen than the Blazers. but it does seem like she wouldn't sell unless it was to a passionate owner that would do the franchise right. problem then is the craigslist dilemma. ever try to sell a car for under $3,000? you're likely to get plenty of hits. ever try to sell a car for over $30,000? not many people readily have access to that kind of cash. so yeah, I imagine some effort will be spent to ensure that the Blazers are profitable - avoid the luxury tax, keep Dame happy, etc. as long as the franchise is profitable and appreciating, there's really no rush to sell or reason to take a less than fair market value offer.

I'm sorry, but I think that's a terrible analogy. An NBA franchise is as expensive and highly coveted a purchase as they've ever been in history. Even losing franchises that struggle to turn a profit are still valued at over a billion dollars. There's no franchise worth less than a billion.

I just don't think all those factors really play a very big role in the sale because most people willing to shell out the amount of money it'll cost to purchase a franchise, they'll be of the believe they can turn around the financials in a couple years.

[Cactus Jack]

The last thing I would worry about as a Blazers fan, is that the Blazers might be moved to Seattle. Seattle couldn't keep the team they had. I worry more that Portland might not be any better than Seattle, which could put our franchise in jeopardy.

If you watch the detailed documentary about how the Sonics were moved it was almost a con job by the new owner. He lied throughout the process multiple times to the public and used some dirty tactics to get it moved, it's basically why no team has moved since. They talked about moving the Kings that never happened, and with how solid our attendance is year in year out moving the Blazers would be really **** stupid.

I mean the only thing the Blazers don't have here is a huge market but plenty of teams are in that same position, and moving to a larger market isn't that great because you are contending with usually 2 teams in that area.

Almost???

Fortunately for Portland, the Blazers aren't going anywhere any time soon. I still have my doubts about the Clippers long term future in L.A, however.

The Key Arena renovation will be completed in June of 2021. Just in time for the arrival of a new NHL expansion franchise (Fall '21). If the Inglewood arena proposal hasn't gained enough traction by that time, It wouldn't shock me if Ballmer did pull the rug out from under that fan base. Just a hunch.

Fwiw the Kings stayed in Sacramento because Chris Hansen & Ballmer made the mistake of being very upfront about wanting to move the team. So, the league intervened. If they had instead initially lied about their true intentions (like the OKC group), then they likely would have been successful in buying/moving it.

[JasonStern]

if you look at all of the business and philanthropic ventures that Vulcan Inc. is involved with, I imagine several of them are of more interest to Jody Allen than the Blazers. but it does seem like she wouldn't sell unless it was to a passionate owner that would do the franchise right. problem then is the craigslist dilemma. ever try to sell a car for under $3,000? you're likely to get plenty of hits. ever try to sell a car for over $30,000? not many people readily have access to that kind of cash. so yeah, I imagine some effort will be spent to ensure that the Blazers are profitable - avoid the luxury tax, keep Dame happy, etc. as long as the franchise is profitable and appreciating, there's really no rush to sell or reason to take a less than fair market value offer.

I'm sorry, but I think that's a terrible analogy. An NBA franchise is as expensive and highly coveted a purchase as they've ever been in history. Even losing franchises that struggle to turn a profit are still valued at over a billion dollars. There's no franchise worth less than a billion.

I just don't think all those factors really play a very big role in the sale because most people willing to shell out the amount of money it'll cost to purchase a franchise, they'll be of the believe they can turn around the financials in a couple years.

okay. here's Forbes' list of billionaires, which are the few people rich enough to potentially buy the Blazers (presuming they don't have their worth tied up in other ventures):

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#1fce3cdf251c

how many of these people do you honestly believe are drooling at the chance to purchase the Portland Trail Blazers?

[DusterBuster]

if you look at all of the business and philanthropic ventures that Vulcan Inc. is involved with, I imagine several of them are of more interest to Jody Allen than the Blazers. but it does seem like she wouldn't sell unless it was to a passionate owner that would do the franchise right. problem then is the craigslist dilemma. ever try to sell a car for under $3,000? you're likely to get plenty of hits. ever try to sell a car for over $30,000? not many people readily have access to that kind of cash. so yeah, I imagine some effort will be spent to ensure that the Blazers are profitable - avoid the luxury tax, keep Dame happy, etc. as long as the franchise is profitable and appreciating, there's really no rush to sell or reason to take a less than fair market value offer.

I'm sorry, but I think that's a terrible analogy. An NBA franchise is as expensive and highly coveted a purchase as they've ever been in history. Even losing franchises that struggle to turn a profit are still valued at over a billion dollars. There's no franchise worth less than a billion.

I just don't think all those factors really play a very big role in the sale because most people willing to shell out the amount of money it'll cost to purchase a franchise, they'll be of the believe they can turn around the financials in a couple years.

okay. here's Forbes' list of billionaires, which are the few people rich enough to potentially buy the Blazers (presuming they don't have their worth tied up in other ventures):

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#1fce3cdf251c

how many of these people do you honestly believe are drooling at the chance to purchase the Portland Trail Blazers?

You're assuming it has to be a single buyer. That's not the case.

[JasonStern]

I'm sorry, but I think that's a terrible analogy. An NBA franchise is as expensive and highly coveted a purchase as they've ever been in history. Even losing franchises that struggle to turn a profit are still valued at over a billion dollars. There's no franchise worth less than a billion.

I just don't think all those factors really play a very big role in the sale because most people willing to shell out the amount of money it'll cost to purchase a franchise, they'll be of the believe they can turn around the financials in a couple years.

okay. here's Forbes' list of billionaires, which are the few people rich enough to potentially buy the Blazers (presuming they don't have their worth tied up in other ventures):

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#1fce3cdf251c

how many of these people do you honestly believe are drooling at the chance to purchase the Portland Trail Blazers?

You're assuming it has to be a single buyer. That's not the case.

what are you even arguing?

[wco81]

Surprised Knight wouldn't do it but Nike has such ties to the NBA already that it might hurt Nike's position with the rest of the league if Knight got control over one of the teams.

Remember there were rumors that Nike offered Lebron more money to go to a big market club before he went to Miami?

There's also suspicion that Nike wanted KD to come to the Warriors because Steph was the star here and he had a deal with UA, not Nike.

Imagine if Nike was able to get Zion, who turns out to be a superstar, to demand to come to Portland, which happened to be owned by the Knight family, while Zion had some mega deal (9-figure deals like Lebron and KD have with Nike) with Nike?