Would new Portland Trail Blazer owner Tom Dundon really move the team out of town if the Moda Center isn’t renovated the way he wants with public funds?
Legendary longtime Oregon sportswriter Dwight Jaynes believes the answer is yes and that Dundon is already preparing to relocate the Blazers when his current lease expires in 2030.
“Dundon is a businessman who wants to maximize his investment in the Trail Blazers. He has no loyalty to Portland. He holds all the cards in his negotiations with the city,” Jaynes, a former sports columnist for The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune who supports keeping the team in Portland, told the North Peninsula Review.
The city owns the Moda Center, which is the oldest arena hosting an NBA franchise that has not been renovated. Portland officials are trying to negotiate a deal with Dundon to sign a new 20-year lease for the center in exchange for $600 million in upgrades funded by the State of Oregon, Portland, and Multnomah County.
Dundon is not willing to invest any of his own money in the renovations, however, and is dismissing city efforts to add new conditions to the existing lease, including $3 million a year in payments in lieu of rent and union-friendly requirements.
Some members of the City Council and Multnomah County Commission are unwilling to support the deal unless Dundon, a Texas billionaire, pays for some or all of the renovations, and meets other city-imposed requirements.
Jaynes has been writing for months about the controversy on his Substack column, titled, “A few words from the Godfather.” He was brutally blunt about how the state, city, and county have no choice but to pay for the renovations themselves or lose the Blazers:
“Dundon doesn’t want to negotiate because he thinks he doesn’t have to. He is mandated by a lease to keep the team in Portland only to 2030 and whatever happens after that is pretty much up to him.
“He wants the money. Period. He doesn’t want to tell you where that cash is going because he doesn’t think he has to tell you. And he probably doesn’t, the way things stand now.
“Blackmail. Extortion. Unfair. Call it whatever. you want. But his threat of moving the team very likely trumps whatever card this city thinks it holds in the ‘negotiation.’
“In his mind, the way it stands now he can’t lose. He either gets the needed funds to upgrade his arena or he has evidence for the NBA that the city doesn’t care enough about its team to get its arena updated — thus, he can move to a more profitable city in three years.
“No, this isn’t fair. It’s reality. I’m not defending Dundon. That’s impossible. I’m just telling you what he is doing.
“Nobody likes to be in the city’s position and certainly no one wants to admit they had something to do with it happening. Which the city did when it bought all the debt associated with maintaining a building that big for that long. Like forever.
“The most responsible thing for the City Council to do for the taxpayers of Portland is to give Dundon his deal. Otherwise, the bill is going to come due on Moda renovation someday and the state won’t be around to pay the largest portion of the tab.
“Hold your nose and write the check.”
Dwight Jaynes Substack column can be found at https://substack.com/@pdxgodfather/
Decision unclear as deadline approaches
Time to make that decision is rapidly running out. As this issue of the North Peninsula Review goes to press, Portland is hoping to approve the new lease by the end of the year. The City Council is scheduled to approve the terms for the new lease agreement with Dundon on Aug. 12 – even though his representatives have already dismissed the preliminary ones.
But the deal seems to be unraveling faster than it can be put back together. The council abruptly cancelled a planned July 22 public work session on the negotiations. The Multnomah County Commission held a contentious hearing on committing their share of the proposed deal on July 23 when some commissions said they cannot support spending any money on the Moda Center.
Despite that, mayors from 23 cities in the region signed a July letter supporting the deal to the three elected officials who pushed it through the 2026 Oregon Legislature: Gov. Tina Kotek, Mayor Keith Wilson, and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson.
“To those still weighing funding decisions, we would ask that you continue to ask hard questions and negotiate professionally while acknowledging the deep mark your decisions will make on your neighbors, as well as the overwhelming commitment already made by the surrounding region. Thank you for helping write the next chapter of the Moda Center,” said the letter from the Metropolitan Mayor’s Consortium.
Follow breaking news about the future of the Moda Center and Portland Trail Blazers at northpeninsulareview.com.