News At 10:30 am today in a press conference at Jeld-Wen field, former University of Akron soccer coach Caleb Porter introduces himself to the press and public as the new coach of the Portland Timbers. In his career with Akron, Porter had the highest winning percentage of any coach in college soccer, and is expected to bring a faster, pass-oriented game to the Portland team. WW is on hand to report ...   More

News Portland Timbers fans have learned one thing for certain about the team’s owner, Merritt Paulson: He’s not afraid to gamble. He launched the team’s freshman season in Major League Soccer las   More

News Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson fired coach John Spencer today, ending the tenure of the team's first Major League Soccer coach after a season dotted inconsistency and embarrassment. The Timbers (5-8-4, 19 points) have spent the entirety of this second season in or near the cellar their conference. They've shown themselves able to beat some of the best teams in the league at home (Sporting ...   More

Cover Story No one should have more power when the Portland Timbers play at Jeld-Wen Field than Merritt Paulson. He bought the team in 2007, built it into a Major League Soccer   More

News Look for some unhappy Portland Democrats after today's announcement that PGE Park will be renamed Jeld-Wen Field when the Timbers begin play in Major League Soccer.Not because there's any great sentiment for PGE, the state's largest utility and a subsidiary of Enron when it hung its name on the old Civic Stadium a decade ago.But rather because of the political activities of Jeld-Wen's founder, the ...   More

News As the Portland Timbers' April 14 home opener approaches, City of Portland records show the renovation of PGE Park from a multi-purpose stadium to a Major League Soccer facility is on time but about $5 million over the project's $31 million budget. (The original development agreement calls for the city to contribute $11.9 million to the project and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson to contribute $19.3 ...   More

News Merritt Paulson, owner of the Portland Beavers and Timbers, wants the City of Portland to spend $85 million to renovate PGE Park for Major League Soccer and to build his Beavers a new ballpark. That's a pretty big ask in the best of times, which these are not. And Paulson, the son of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is anything but another thinly-financed wannabe looking to leverage ...   More

News Barring a last-minute miracle, Metro, City of Portland and Multnomah County leaders will pull the plug Monday morning on the latest chapter in the long-running effort to finance a so-called "headquarters hotel" next to the Oregon Convention Center. Speaking on background, sources familiar with the decision-making process say that the hotel is dead unless Mayor-elect Sam Adams produces a previously ...   More

News Some interesting names on the task force Mayor-elect Sam Adams has put together to evaluate the merits of Merritt Paulson's proposal to renovate PGE Park for a Major League Soccer franchise and build a new stadium somewhere else in town for the baseball Beavers. One sign that Adams is taking Paulson's proposal seriously: the counsel to the committee is heavyweight lawyer Steve Janik, who worked ...   More

News One of the big questions around Portland Beavers/Timbers owner Merritt Paulson's proposal to bring Major League Soccer to Portland is what's going to be the source for the $85 million needed to renovate PGE Park and build a new AAA stadium for the Beavers? A seemingly innocuous late-Friday announcement from the Portland Development Commission (below) may provide an answer. The PDC, the city's ...   More