Trail Blazers SOLD to Carolina Hurricanes owner

Trail Blazers SOLD to Carolina Hurricanes owner

Here’s Brody Brazil. This is one of those stories where I never would have put two things together unless it were for the story at hand. In this case, the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League and the Portland Trailblazers of the National Basketball Association. Turns out the owner of the Canes is part of a group that is reportedly, according to Sportico, going to buy the Blazers. But wait a second, has anybody talked about this? Has anybody noticed this yet? Look at the logos of Carolina and Portland. They’re almost identical already. Will this combined ownership will they merge the two logos to look even more alike? No, I’m I’m kidding. But what’s the coincidence there? Same colors, basically same type of thing. They they mean totally separate things. And the Portland Trailblazers have had that logo for a very long time. So, no real connection, just an interesting coincidence. But yes, reportedly the Blazers have been sold to an owner of an NHL team. We’ll talk about this in detail. Who’s buying them? What are the plans? How about Moda Center? That’s going to factor into the NBA’s decision-making here. The big headlines are this. The Trailblazers were only announced for sale back in May. Here we are in August 2025 and the sale is reportedly complete. It needs approval. So, the tees aren’t crossed. The eyes aren’t dotted yet. No signatures yet, but there is the intent to sell this team. It is in the trust of Paul Allen, who passed away several years ago. Jodie Allen is Paul’s brother. She took over uh the team with the family trust or the Paul Allen trust. Paul, by the way, was a Microsoft co-founder and it was in Paul’s will to eventually sell off his interest in several sports teams that he had ownership of. So, Jod Allen took over. She’s doing what Paul’s wishes were in his will and selling this team at the appropriate time. The purchase price is reportedly $4.25 billion. That’s actually quite a bit above the valuation of the Trailblazers. But also, when you look at other NBA teams, it also kind of seems like a steal. At the very same time, it’s hard to really figure out what they’re worth, but in your mind, if you look at comps, it’s an interesting sale price. Reportedly 4.25 billion. The Carolina Hurricanes owner, Tom Dundan, is leading this investment group to purchase it. So, I want to be clear, this is not just Tom Dundan buying another team. He’s going in kind of as the majority owner. He’s going to be the governor of the Trailblazers. He’s kind of the head of this whole thing, but there are other investors from the Portland and Oregon region. So, it’s not like he’s coming in to buy this team to do anything uh sinister with it. There are Portland and Oregon investors as part of this group because that’s a main factor here. They’ve already made it clear through this initial report from Sportico that they intend to keep this team in Portland. There’s no moving the team. There’s no buying the team to bring them out to, oh, I don’t know, Raleigh, North Carolina, where the Carolina Hurricanes play. Wouldn’t that be the move to bring a team out there? You’ve already got the hockey team playing in a market where there’s no basketball, but reportedly that’s not on the table at all here. Some deeper level thoughts about this sale and transaction. Any ownership change would require NBA league approval. Shouldn’t take long, but it’s also part of the process. But also, they’re going to evaluate MOA Center as what is right now the seventh oldest NBA arena. It has really never undergone a full transformation in about 30 or so years. I want to say it’s 30 years old this year. So, we’ll get to that later on. That might be part of the NBA’s decision-m here. Sportico values the Trailblazers at 3.6 billion. So, is it possible that there’s an overpaying situation here of about a billion dollars? It’s possible, but I mean, that’s a drop in the bucket when you consider the Lakers. And I get it. The Lakers and the Blazers are two different entities. Portland, Los Angeles, tons of NBA titles, and Portland’s a respectable team. Good fan base, but it’s not the Lakers. 10 billion for the Lakers, 6 billion for the Celtics. Both those teams just sold in this calendar year of 2025. So, those are the recent comps. Although, are they are they truly comps? There has been some concern about uncertainty with the Blazers franchise and this aging arena. We’ll talk more about that in a second. But Mr. Allen’s other investments in the Seahawks and the Sounders up in Seattle, they’re going to be kept for now, but sold eventually as part of his wishes in the will. So, this is kind of one of the first things to get taken care of. It’s just the right time apparently to sell the Portland Trailblazers. Tom Dundan, who is set to purchase this team or be part of the purchase of this team. He bought the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018 for $425 million. He’s also, by the way, majority owner of PPA, that tour. It’s a pickle ball tour as well as major league pickle ball. I can get into that. I do like pickle ball. Side note, have you played pickle ball? It’s pretty fun. It’s it’s an emerging sport. It’s for uh amateurs definitely, but obviously professionals, too. I really think it is. It has the potential to be kind of a next big thing. You can play it on a tennis court. You don’t need much more than whiffle balls and paddles. Anyway, I digress. Great investment, Tom Dund. I like what you’re doing there. I also like the fact that he’s 10% owner of Topgolf. Have you been to Topgolf? I guess I’m promoting all of Tom Tom Dundan’s properties here. I enjoy them all. I I like what he’s doing here. Actually, I don’t like I don’t dislike the Carolina Hurricanes. They’re a gritty, successful team in a smaller NHL market, non-traditional. So, I like I like the properties. I like the directions he’s going in here. Even though I’ve understood Topgolf has struggled recently, uh the product doesn’t struggle. It’s still fun. It’s a great time. It’s always been a great idea, especially as I get more into golf. But I digress. Uh Tom is reportedly going to serve as the Trailblazers governor. So, again, not the only investor or purchaser of this team, but is going to be kind of the head of of operations. Tom has an interesting reputation. I wrote tough reputation here. An interesting reputation among NHL agents when The Athletic did a survey recently of owners across the league. NHL agents, so not players, not fans, NHL agents called him overly involved and maybe a little bit difficult to work with. I I I guess you can see that two ways. He cares. He’s hands-on. He’s around. He’s investing in this. So, of course, he wants some hands on the process. So, you can see that one of two ways, but maybe it sets a tone for the type of owner he’s been and successful to a large degree, obviously. Now, the Moda Center, it’s owned by the city of Portland. The Blazers do have a lease there now uh through 2030 with a 5-year option and extension to go after 2030, but it is the NBA’s seventh oldest arena. And if you look at the list of the other six that are older than MOA Center, almost all of them have undergone major overhauls or improvements or renovations like Madison Square Garden. And there’s a bunch of other buildings that have been redone and reimagined. They’re the same building, but they’re better now. Modus Center, even going back to when it was called the Rose Garden, it’s never got that main overhaul since it was built in 1995. And so they’re thinking about what to do next. Are the Blazers going to demand something? Is the NBA going to demand something? Mayor Keith Wilson of Portland and Oregon Governor Tina Kotak they’ve already got ahead of this challenge knowing this was going to happen. They told NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in July they’re already willing to explore a public private partnership to improve Mo Center. Not talking about building a new arena. They want to upgrade the current building and facility. Public private partnership means we’ll kick in something. We’re not going to say no to everything, but here we go with public dollars. How’s that going to work? What are people in Portland and Oregon going to do? They just recently up in Oregon approved an $800 million jock tax if a Major League Baseball team shows up. But that’s different because the team doesn’t exist yet. And the tax is only there if the team exists. Well, now you’ve got something that already exists in the Blazers. How do you get free money? I guess that’s a it’s a great question for all of us. How do you get free money? Who knows? But apparently they’re into uh they’re open to public financing partially of fixing up the Moa Center. Here’s my takeaways. Number one, the NBA should not have a hard time to figure out Mr. Dundan’s track record. Like if they’re trying to approve him and trying to say, “Well, we want you in this ownership group of NBA teams. They can just look at his body of work in the NHL. This is not like somebody new who’s never owned a sports team.” This is somebody with a track record. So if there are already issues, you’d imagine this is going to be straightforward. They’ll figure this out. I I would think that him owning a team and showing success and having direction, that’s probably going to help all this get expedited and fasttracked. I certainly hope Moa Center gets some love and improvements before they try anything else. Do you really want to build a new arena after 30 years of that place being around? It sat for 30 years, never got improved, and what? You’re just you’re just done with it. So, I hope that improving and renovating Modus Center in the Rose Quarter is the right thing to do here. It would be scary if Mr. Dundan was the only investor here who’s already got that arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. Do you understand what I’m saying there? Somebody from the other side of the country just bought this NBA team out in in Portland. And there’s a question of whether they’ll stay in Portland. And now what’s he going to do with this team? He’s got that arena. Wouldn’t he like to fill it all winter long with basketball, hockey, basketball, hockey? Probably. But he’s going to keep this team in Portland with the group. you can kind of wipe off that concern. It seems he has no intention of moving this team, but if you didn’t know anything else and you just saw the headline, you might worry that that was part of his intention. Reportedly, there are many Portland and Oregon investors in this group. So, that’s that’s some added security in terms of who’s buying this. I think it’s really good that the process was quick. I understand this was a team kind of not a forced sale, but it was spelled out that it needed to happen. It also needed to happen at a very lucrative time. So that’s taking place. They waited until the new TV contracts were in place with the NBA, the Allen Trust. It just timed out well. So that now here we are in a in a situation where this team is being sold at the right time under a quick timeline and in the course of an off season. All of that so that the Blazers fans didn’t have to go through turmoil or uncertainty or drama back and forth. Hopefully this is clean, simple, and done. And Mr. Dundan and his group take over and make the Blazers a competitive team again. I think that would be most interesting for this entire situation. Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. Also down there, hit the thumbs up button. 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Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon has reached a tentative agreement to buy the Portland Trail Blazers from Paul Allen’s estate, according to people familiar with the details.

Others in the group include Blue Owl Capital co-president Marc Zahr and Portland-based Sheel Tyle, co-CEO of Collective Global, according to the people, who were granted anonymity because the details were private. The new group intends to keep the team in Portland, the people said.

The deal including two payments, one at close and one at a later date, with a blended valuation of roughly $4.25 billion, according to multiple sources.

“We are excited,” Dundon said in an email. He didn’t immediately respond to a question about the price. Allen’s estate declined to comment. Sportico values the team at $3.6 billion.

Any transaction would require NBA approval.

Read More: https://www.sportico.com/business/team-sales/2025/dundon-portland-trail-blazers-sale-paul-allen-1234866910/

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