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This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.
Edan Krolewicz wants the Trail Blazers to stay in Portland. He doesn’t object to public subsidy for an upgraded arena. But he thinks Oregon’s elected officials are preparing to give away the store in negotiations over who should bear the cost of renovating Moda Center.
On Feb. 11, Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) finally unveiled Senate Bill 1501, a framework for how state, city of Portland and Multnomah County taxpayers would spend about $600 million to refurbish the 30-year-old arena—while the team contributes nothing.
Gov. Tina Kotek, the Democrat who is running for reelection with a newfound focus on economic prosperity, cheered the bill.
“Every generation of Oregonians has invested in building community spaces that bring people together,” Kotek said. “This is our opportunity to secure Portland’s future, revitalize historic neighborhoods, and strengthen Oregon’s economic competitiveness.”
Elected officials said they struck the best deal they could. “This is a market-rate deal,” testified House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard). “This is what it costs. If we let the Blazers slip away, just like Seattle did with the SuperSonics, there will be cities across the country lining up to have them come to their city.”
But from his New York apartment, Krolewicz read the details with dismay.
An MIT graduate and tech entrepreneur who fell in love with the Blazers while living in Portland before the pandemic—he now streams every game, staying up to the wee hours to cheer on his team—Krolewicz has taken it upon himself to look out for Oregon taxpayers.
On Feb. 13, Krolewicz published a detailed analysis of the deal on his Substack and on Reddit. He encouraged Oregonians to submit legislative testimony if they share the concerns he highlighted in a piece he titled “Rip City—Not Ripoff.”
“What we do not want—what no rational person should want,” Krolewicz says “is to write a $600 million blank check to a billionaire who has committed nothing in return.”
What is Krolewicz’s argument?
In a nutshell: The city of Portland owns Moda Center, so it should share in the revenues the team generates from it. (The city bought the arena from the team for $1 in 2024 and extended the team’s lease to 2030.)
Specifically, Krolewicz says the public should get a slice of the naming rights, and a slice of the appreciation in the value of the franchise while Dundon owns it (Paul Allen bought the team for $70 million in 1988 and his estate sold it to Dundon for $4.25 billion, a more than 60-fold increase). He figures such cash flow should bring the city $6.7 million to $10.2 million a year. That’s a much better deal for the public than the proposed terms, which tentatively include Portland surrendering annual ticket and parking revenue of about $14 million to the team. (A city spokesman notes that the original arena deal did not include rent and reserved naming-rights revenue for the team.)
“People are scared the team could relocate,” Krolewicz told the Oregon Journalism Project in an interview. “Rightfully so, but you don’t do negotiations based on fear, you do them based on mutual interests.”
Krolewicz also argues the team should make an annual payment to compensate the public for property taxes the team no longer pays since the city bought the arena in 2024; and, for good measure, it should be on the hook for a substantial relocation penalty if the team moves.
“If we are investing public money, I want to make sure we are investing together with Dundon,” Krolewicz says. “We should use the leverage we have.”
So far, it has not exactly been a negotiation of equals. On one side: the Blazers, whose enviable position as the region’s only major league sports team means they are beloved well above the level of their limited on-court success, and their new owner, Tom Dundon, a Texan who made his fortune building what court records say became the nation’s largest subprime auto lender. In other words, Dundon’s company excelled at negotiating with desperate customers.
On the other side of the table: a stable of politicians who are either unpopular (Gov. Tina Kotek, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson) or new to a job that carries relatively little authority (Portland Mayor Keith Wilson).
Unlike when Blazers owner Paul Allen and the city of Portland teamed up to build Moda Center in 1995, the people at the negotiating table represent another mismatch. Back then, the city hired Steve Janik, Oregon’s top real estate lawyer, to represent its interests.
“Having Steve Janik involved in the deal was crucial,” recalls Sam Adams, then chief of staff to Mayor Vera Katz and later mayor himself. In the current talks, there is no professional negotiator representing the city, county and state’s collective interest. (Only the city is consulting with outside sports and legal advisers.)
Meanwhile, the Blazers hired Dan Barrett, president of Los Angeles-based CAA Icon, a sports consulting firm that has assisted in dozens of arena deals.
And part of what the Blazers have done is convince policymakers there’s a real chance the team will skip town if they don’t get the deal they want.
“The reality is that if we don’t make a fair offer for public investment, there is a line of other cities that will,” says Wagner, the chief sponsor of SB 1501. “If the Trail Blazers leave and Moda Center goes under, a huge economic engine vanishes along with all the tax dollars generated by the arena.”
What do other people think?
Blazers president Dewayne Haskins says the deal on the table is a fair one and comparable to other deals public officials have offered comparable NBA franchises.
“Portland is a small market, and cities of similar size are making strategic investments in their teams and arenas to generate economic development and surrounding entertainment districts,” Haskins tells OJP. “These investments also help to attract marquee events like NBA or WNBA All-Star games, which generate more economic activity.”
Economic activity—not just in Portland but for the entire region—is the Blazers’ leading argument. (The Blazers say one-third of ticket buyers and half of the people who attend concerts and other nonbasketball events at Moda Center hail from outside the metro region. They say the arena contributes $670 million in “economic impact” annually.)
Teams always cite economic impact when seeking public funding. But academic research casts considerable doubt on their claims. Here’s what three researchers determined after looking at 130 different arena and stadium studies from 1970 to 2020: “Large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments,” professors John Bradbury, Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in the Journal of Economic Surveys in 2023.
And Joe Cortright, a Portland economist who’s made a career out of infusing facts into political arguments, notes that the claims of the Blazer faithful about the consequences of a potential Blazer departure are overblown—as evidenced by how Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle thrived economically despite the loss of their NBA teams in 2001 and 2009, respectively.
“We’ve essentially run the experiment of suddenly depriving a Pacific Northwest metropolis of its National Basketball Association franchise to see what happens to its economy,” Cortright writes at City Observatory. “As it turns out—and pretty much exactly as all the economic studies conclude—pretty much no negative effects on prosperity.”
What’s likely to happen?
Last weekend, NBA players, owners, and league officials gathered in Los Angeles for the All-Star Game. Part of the festivities included a press conference with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who previously helped the Blazers’ leverage by commenting on the need for a new or buffed-up arena.
While Silver didn’t directly address the Moda Center situation this weekend, he did say more generally that “relocation is not on the table now.” That undermines the Blazers’ implied threat slightly, but the word “now” leaves options open, as does the fact that the current arena deal expires in 2030.
To speed the passage of Senate Bill 1501, the Blazers have flooded the Capitol with contract lobbyists, adding the Gallatin Group to cajole Republicans and two former gubernatorial chiefs of staff, Andrea Cooper (ex-Kotek) and Gina Zejdlik (ex-Kate Brown), to team up with Crosswater Strategies and CFM Advocates, its existing firms.
Democrats’ desperation for money for the Blazers strikes some Republicans as a little odd, given the majority party’s emphasis on budget woes at the Department of Transportation and the Oregon Health Authority. It also gives Republicans unusual leverage.
“A lot of our rural members are feeling left out,” says House Minority Leader Lucetta Elmer (R-McMinnville). “The Blazers have statewide support, but this is a lot of money that would go to Portland.”
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr (R-Dundee) agrees, saying a Blazer bailout would be difficult for his caucus without “significant amendments” to the funding bill.
One other skeptic: House Speaker Julie Fahey (D-Eugene), the Legislature’s second-most-powerful figure was conspicuously absent from the lovefest when Wagner rolled out SB 1501. Fahey spokeswoman Jill Bakken says the speaker wants the Blazers to stay put but needs to see more specific protections for taxpayer dollars in upcoming amendments.
Although lawmakers still have work to do, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners is solidly on board. And so, somewhat surprisingly, is the Portland City Council.
Testimony the council submitted on SB 1501, first reported Monday by WW, answered perhaps the biggest outstanding question: How would the deeply divided council vote? Two members of the progressive caucus, Councilors Candace Avalos and Tiffany Koyama Lane, individually submitted testimony in favor of the bill, as did the council as a whole.
“This isn’t about a single building, city, or even team. It is about investing in Oregon’s economy, supporting good paying jobs, advancing sustainability, and preserving a shared cultural home that brings Oregonians together for decades to come,” all 12 Portland city councilors wrote in Feb. 12 testimony. “We strongly urge your support for SB 1501.”
