The jumbotron at the Moda Center on Oct. 22, 2025 in Portland, Ore.
Saskia Hatvany / OPB
The Portland Trail Blazers arrived at Portland City Hall on Thursday ready to talk about much more than money.
After days of uncertainty whether team officials would show up at all, Blazers officials arrived at a City Council hearing in force — and with a forceful message.
The city needs to do more than just help fund a roughly $575 million renovation of the Moda Center, they said, if it wants to assure the Blazers’ long-term presence in the state.
Also necessary to address, the team suggested, is everything from a legal threat by the city over the arena’s condition, to income tax rates, to Portland’s reputation on a national stage.
“The arena is only a small piece of that bigger picture,” Dewayne Hankins, the Trail Blazers’ president of business operations, told the council. “Portland’s current stagnant business climate, high income taxes, and divisive political environment make this a tough city to invest in. It makes it harder to sell tickets, secure corporate partnerships and ... recruit players.”
What the city should not anticipate, Hankins and other Blazers executives said, is any private contribution to a Moda revamp.
Team officials argued the Blazers have already invested more than $1 billion in constructing the arena in the first place, and maintaining it for more than three decades. That money was spent by the team’s former owner, Paul Allen, and his estate.
“That often doesn’t get talked about,” Hankins said. “Going forward, in order for this deal to make sense, the contribution needs to come from the public sector.”
The meeting between top Blazers officials and city leaders came as councilors held their first public hearing on what the city wants a deal with the team to look like — and after weeks of escalating tensions between the two parties.
On July 17, the city unveiled a draft term sheet laying out its desired framework for any eventual deal to help fund a renovation of the aging Moda Center. State lawmakers approved up to $365 million toward that project in March, and Multnomah County commissioners are working toward a roughly $101 million contribution.
Portland’s piece of the deal, proposed by Mayor Keith Wilson earlier this year, is $120 million up front for construction, and up to $275 million in ongoing funding for maintenance between 2027 and 2047.
The city’s draft term sheet, which council may still change, included that money, along with a provision that would keep the Blazers in Portland for at least 20 years.
But it also contained items that team officials deemed “nonstarters” — including a proposed $3 million annual fee to make up for property taxes the Blazers won’t pay, and requirements that the team sign a “labor peace agreement” paving the way for unionized staff. In reports by The Athletic and other outlets, anonymous team officials have suggested the city’s terms were going to lead the team’s new owner, Texas billionaire Tom Dundon, to drive an even harder bargain.
“It’s not even a document we can respond to,” Zandria Conyers, the Blazers’ chief legal officer, said Thursday, adding that the sheet included elements that “increase the financial obligations of the team.”
That’s a stark difference from the position of at least some city councilors, who have painted the term sheet as in line with — or better than — arena deals reached in other cities.
“We see it as one of the most generous public proposals in professional sports,” City Councilor Loretta Smith said.
Dundon’s other professional sports team, the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, agreed to pay $4.5 million a year beginning in 2029 as part of its lease at the PNC Arena.
City officials have portrayed the Blazers as uncooperative and absent from serious discussions over what a deal should look like. Widespread speculation in sports media has suggested that the team is doing so strategically, with Dundon’s commitment to remaining in Portland unclear.
Hankins said repeatedly on Thursday that the team’s new owners are committed to the city.
“They do believe that Portland has the best fans in the world,” he said. “They believe we can build a team that Rip City can be proud of, and they believe that Portland is the best and most obvious choice for this team.”
But after Hankins’ opening remarks, the Blazers pivoted immediately to a presentation of data that suggested what the city stands to lose if it doesn’t meet the team’s demands.
Mike Wilkerson, director of economic research at the firm ECOnorthwest, told the council that Portland’s economy could lose out on between $800-900 million a year and thousands of jobs without the Blazers.
Wilkerson, who appeared at City Hall at the Blazers’ request, pushed back on studies suggesting that money flowing to existing professional sports is ultimately spent on other entertainment when teams leave town. He told councilors that approximately 65% of the Blazers’ revenue comes from national TV money that flows in from out of state.
Perhaps highest on the team’s list of priorities Thursday was disarming any chance of legal action on the part of the city.
A current five-year agreement between Portland and the Blazers requires the team to maintain the Moda Center as a “first-class” NBA arena. In June, City Councilor Steve Novick questioned whether the Blazers are meeting that standard and if not, whether the city can take legal action.
Blazers officials said repeatedly Thursday that that threat has chilled negotiations. They demanded that the city take any threat of legal action off the table by amending the five-year “bridge” agreement to remove it as an option.
“Once we have a full suite of options ahead of us … without the threat of litigation hanging over our head, I think you’ll find that we can be reasonable,” Conyers said.
City officials, including Wilson and Council President Jamie Dunphy, insisted they were unwilling to reopen the bridge agreement. Wilson, who is helping lead negotiations with the team, said changing the past agreement isn’t necessary.
“The ruminations of the council are just that,” Wilson said, downplaying Novick’s comments from June. “We are not contemplating suing the Blazers, Rip City Management or other parties.”
What else the Blazers are interested in negotiating as part of a funding deal remained murky on Thursday. Again and again, the team suggested that funding for the Moda Center was only part of what it was seeking in order to ensure the team remains in Portland.
“We want to have a building that players from other teams are jealous of and want to play in,” Conyers said. “We also want our city to be a thriving city … There is a lot more to a market rate deal that we have to think about.”
The team said repeatedly that the city’s draft term sheet diverged from the terms of a deal the Blazers reached with the state this year on 20 points, but refused to give the council a list of those differences.
What changes the Blazers and Dundon might want to see to the city or state tax code was also unclear. Team officials repeatedly declined to offer specifics to city councilors, and Hankins declined reporters’ questions while leaving City Hall.
That doesn’t give councilors much to work with as they refine the term sheet Portland will bring into negotiations. The city council plans to take up possible changes to a term sheet next week, with a vote on the document set for Aug. 12.
“They have different bottom lines than we do, but I heard a lot of interest in continuing this 56-year relationship,” Dunphy told reporters after the meeting. “I think it’s actually very hopeful.”
