Portland owns the building. The tenant already owes the upkeep. The city promised not to make him pay it — then offered to pay it instead. Council votes August 12.
Nobody in this conversation wants the Blazers to leave. The Moda Center should be renovated. That's not the debate.
The debate is about the terms — because right now, Portland is being offered the worst arena deal in the country. It starts with a fact most Portlanders don't know.
In 2024, the City of Portland bought the arena for $1. The land, the building, everything. Tom Dundon — the Dallas billionaire whose group closed on the team at a $4 billion valuation in March 2026 — rents that building for $1 a year.
And the tenant is already legally required to maintain it. Since 1993, the operator has been obligated to keep the Moda Center in first-class condition at its own expense. That obligation still exists on paper today.
But in the same September 2024 closing where Portland took ownership, the city signed a lease in which it "agrees not to raise, assert, pursue, or otherwise enforce in any manner" that obligation for the entire term.
The city acquired the building and gave away its power to make the tenant maintain it — on the same day. Then it proposed paying for that maintenance itself.
"Historically, other owners have committed years and put in money… In Portland?"
Councilor Novick: "I think that's ridiculous. Dundon and his partners just poured $4.2 billion into getting the team. They're not going to leave over a few hundred million dollars. I don't like the idea of being railroaded."
Named for Dr. Robert Glickman, the Portland physician who negotiated the original $1 purchase of Moda Center. Two components: fair market rent (what Dundon owes for operating a publicly owned building, regardless of who renovates it) and capital recovery (the public's return on $871M). Together: $64M/year — exactly $1M less than Dundon's self-funding cost.
| Term | Annual | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Base rent | $10.0M | Raleigh pays $4.5M in a market 1/3 Portland's size |
| Payments in lieu of taxes | $1.5M | Standard in 9 of 12 comparable NBA deals |
| Community investment fund | $3.5M | Rose Quarter & Lower Albina development |
| Subtotal A | $15.0M | Owed regardless of who renovates |
| Term | Annual | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Capital recovery payment | $25.0M | Fixed annual return on $871M public investment |
| Naming rights (65% to public) | $10.0M floor | NBA naming rights: $10–20M/yr gross |
| Non-basketball events (25%) | $8.0M floor | ~270 events/yr; operator captures 100% today |
| Revenue sharing (8% above $150M) | ~$6.0M | Captures upside from public-funded renovation |
| Subtotal B | $49.0M | Return on $871M public investment |
Public invests $871M. Public recovers $1,280M. State: +$172M. City: +$190M. County: +$47M. Dundon saves $20M total vs. self-funding — just barely better than going it alone. He takes the deal.
Andrew Zimbalist — Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, Smith College; 24 books on sports economics; NPR commentator; consultant to cities, teams, and leagues — reviewed this analysis: "Definitely seems that Portland is being too concessionary."
The Blazers' own negotiator prepared the market comparables used by the city and legislators — excluding the deals that looked bad for his client.
The Blazers' negotiator Dan Barrett was the lead negotiator for the public in both Sacramento and Milwaukee — the deals he excluded from Portland's comparables. He knows what the public can get when properly represented.
At his April 8 press conference, Wilson called Portland the Blazers' "landlord" and Moda Center "a pretty good asset to own." He's right on both counts. So why isn't the landlord charging rent?
He also admitted the renovation cost is invented: "It's less than $600 million. We're just using that as a kind of placeholder number." The public commits $871M based on a figure the mayor himself calls a placeholder.
On the city's leverage: "That's just reality." It isn't. Portland owns the building, the team cannot relocate, and Dundon's self-funding cost is $65M/year. The city has every lever. It just has to choose to pull them.
An AI trained on the full public record — PRR documents, financial analysis, internal emails, text messages, and comparable deals — is standing by.
Based on public records and independent analysis. Verify claims against primary sources.
You've got the gist. Now we go deeper.
The following connects the documentary record — PRR filings, text messages, internal emails, invoices, and calendar invites — to show how this deal was built, who built it, and what questions remain unanswered.
The Portland Clean Energy Fund was created by voters to fund climate investments in frontline communities — not a general discretionary fund. When Wilson proposed using $75M of it for Moda Center, internal documents from PRR C443668 show the city already knew otherwise.
Using PCEF for Moda means canceling or deferring existing climate programs — not drawing from surplus. The city knew this while publicly saying PCEF "could potentially" support the renovation. Councilor Clark told constituents the PCEF committee had endorsed Moda; internal records show only an "awareness" site visit occurred. Councilor Novick will not vote for PCEF use — a live obstacle for the city's $405M commitment.
The February 5, 2026 event memo for Wilson’s Oregon Capitol visit covers fourteen back-to-back legislative meetings, from Senate President Rob Wagner to House Republican Leader Lucetta Elmer. It contains two separate talking-point sets:
A $105M gap between the two versions — used in the same building on the same day. The public figure ultimately became $405M, a third number different from both. The city was using figures as persuasion tools, not financial facts.
The city's financial advisor is Stafford Sports, LLC — a City Attorney Consultant Contract that shields all work product behind attorney-client privilege. The public has never seen any of their financial analysis, deal memos, or negotiating recommendations. The contract was scoped in 2021 for a single task: the bridge lease extension, at a task order value of $15,750.
Unresolved conflict: Stafford's website lists prior work on "Moda Center (Trail Blazers)." The city hired its counterpart's former consultant, made all findings privileged, paid 0.029% of deal value, and no conflict-of-interest disclosure appears anywhere. Carl Hirsh also flew first class on the Charlotte/Raleigh trip, billed to the city as economy.
In December 2025, city staff flew to Charlotte and Raleigh — accompanied by Blazers executives and Stafford's Carl Hirsh, all on the city's dime. They visited only 100% publicly funded arenas. They did not visit Milwaukee, Sacramento, Seattle, or any arena with significant private contribution.
Dan Barrett (Blazers' negotiator) prepared the financial comparable analysis that legislators relied on. He previously served as the lead negotiator for the public in Sacramento and Milwaukee — deals with ~50% private contributions — both of which he excluded from the Portland comparables.
When city staffer Karl Lisle suggested adding Milwaukee and Sacramento, Barrett replied: "As the lead negotiator for the public sector in both Sacramento and Milwaukee, I can say that the market has clearly changed." He used his record of protecting the public in those cities as the reason to exclude those deals from Portland's analysis.
On January 15, 2026, Aisling Coghlan (mayor's chief of staff) distributed the Blazers' own "Rip City Runs Deep" advocacy toolkit to legislators — the city circulated the Blazers' marketing materials as independent analysis.
Beginning November 3, 2025, city officials held weekly Monday meetings under the code name "Project Mt. Hood." PRR C454415 produced the original calendar invite.
Joth Ricci — former Dutch Bros CEO and Rip City Forever founder — attended as a private citizen with no disclosed public role. He forwarded the invite to city officials himself and is listed as a required attendee. The entity seeking $871M was in the room designing the pitch every Monday for months.
Blazers lobbyists Ryann Gleason (CFM Advocates) and Dan Jarman (Crosswater Strategies) ran a coordinated access campaign from before the new council was even sworn in.
Jarman obtained OGEC Advice No. 24-537I — pre-authorizing suite tickets before inauguration. OGEC found pre-inauguration electeds aren't "public officials" under ORS Ch. 244. The Blazers timed the event to exploit this window.
AAPI Night — Koyama Lane and Kanal invited with complimentary suite tickets.
Suite invitations to city councilors, Oregon state legislators (including Drazan, Sollman, Pham, others), BOLI Commissioner Christina Stephenson, and Multnomah County Commissioner.
Pirtle-Guiney's office asked to bring her daughter free. City attorney: "While state law allows acceptance of the gift of entertainment for a relative, city administrative rules do not." Pirtle-Guiney's staff asked to "bypass the attorney check-in." She paid $120 for her daughter's ticket.
Jarman separately invited Wilson and councilors Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, and Kanal to a private tour-and-lunch at Moda Center, to brief them on ECOnorthwest's economic impact study — during the months before the council vote.
Natalie King (Blazers SVP) thanked Pirtle-Guiney specifically for her letter of support for SB 1501, then requested a follow-up meeting to discuss next steps.
Between February and March 2026, Blazers lobbyists told at least four Portland city council members their political careers would suffer if the team left Portland — delivered privately, never in public testimony.
These are the same lobbyists simultaneously running the suite ticket access campaign above. Gifts that create access and goodwill, followed by private threats when a vote approaches — a textbook influence operation.
On March 25, 2026, ProPublica and OPB published internal emails showing Dundon, as CEO of Santander Consumer USA, personally ordered the company to stop requiring proof of income on car loans in 2013. His chief risk officer flagged potential federal law violations in writing. Dundon proceeded.
Oregon's attorney general called the practices "predatory and harmful." Thirty-three states settled for $550M. Dundon left with a $700M separation package — used to buy the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes and now the Trail Blazers.
Oregon AG Dan Rayfield is now separately investigating Exeter Finance — another subprime auto lender where Dundon is chairman, staffed with former Santander executives involved in the original practices.
The Glickman Contract doesn't change whether the deal happens. It changes whether Portland gets paid for it.
On March 13, 2026 — one week after SB 1501 passed — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver visited Portland for a private reception at Moda Center organized by the Trail Blazers. The city's own event memo states the desired outcome was to "Celebrate the recent passage of SB 1501 that directs $356 million for the Moda Center renovation." This was a victory party for the officials who delivered the bill, not a neutral community engagement.
The councilor invitations were sent by Natalie King (Blazers SVP) on March 10 — with Ryann Gleason, the gift campaign lobbyist, CC'd on the response threads. In the same email, King offered Pirtle-Guiney Women's History Night as an add-on if she wanted to stay for the game. The Silver reception and the suite ticket campaign were being run as a single coordinated operation by the same people.
Earlier, on February 2 — while the bill was still moving through the legislature — the mayor's office urgently scheduled a three-way call between Wilson, Governor Kotek, and Silver. The scheduling emails were marked "Importance: High." Silver was being used as a lobbying asset before the vote, not just a celebration prop after it.
On April 26, 2026 — while the city council's vote on $405 million in public funding remained pending — Councilors Pirtle-Guiney, Kanal, and Ryan attended a Trail Blazers playoff game on complimentary tickets and met privately with owner Tom Dundon. The event was reported by Willamette Week on April 30, 2026.
The tickets were in Section 218, lower bowl — a section that sells for over $200 per seat in the regular season and significantly more in the playoffs. The ceremonial exemption was invoked: the councilors helped pass a basketball onto the court before tip-off. Pirtle-Guiney's spokeswoman said she "emphasized with him the critical importance of lease negotiations striking a good deal for Portlanders" — meaning substantive deal negotiations were conducted in the context of a comped ticket event.
In May 2024 — eighteen months before SB 1501 passed — the City commissioned an independent Facility Condition Assessment of the Moda Center from Venue Solutions Group, a national arena consulting firm. It found the building's total 20-year capital needs to be $504,877,921. The study was never disclosed during the SB 1501 debate and never referenced in any legislative hearing. It became public only when The Oregonian obtained it through a records request in June 2026. The city now publishes the adjusted $482M figure on its own Moda facts page — after the legislative vote it would have informed had already happened.
Throughout the debate, the city cited $600 million as the renovation cost — a figure that originated with the Blazers' own consultants and that Mayor Wilson himself called "a placeholder number."
That same memo does its own breakdown: removing already-completed and decommissioned items brings the figure to ~$482M, and removing everything tied specifically to NBA/Blazers needs (team locker rooms, broadcast facilities, courtside club) brings it to ~$402M — meaning roughly $80M of the plan exists because of the very tenant contributing nothing toward it.
The memo also points to the obligation that never entered the public conversation: the operator is contractually required to maintain the Moda Center to a "first-class" standard at its own expense. Under the 1993 Arena Ground Lease, that duty was continuously enforceable, and the city retained full mid-term remedies including the right to sue without terminating the lease.
So "the building needs repairs" is not an argument for the subsidy. It is an argument for enforcing the lease the city already has — and for asking why the city gave up the right to do so.
On February 22, 2022 — more than two years before the city acquired the Moda Center and nearly four years before SB 1501 — the City signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Trail Blazers. It is not a mutual NDA. It runs one direction: the city agreed to protect the Blazers' information. And one provision goes well beyond ordinary confidentiality.
This is the origin of the "Project Mt. Hood" code name. Disguising Blazers meetings under a cover label wasn't an ad hoc staff decision in 2025 — it was a contractual obligation the city accepted in 2022.
The agreement was also built to defeat public records requests. The city pre-agreed to assert exemptions on the Blazers' behalf, to refuse disclosure unless ordered by the district attorney, and to tip off the Blazers whenever anyone filed a records request, subpoena, or lawsuit so they could move to block it. Signing an NDA to receive confidential information is ordinary. Agreeing to make your own public records misleading, and to help a private party defeat disclosure, is not.
The same Senior Deputy City Attorney, Kenneth McGair, approved this 2022 agreement and later served as the "Monitoring Attorney" on the Stafford contract that shields the city's financial advisory work product. He is the consistent legal hand behind both.
On April 6, 2026, the Blazers asked the city to accelerate its capital contribution and to open the Spectator Facilities Fund to them — including revenue from non-Blazers events. The City Attorney refused, and the reason he gave is the whole case in one sentence.
McGair also held the line on the money itself, citing the lease requirement that city spending be matched 50/50 by the operator and limited to revenue from Blazers games. The team wanted public funds from concerts and other events. In April, the city said no.
Three months later, the city proposed to fund that same maintenance itself. Nothing in the lease changed in between. So when anyone says Portland has no leverage, note that the City Attorney found and used exactly that leverage in April.
On December 19, 2025, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira asked the Blazers to host a Rose Quarter tour for members of the PCEF committee — the body that would have to approve using clean energy money for the arena. He described it as "a chance to walk through for members as we provide awareness for a potential investment of PCEF."
The Blazers offered three dates, including a game night, and hosted lunch. On January 9, 2026, PCEF program manager Sam Baraso confirmed the arrangements in an email to the team:
Oregon's public meetings law attaches when a quorum of a governing body convenes. Holding attendance to four kept the gathering below that line — no public notice, no minutes, no observers. The committee members who would vote on the money toured the building with the applicant, and the session was structured so it would not be a public meeting.
The same PCEF production shows the city telling The Oregonian that all PCEF funds were already allocated through June 2029, while telling PBS it was not diverting anything. It also shows Deputy City Administrator Oliveira ordering the city's Moda web page taken down in February because it was "way to PCEF centric."
The Blazers aren't going anywhere. Read the full financial analysis. Contact your council member. Demand binding lease terms before the city enters the joint authority.
Full Financial Analysis Model Resolution (PDF)