U.S. Senator Ron Wyden is flexing his significant power to convince the NBA Board of Governors to disallow any potential relocation of the Portland Trail Blazers. According to Bill Oram of the Oregonian, the high-ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is putting pressure on the league to keep the Blazers in Portland.
Among the policies Senator Wyden mentioned were “the use of tax-free bonds to build arenas, goodwill amortizations of teams’ purchase price and tax treatment of teams’ value appreciating
over time.”
Any changes to the status quo on those policies could potentially cost millions for NBA owners, whose votes are needed for final approval should the Blazers ownership group, headed by Tom Dundon, try to move the franchise out of Portland. The Senator put it bluntly; if the Board of Governors wants to avoid his scrutiny, they need to wield their own influence to keep the Trail Blazers home.
“Other owners should apply their experience to convince Tom Dundon it’s in everybody’s interest,” Wyden said, “and they can use whatever kind of approach they want.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s comments made during a press conference at the NBA Board of Governors meeting earlier this month signaled that the owners already used one approach to try and convince Tom Dundon.
“We did discuss the situation around Portland in one of our committee meetings with Tom. I think he was able to bounce ideas off other owners who have been through similar negotiations in other communities. I think there’s some lessons to be learned there.”
By contrast, Senator Wyden had no such public advice for the team spearheading City of Portland’s side of the bargaining table.
“I’m not going to micromanage the negotiations,” he said. “They probably don’t want a quarterback on the specific terms.”
The U.S. Senator from Oregon and NBA Commissioner have a longstanding friendship going back to the 1980’s, when Silver interned for former U.S. Congressman Les AuCoin, Wyden’s colleague in the House of Representatives.
“Adam and I were just a couple of Jewish kids who liked basketball and played some,” Wyden said. “And we kept it going over the years.”
Wrangling Tom Dundon isn’t the only way the two friends echoed each other’s public comments. Both pushed back on Blazers President of Operations Dewayne Hankins’s notion that “Portland’s current stagnant business climate, high income taxes, and divisive political environment make this a tough city to invest in.”
Senator Wyden addressed the negativity directly. “Everybody says, ‘Oh Portland, this problem, that problem,’” Wyden said. “We’ve got a great story to tell and a team that can really make a difference…” While in Adam Silver’s aforementioned press conference, he noted that the Portland community has “shown amazing support for the Trailblazers. They’re some of our best fans around the league.”
Senator Wyden’s adversarial approach to Tom Dundon’s leadership is a shift in tone from previous rhetoric regarding the new owner. Previously, when he attended a Blazer game with Adam Silver, just two weeks prior to the franchise’s purchase being finalized, Wyden said, “I think that Mr. Dundon … is really excited about Oregon and we ought to build on it.”
Back then, a Moda Center lease agreement between the Blazers and City of Portland seemed inevitable. Less than a month after Dundon took the reins, the positive momentum was punctuated by the passing of Oregon Senate Bill 1501, which laid out the State’s terms for their $365 million portion of the funding.
In the seven-month interim between the bill getting signed into law and now, negotiations have ground to a halt. Tom Dundon and company have stalled, for the most part refusing to even meet with elected representatives from the City of Portland or Multnomah County, the other two government bodies joining the State of Oregon to fund Moda Center renovations.
With SB1501 set to expire at the start of the new year, there’s hope that a looming deadline will spark an end to the impasse. Recently, Portland City Administrator Raymond Lee met with Tom Dundon for an informal face-to-face chat to break the stalemate. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson announced that the Blazers have picked a contractor to handle prospective Moda Center renovations.
Still, the recent moves don’t seem to be quite enough for the U.S. Senator from Oregon, who is growing impatient. The pressure on Tom Dundon to get a Moda Center lease deal done soon is coming from all sides, the most intense of which is from the top.
