Tom Dundon, Carolina Hurricanes Owner, Agrees to the Buy the Portland Trail Blazers

Tom Dundon, Carolina Hurricanes Owner, Agrees to the Buy the Portland Trail Blazers

In today’s show, Tom Dundan, the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes and a pickle ball enthusiast, has agreed to become the owner of the Portland Trailblazers. He’s buying the team and keeping them in Portland. So, who is Tom Dundan and what does this mean for the future of the franchise? Well, welcome to Locked On Blazers. Let’s get into it. You are Locked on Trailblazers, your daily Portland Trailblazers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up, world? It’s your passers point guard and Trailblazers reporter Mike Richmond. You’re listening to another episode of Locked on Blazers, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, available wherever you get podcasts and also on YouTube. Thanks for making this show your first listen. coming at you mostly three days a week for August and September, but we’re popping on here for a bonus edition of the show. It’s available wherever you get podcast and also on YouTube. Locked on Blazers, your team many, many days because it’s a bonus episode because we got big old breaking news. Tom Dundan, who is the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, an investor in Topolf and an enthusiast in the pickle ball world, has agreed to purchase the Trailblazers. The news was first reported by Sportico um that Dundan was buying the team. Later confirmed a couple other places including by ESPN uh where Sham Strania says that the the sale will be for a valuation over $4 billion. I think the baseline for uh NBA teams was basically the Hornets at $3.5 billion. So with the Blazers being for north of 4 billion sounds about right. It’s the right ballpark. The Allen estate has agreed to sell the team. Now, the actual closure of this sale will probably take a long time. Uh, as as reported here first on Locked on Blazers, the when the team was announced for sale, the anticipation would be that it was going to take 9 to 12 months for the for the process to be completed. Um, clearly this is faster than that, but the closure of the sale will be sometime in the future. I think you can look to the Boston Celtics where in late February, early March, they agreed to sell the team and now we’re sitting here in August and the final the sale has not been yet finalized. So that’s, you know, four full months uh later. So we’re, you know, I I would expect sometime into the season uh that this deal actually get actually gets finalized, but it is in the agreement to purchase the team is indeed in place. So who is this group buying the team? Let’s get into that first. Tom Dundan is a about to be 54y old, currently 53, but turns 54 in early September. A 54y old who owns the Carolina Hurricanes. He became the majority owner, bought 52% of the Carolina Hurricanes and the rights to the RBC center in Portland, uh, RBC or excuse me, RBC Arena in Raleigh for $425 million in 2018. He has he has been, um, the the now majority owner of of the Canes for about seven years. Shout out shout out to my hicks with sticks there in beautiful Piedmont, the Piedmont region of North Carolina. He’s also the majority owner of a couple pickle ball um entities, PPA Tour, Professional Pick Pickleball Association and the Major League Pickle Ball. And he is a according to the Sports Business Journal, roughly 10% uh investor, 10% ownership stake in Topgolf. He’s worked in the sports world. He has Dallas ties, went to SMU and is currently based in Dallas, although he spends some time in Raleigh. Um, and this is someone who’s like worked in the sports world. He’s mostly been a real estate developer and worked in some other places like many billionaires. Um, he he got he got rich writing subprime loans. uh uh the story of him of him sort of making his first bit of money was uh uh working in sort of a car loan space that kind of popped off and then he has been he’s a very successful investor turning some millions of dollars into some billions of dollars and now he is going to be the owner of the Portland Trailblazers. So that’s Dundan. He’ll be the he’ll be the what they call the governor. Now it’s just stupid language. Um he’s the owner of the team. He’ll be the acting owner of the team, the face of the team, and the majority shareholder as it as as it lands. Um, you’ve got to pay, you know, you’ve it’s it’s roughly, you know, 20% of the purchase price. So, we’re talking like a billion dollars to get in on the ground. You got to have to be to be the majority owner. And the ownership group will also include uh the Mark Zar who is the uh co-president of Blue Alowl Capital and Shield Tile who runs uh a who is the CEO of Collective Global. These are venture capital type investment firm types, the people who have all of this money to make these purchases. Um, we’ll see what Zar and Tile and their um their level of involvement and and part of sort of uh what they look like as as a part of the ownership group, but it’s going to sounds like it’s going to be Dundon. So, um that’s that’s who this group is. But the most important bit of news here now 5 minutes into this bonus episode is how the team isn’t staying or excuse me, the team is staying. Whoa. The team is going to remain in Portland. That’s the most important part of this. I mean, maybe to you if you live somewhere else, you’re rooting for them to leave. But the reporting of force at first from Sporico and now confirmed several other places, including by Bill Orm of the Oregonian. Um, this is this is the plan is for the team to stay here. The question is what does staying here look like? Because it is clear at a minimum there need to be significant renovations or there there will be significant renovations to the Moto Center. The Moto Center is the oldest arena in the NBA that has not undergone significant renovations. It’s one of the oldest arenas in the league period. I believe it’s seventh oldest according to an interview I heard with Marshall Marshall Glickman on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud program. U it is it is a it is a functional arena for you and I people who attend games, but for the ownership group um typically what happens typically sort of the cycle is about every 30 years these arenas get renovated or replaced. And typically when new ownership comes in, they want a new arena. They want a new sort of a larger pie, larger share of the pie in terms of luxury boxes and high-end amenities and things like that that draw big dollars per capita dollars at games that is coming one way or another. So one way it comes is a massive renovation of the arena, right? um is a several summer process uh displacing the WNBA team, but a several summer process of massive renovations to the arena or it is building a new arena entirely. And I think you can look to um a couple places uh I to kind of get a sense of what this might look like. One of the places that it might look that it might look like is in Salt Lake City where they um have a centrallylo arena in sort of the downtown central centrally located in Salt Lake City area. it’s a little bit older. When they had a new young uh owner come in, they did not move the arena, although there was some conversations that they might. Instead, they made significant renovations. They got a hockey team. They did all this stuff, but that included a larger real estate play, a larger redevelopment of the area around it of of more of downtown um Salt Lake City or more of like I don’t think it’s to me that’s not downtown Salt Lake City. I’ve been there a lot of times, but but like the sort of central business commercial area surrounding surrounding the um surrounding the arena, a larger real estate play. And then if you look in Raleigh, um where where Dundon bought the Hurricanes in 2018, there was some whispers that maybe hockey in the American South wasn’t going to be the thing. See the Atlanta Thrashers. Uh and there was some some whispers that maybe the Hurricanes, once relocated from beautiful Hartford, Connecticut, would be relocated. There’s some whispers they might move, but instead there the relocation rumors kind of died because there was the team was successful um basically immediately making the Eastern Conference Finals and then Dundon in in 2023 undertook um a deal to extend the arena’s lease uh 20 20 years up through 2044. There’s a lease to remain at the arena um and then to redevelop the land around PNC Arena in Raleigh. Uh it is not a big urban arena. It is out there like just off the highway in suburban sort of Nowhere’sville. Um but uh that area is certainly expanding. Uh but it is not like a truly urban arena like in Salt Lake City or like we have here in Portland. But they’re they’re transforming the area around PNC around the arena where the where the hockey team plays into a huge mixeduse um entertainment districts uh that’s going to include uh restaurants and bars and hotels and high-end condos and you know places everything right like it’s going to make this like a true campus live work play type of type of campus. Does that sound like the move that you might execute here in Portland? Yeah, that sounds very similar. renegotiating a lease for a long-term lease and then spending a bunch of money to redevelop the land around the arena. The problem is that Portland has some challenges, like some actual physical challenges with developing the land around the arena. One, the highway is right there. Two, Memorial Coliseum is there and they’re putting some public money about $40 million into um renovating that building. It’s also on the historic register. As I understand it, there isn’t like um a ton of legal protections that would prevent someone from demolishing um the memorial coliseum, but there is some there’s some loopholes. There’s some there would be some there would be some constraints and when it was about to get torn down back in 2008 and like there was basically got it on the historic register and preserved its its lasting um sort of its its lasting legacy and also just like made it into a a a thing that is going to be harder to move in the future. And then there’s just some like physical constraints. Where the um the the the the motor center is located is right up against the water. Right up against the water is this big rubber plant owned by the Louis Drifus family that’s um you’d have to they don’t want to sell it reportedly and you’d have to buy that and then develop that and there might be some sort of environmental stuff associated with the big rubber plant. And then you there there’s um so if there is a larger real estate play, there are some constraints. It’s possible. tear down the Econo Lodge that’s right next door. You could um you know, there’s the the Portland Public Schools building that that has long been rumored to be sort of a part of the redevelopment world. There’s an agreement with the the Albina district to sort of revamp that area in general. But I think what is true is that when these renovations happen, they often happen as a part of a larger real estate play. You can see it in Salt Lake City. You can see it with the the now owner of the soon to be owner of the Trailblazers, Tom Dundan, what he did in Raleigh. this is what you want. And in fact, speaking of Marshall Glickman, who is the son of Harry Glickman, the original owner of the Blazers and part of this group that was working hard to keep the Blazers in Portland, he was on Think Out Loud last week. And he said that basically it is almost impossible to get a return on investment for billionaires. If you have an arena without a district, a sort of entertainment district around it, without a larger real estate play, you cannot get a big enough return on investment to make it palatable. So, we will see what this means, but I think there are big hurdles to overcome in terms of of what happens with the MOA center. Is it going to be a massive renovation, which I think probably makes the most sense, or are they going to try to relocate? Are they going to move up a little bit east of the Lloyd district and build this massive entertainment district that also has access via um uh via public transportation which is kind of a need and could provide some parking areas as well as a place to develop massive uh entertainment district. That’s all I I think you can see if you look closely how this works is that a larger real estate play in which many business interests can be placated to some extent is really the move here. You see when teams are purchased and teams don’t move and teams stay in smaller markets. It’s how you can um how you can maximize that that sort of value. That’s kind of bigger picture long-term stuff. The team is staying here and what it looks like we shall see. But I think the question is here is like in the immediate is is Tom Dunan a good owner? Is this an upgrade? Let’s talk about that. Uh in the second segment, join me there, won’t you? Before we do that though, let’s talk FanDuel. It’s America’s number one sports book and also is FanDuel Futures Day. August 26, officially FanDuel’s futures day. A brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches. For just 24 hours, FanDuel is giving you deals on NFL preseason predictions. 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Um they’ve shelled out some money to to to um to buy star players. they have built a sort of an analyticsdriven team to be successful and they’ve they’ve been they have been a a successful franchise under his watch. Um but to me good ownership is um it can be and should be measured by team success because that’s what you’re you’re building towards. It’s incredibly competitive environment and it should be there’s 30 teams in the league, everyone pushing for the same thing. Obviously, some teams are more apt to just sort of like print money and be happy. Um, but like being consistently competitive, maybe not championships, but consistently competitive is the mark of good ownership. But there’s other sort of traits that you want to see. Um, and there was a uh a profile of Dundon in written in uh May of 2024 in the Sports Business Journal. And um it it mentions that like Dundon doesn’t even live in Raleigh and he doesn’t he he early on he would be in Raleigh more often than than uh than he was uh in recent seasons, but mostly he’s not there. He’s he’s he’s not someone who was like physically present at the games. He lives in Dallas. He’s got five kids. Um he has other business ventures. And while he is um deeply invested in the team, he’s not exactly like right there front and center. But he is an absentee. The article in Sports Business Journal reads the has the following paragraph. In fact, Dundan is known as being among the most hands on bosses in the league. He bristles at this characterization. I don’t even live here, he says. But those he’s closest to in the organization aren’t afraid to say so. You name it, he’s involved in all of it, said Rod Bindore, who is the Hurricanes head coach. I don’t think you have another owner in sports that’s as involved in his team as he is. Oh no. Oh no. I listen. I think the number one thing that good ownership can do is hire the right people and get out of the way. There’s almost almost no examples of a very hands-on, very involved ownership group having success, consistent success in the league. um you just you you need to hire basketball people, the right basketball people, and get out of the way. And then you need to make swift decisions. If those basketball people turn out not to be the right people, then you need to make good smart hires and not just hire people who went to Michigan State. Um you you got to hire the right people and get out of the way. That’s number number one job of good ownership. Then for me, it’s spend money on infrastructure to make the team and the facility appealing um and competitive. It’s basically just like quality of life expenditures for players and staff. That’s that’s number two. But I think that’s like such a deep number two after step one, hire the right people and get out of the way. If you are smart and you hire the right folks, you can do things like say the ownership group in Oklahoma City that just said, “Hey, Sam Prey, you get you’re you’re really good at this. You get to be in charge forever.” Or even Steve Balmer in LA, like when he got in charge, he basically once he got uh Doc Rivers out of there and kind of moved on to truly his own era of basketball. um he’s like they’ve been as successful as they’ve ever been and it’s just like hey Lawrence Frank you run this thing right get hire the right people and get out of the way and Balmer’s obviously very like involved but not not with the basketball dayto-day and I think the same with um the same with uh with with the situation in Oklahoma City and Klay Bennett, right? It’s like hire the right people and move. You look at you look at in in in San Antonio, these are like the marks of really good franchises. You you look at the teams that are messy, the messier teams. Look at the Knicks under James Dolan. Um too too much meddling. Look at the Kings. Look at what’s going on in Phoenix. Too much meddling with new ownership. Hire the right people. Get out of the way. Spend money on infrastructure, quality of life upgrades for players and staff because you want you’re you’re never you’re not going to sell good weather in Portland. You’re not going to sell this like great giant multicultural city that’s on par with Los Angeles and New York and even like say Atlanta. you’re what you’re selling is a great place to play basketball. And so to do that, it’s quality of life upgrades for staff and to players. Um, and then the last thing that a good ownership does is when the team is good, you pay the luxury tax to keep the competitive window open as long as possible. That’s what you really want. You want someone who hires the right people and gets out of the way, spends money on the little things to make life better for people who work for the team, and then when you do build a good team, the willingness just to spend when you have a competitive window. It’s not going to be forever and the league punishes you for being too expensive for too long. But say you have a championship level team with Nicola Joic, the best the best player that will ever play for your franchise. You don’t cheap out and duck the tax the following two years and kind of like maybe skimp on the championship window. You you say, “This is our four-year chance. Let’s spend outrageously for four years. Let’s be as expensive as possible because once you’re really good, having clean books doesn’t matter. When you’re not very good, the clean books is a tool to get better. When you are really good, spend as much money as you possibly can to stay good. That’s the mark of a good ownership. Am I a little worried the hands-on comments in this sports business profile? I am. But from right now in August of 2025, impossible to know what Dundon will actually look like as an owner. But I do think that the Blazers having a settled ownership situation and a settled situation where they’re not leaving town puts them in a much better place. There are some questions about what a new arena or renovated arena will look like and how much money it’s going to cost p like sort of the the public here and how much like taxpayers are going to will have to willingly pay and all of those questions and I think we will get there and my personal preference about how much we should pay for billionaire palaces is is like just a sort of side note to the larger um coverage of this. We will see what the public private ownership because it certainly is going to be public private ownership agreement ends up being. We’ll see what the plan is. Are they going to renovate the arena massively? Are they going to build a whole new arena from scratch? And where might that go? Um, if they do the second part, boy are is it going to get messy in terms of public money and public financing? And what you know what once the arena stuff is scheduled, what or or squared away, what does the actual basketball stuff look like? What is Dundan like as an owner and a decision maker and a hirer? Who does he hire as a coach, as a GM? Does he keep the people involved? Does he bring in his own people? And what is what does that look like into the future? Those are all questions we will eventually answer, but that’s going to do it for today’s program. That’s what we know. It’s a bonus episode. We were supposed to do three this week. We still will do another one. The Blazer schedule is going to come out Thursday on a Friday show. We’ll talk about the Blazer schedule, but for now, that’s what we know about Tom Dun. Tell your friends about the program. Tom, they can get wherever they get podcast and also on YouTube. I appreciate you listening. I’ll talk to you soon. Hey, hey, hey.

The Allen Estate has reached an agree to sell the Portland Trail Blazers to Tom Dundon, among other things, the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes. There’s a new owner with plans to keep the team in Portland. This is good news with many other questions to follow.

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