Speaker 1: Cool zone.
Speaker 2: Media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Kevin Foster,
Speaker 2: and for the past few months, I've witnessed what I
Speaker 2: would describe as an egregious billionaire handout going down in
Speaker 2: the city of Portland and the state of Oregon as
Speaker 2: a whole. You might feel nauseous thinking about your tax
Speaker 2: dollars going to some wealthy bastard, and trust me, he
Speaker 2: is a bastard. But what if I told you it
Speaker 2: was for basketball. That probably sounds silly to many of you,
Speaker 2: but that's the question Portlanders have been grappling with. Tom Dundon,
Speaker 2: a Texas billionaire businessman, bought the NBA's Portland Trailblazers in
Speaker 2: April of this year. You may or may not have
Speaker 2: heard of Dundon. He made the rounds not too long
Speaker 2: ago when the other sports team he owns, the NHL's
Speaker 2: Carolina Hurricanes, won the Stanley Cup. Notably, he engraved his
Speaker 2: dog's name on it, to the distaste of many hockey fans.
Speaker 2: Since Dundon took over the Blazers, he's fueled constant chatter
Speaker 2: about the possibility of moving the tea out of Portland.
Speaker 2: He's done so by demanding the city, county, and state
Speaker 2: handover approximately six hundred million dollars in public funds to
Speaker 2: renovate the Moda Center the Blazers Stadium, which our wonderful
Speaker 2: producer Sophie has informed me is already quite nice. Despite
Speaker 2: Forbes estimating Dundon's net worth at around two point three
Speaker 2: billion dollars, he has no plans of contributing to the
Speaker 2: renovation himself, leaving it all to the taxpayers. There's a
Speaker 2: very dedicated Blazer's community here in town, so the threats
Speaker 2: of leaving rang major alarm bells. But what has ensued
Speaker 2: is a revealing cascade of insights into local corruption, economic desperation,
Speaker 2: and a deep misunderstanding and or willful ignorance of sports economics.
Speaker 2: So today we're going to talk about the economics of
Speaker 2: sports and stadiums, why these investments are awful for your
Speaker 2: city to make, and what to watch out for as
Speaker 2: the business lobby and politicians in your town try to
Speaker 2: line the pockets of billion ais. While they will talk
Speaker 2: a lot about Portland, I want to be clear a
Speaker 2: great deal of this could very easily spread across the
Speaker 2: country as Dundon sets a new precedent for what executives
Speaker 2: can scrape from taxpayers. On that note, I'd like to
Speaker 2: do a mini dive into Tom Dundon and some of
Speaker 2: his co owners to give you a sense of the
Speaker 2: types of people we're dealing with here, a mini behind
Speaker 2: the bastards, if you will. For one, Dundon is a
Speaker 2: known penny pincher, in other words, a piece of shit.
Speaker 2: Some of his cost cutting measures just since taking over
Speaker 2: the Blazers include massive layoffs of up to seventy Blazers staff,
Speaker 2: leaving part time players at home in Portland in the
Speaker 2: middle of the playoffs, breaking playoff tradition by not giving
Speaker 2: fans free T shirts, ignoring players coaching requests, and undercutting
Speaker 2: the pay of the coach he did end up hiring.
Speaker 2: And it gets worse. Dundon made most of his money
Speaker 2: in the subprime auto loan industry with the company Santander
Speaker 2: Consumer USA. According to Boston University finance professor Mark Williams,
Speaker 2: as referenced in an Oregon Public Broadcasting article, Dundon was
Speaker 2: quote one of the individuals that really grew the industry.
Speaker 2: Many would argue he took it to a new level.
Speaker 2: Quote according to The New York Times, Part of how
Speaker 2: Dundon and other Cintender executives made millions was by packaging
Speaker 2: risky loans for low income people into securities that could
Speaker 2: be sold. Allah the two thousand and eight financial crisis
Speaker 2: and what Wall Street goruls did with mortgages. The various malpractices,
Speaker 2: which Cintender never had to admit to in court, resulted
Speaker 2: in five hundred and fifty million dollars worth of legal settlements,
Speaker 2: including in Oregon. If you're waiting for some sort of
Speaker 2: karmic relief, it isn't really coming. Dundon walked away from
Speaker 2: Santander in twenty fifteen with seven hundred million dollars. He
Speaker 2: then continued to invest in subprime auto lenders while expanding
Speaker 2: into professional sports. This man is not well liked, even
Speaker 2: by people who are clearly desperate to keep the Blazers here.
Speaker 2: For example, in a recent city council meeting, one fan
Speaker 2: who was in support of a public subsidy for the
Speaker 2: Blazers called Dundon a quote grade a douchebag quote. And
Speaker 2: in order to buy the Blazers, Dundon had to put
Speaker 2: together an ownership group. One lesser reported individual in that
Speaker 2: group is Mark Czar. The co president of the shadow
Speaker 2: bank blue Owl Capital. On their website, blue Owl calls
Speaker 2: themselves a quote partner to hyper Scalers unquote in the
Speaker 2: AI data center space, and according to Bloomberg, they also
Speaker 2: sold a warehouse to DHS for an ice megaprison for
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty million dollars. Needless to say, these
Speaker 2: guys don't really embody the typical Portland energy to be
Speaker 2: fair to Dundon and Czar, not that I really feel
Speaker 2: the need to. They're in piss poor company among NBA owners.
Speaker 2: Oregon Public Broadcasting described the owner ship roster in the
Speaker 2: league as a quote billionaires club whose past and current
Speaker 2: members or their companies have been accused of housing discrimination,
Speaker 2: knowingly underwriting improper mortgages, exploiting prison inmates, making racist comments,
Speaker 2: and engaging in sexual misconduct unquote. Apparently, the former Blazer's owner,
Speaker 2: Jody Allen, settled lawsuits over alleged sexual harassment and attempting
Speaker 2: to smuggle penguin skulls and giraffe bones out of Antarctica
Speaker 2: and Africa. That's pretty much par for the course for billionaires,
Speaker 2: which is exactly why I think this issue is worth
Speaker 2: paying attention to. At some point, Dundon is going to
Speaker 2: end up in a room with all the other owners
Speaker 2: and talk about this sweet deal he got with just
Speaker 2: a bit of posturing and lobbying, and you don't have
Speaker 2: to take it for me. Here's renowned sports economist JC
Speaker 2: Bradberry talking about the dynamics between sports owners. This is
Speaker 2: from a webinar hosted by a few of the Portland
Speaker 2: City councilors who actually pushed back against this deal.
Speaker 3: There's a great quote in Kim Belson's recent book on
Speaker 3: the NFL and when he interviews Steven Jones, the son
Speaker 3: of Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and he
Speaker 3: describes the relationship as this. He said, as a competitive
Speaker 3: He describes a competitive businessman culture among owners of sports
Speaker 3: team owners. He says, accumulating money is keeping score. Jerry
Speaker 3: may not need more money, but if he doesn't make it,
Speaker 3: in his mind, he has failed. And I think that's
Speaker 3: what you're seeing a lot with owners. They're trying to
Speaker 3: one up here up each other. And I think it's interesting.
Speaker 3: A lot of times you see owners go out and
Speaker 3: they donate vast amounts of money to charity, but then
Speaker 3: they go and ask for subsidies, and that seems like
Speaker 3: a contradiction. And I think what people need to understand
Speaker 3: is that these owners they're not even necessarily interested in
Speaker 3: making money for themselves. They have billions of dollars, they're
Speaker 3: very wealthy. They're what they want to do is invite
Speaker 3: all the owners in and say, look at what I
Speaker 3: got these suckers to buy me, And they all high
Speaker 3: five each other and they laugh at politicians who back
Speaker 3: then when they leave the room.
Speaker 2: The thing about all this for me is I don't
Speaker 2: really care for basketball. I like to think this helps
Speaker 2: me approach the issue from a relatively objective standpoint, which
Speaker 2: is why I'm all the more confident in the experts
Speaker 2: on this saying, you'd have to be a fool to
Speaker 2: support these investments. But you know what else would be
Speaker 2: a good investment, maybe some of the products and services
Speaker 2: that support this podcast. And we're back now that we
Speaker 2: have a sense of the demons we're dealing with, let's
Speaker 2: talk about sports economics. If I learned anything from my
Speaker 2: degree in economics other than how pretentious most ECON majors are,
Speaker 2: it's that the answer to many questions is just it
Speaker 2: depends and there's rarely consensus on any given issue. Sports economics, though,
Speaker 2: is one of those rare cases where most people actually agree. Politicians,
Speaker 2: business leaders, and sports team representatives will boast about the
Speaker 2: economic boon a team is to your city. They'll talk
Speaker 2: about the jobs people going out to bars and restaurants
Speaker 2: in supposed economic growth. In reality, sports teams suffer from
Speaker 2: something called the substitution effect. In the Journal of Economic Perspectives,
Speaker 2: economists John Siegfried and Andrew Zimbolist explain this in detail. Quote,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of consumers has a relatively inflexible leisure budget.
Speaker 2: If a sports team moves to town, the money one
Speaker 2: spends taking a family to a game typically is money
Speaker 2: that is not spent at a local bowling alley, golf course, restaurant,
Speaker 2: or theater. The net effect on spending in the metropolitan
Speaker 2: area then is zero or very close to zero. While
Speaker 2: sports teams may rearrange the spending and economic activity in
Speaker 2: an urban area, they are not likely to add much
Speaker 2: to it. Unquote. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for
Speaker 2: defunding golf courses, but with sports stadiums, we're really just
Speaker 2: moving money around rather than growing. Funny enough, this can
Speaker 2: actually have a negative effect on surrounding businesses because people
Speaker 2: spend more at the game, putting money into Tom Dundan's
Speaker 2: pocket instead of the local community. The counter argument to
Speaker 2: this is that sports teams bring in tourists from out
Speaker 2: of region or out of state, leading to greater profits,
Speaker 2: but this also doesn't necessarily ring true. Here's Victor Matheson,
Speaker 2: another leading sports economist, in that same webinar with the
Speaker 2: Portland City councilors.
Speaker 1: I've actually studied this extensively. There is exactly zero impact
Speaker 1: on hotel rooms days, and by zero I mean literally zero,
Speaker 1: literally no hotel rooms anywhere. On the contrary, he gets
Speaker 1: sold because people decide to come to a city to
Speaker 1: go see the NBA.
Speaker 2: I'm not certain exactly which studies Matheson is referencing, but
Speaker 2: he says they've looked into at least a dozen major
Speaker 2: cities and hundreds of game nights, finding no effect on
Speaker 2: hotel stays from the NBA. One example backing this up
Speaker 2: is a twenty e eighteen study by Craig E. Depkin
Speaker 2: and E. Frank Stevenson of Charlotte, North Carolina, which found
Speaker 2: that NBA regular season games were not associated with a
Speaker 2: net increase in hotel registrations or hotel revenues the day before,
Speaker 2: the day of, or the day after a game. They
Speaker 2: did find some increases for multi day events, but the
Speaker 2: overall conclusion of the study is that hotel tax receipts
Speaker 2: fall short of the debt service incurred from stadium investments.
Speaker 2: On a larger scale, things like the Olympics and World
Speaker 2: Cup are a similar story, even with such a specific
Speaker 2: focus on international travel. A February twenty twenty six article
Speaker 2: from the Council on Foreign Relations indicates multiple Olympic host
Speaker 2: cities in recent decades lost billions and that the economic
Speaker 2: benefits are dubious at best. Matheson suggested in a two
Speaker 2: thousand and six paper that these mega events can potentially
Speaker 2: lead to a profit for a city if they use
Speaker 2: existing infra share structure, such as the case of the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four Los Angeles Olympics, but this isn't always
Speaker 2: the case, and to give a sense of the broader
Speaker 2: economic consensus, a two thousand and five random sample survey
Speaker 2: of the American Economic Association members found that eighty six
Speaker 2: percent agreed or strongly agreed with the elimination of state
Speaker 2: and local subsidies for sports franchises versus just five percent.
Speaker 2: In opposition, a two thousand and eight paper by Dennis
Speaker 2: Coates and Brad R. Humphreys states, quote the large and
Speaker 2: growing peer reviewed economics literature on the economic impacts of stadiums, arenas,
Speaker 2: sports franchises, and sport mega events has consistently found no
Speaker 2: substantial evidence of increased jobs, incomes, or tax revenues for
Speaker 2: a community associated with any of these things. Quote. Matheson
Speaker 2: himself examined the other side of the argument on stadium
Speaker 2: subsidies in a twenty eighteen paper published in the Journal
Speaker 2: of Policy and Analysis and Management. He points out that
Speaker 2: there may be rare cases where public subsidies make sense,
Speaker 2: but at nowhere near the level that American taxpayers are contributing. Basically,
Speaker 2: the percent of funding that should come from public contribution
Speaker 2: may be simply greater than zero, but not very significant.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, what this really amounts
Speaker 2: to is another massive handout for the wealthy while the
Speaker 2: poor and working class pay the price in taxes or
Speaker 2: cut services. It's big business fucking over the little guy
Speaker 2: who often can't afford to go to the game or
Speaker 2: is making a dog shit, part time wage working concessions
Speaker 2: at the stadium and to bring it back to Portland.
Speaker 2: The mayor has talked about financing this deal with climate funds,
Speaker 2: which are already allocated to different projects. There's a real
Speaker 2: opportunity cost to using public funding for sports rather than
Speaker 2: on city needs, and that absolutely needs to be factored
Speaker 2: into the equation. One of the most basic sort of
Speaker 2: capitalists econ one oh one lessons is that there's just
Speaker 2: no such thing as a free lunch. This money has
Speaker 2: to come from somewhere, and that means other programs get
Speaker 2: the short end of the stick. Over the past few weeks,
Speaker 2: I've noticed there's this perception that Portland is somehow unique,
Speaker 2: that losing the Blazers would send the city into financial ruin.
Speaker 2: Apparently this is quite common, as J. C. Bradbury's new
Speaker 2: book is literally titled this one will be Different, False
Speaker 2: Promises and fiscal realities of publicly funded stadiums. In just
Speaker 2: a bit, I'm going to dive into the tactics owners
Speaker 2: used to shake down cities, but one way they've done
Speaker 2: so in Portland is by broadening the conversation to our
Speaker 2: entire economy. I've watched city councilors play directly into this,
Speaker 2: claiming this city's economy is heavily based on perception, while
Speaker 2: they make decisions that arguably worsen that perception. It's a
Speaker 2: paradoxical position. We're struggling, so we need to spend a
Speaker 2: bunch of money on something that won't make us that
Speaker 2: money back. That's the level of cognitive dissonance we're dealing
Speaker 2: with here, and it's all backed up by the business lobby.
Speaker 2: Our previous city council system penned a deal buying the
Speaker 2: Moda Center for one dollar. Very clearly they took on
Speaker 2: a liability, not an asset, and left us on the hook.
Speaker 2: There's the sphere of the Moda Center becoming a derelict
Speaker 2: mass in a stain on the city if it's not renovated.
Speaker 2: People generally seem to agree that it needs renovations, whether
Speaker 2: for basketball or for concerts, but looking at other cities
Speaker 2: who lost their sports teams, a rotting concrete corpse is
Speaker 2: just simply not an inevitability. An article in Blazer's Edge,
Speaker 2: a blazer's news blog and community site owned by sports
Speaker 2: media conglomerate SB Nation, pointed out how multiple other arenas
Speaker 2: across the US have seen record profits after losing their
Speaker 2: anchored tenant. The Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, lost
Speaker 2: the NHL's Arizona Coyotes in twenty twenty two. In the
Speaker 2: year after, according to Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps, the
Speaker 2: arena broke its revenue record by nearly ten million dollars.
Speaker 2: After the Golden State Warriors left the Oakland Arena in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, it had its best fiscal year ever in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three and reduced its operating deficit by ninety
Speaker 2: seven percent over the four years. And Key Arena, once
Speaker 2: hosting the Seattle SuperSonics, a team referenced heavily by supporters
Speaker 2: of a Blazer's subsidy, operated at a loss under the
Speaker 2: NBA team, according to Blazer's Edge, but it turned a
Speaker 2: bigger profit than ever after they left by quote freeing
Speaker 2: up the stadium revenue the sports teams were hoarding for
Speaker 2: themselves unquote. I have to emphasize, even with mountains of evidence,
Speaker 2: reporting on this deal in Portland has felt like a
Speaker 2: truly Sissipician task, with the sheer volume of misinformation being
Speaker 2: thrown out by our own elected officials, and at times
Speaker 2: the media. Surprisingly, some of the broadcast outlets have had
Speaker 2: some solid articles on this in the past few months,
Speaker 2: though I still would have liked better at times. I
Speaker 2: have a lot of respect for Dave Deckerd, the author
Speaker 2: of The Blazer's Edge piece, because his job seems to
Speaker 2: rely on the Blazer's staying here, which he openly points
Speaker 2: out in his own article. I have a lot less
Speaker 2: respect for legacy outlets like The Oregonian, especially Bill Orum
Speaker 2: and the editorial board, who repeatedly chastise people for pushing
Speaker 2: back against this deal. Some of what I've seen from
Speaker 2: the media has been more akin to stenography than journalism.
Speaker 2: The Journalist's Resource and organization, aiming to bridge the gap
Speaker 2: between reporters and academic research, says in these sports deals,
Speaker 2: journalists quote often report figures from press releases and economic
Speaker 2: impact statements without questioning the assumptions of those analyzes. The
Speaker 2: worst part of all this has been watching people fall
Speaker 2: for the propaganda in public common that some individuals even
Speaker 2: brought their children to speak at Portland City Council. It's
Speaker 2: painful to feel like I couldn't keep up as a reporter.
Speaker 2: So for the last quarter of this episode, I want
Speaker 2: to dive into all of the just head spinning madness
Speaker 2: that has gone down in recent months in hopes of
Speaker 2: providing contexts that can help constituents in other cities fight
Speaker 2: off these terrible investments. Before we do that, here's some
Speaker 2: ads and we're back. Many of Oregon and Portland's leaders
Speaker 2: like to wear the badge of fiscal responsibility, yet they've
Speaker 2: done the exact opposite of what economists suggest. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 2: just so happens that this may be one of the
Speaker 2: worst arena deals of all time. According to data compiled
Speaker 2: by J. C. Bradbury. For that webinar, six hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars is in the realm of a sixty to seventy
Speaker 2: percent an increase over the median public contribution for a
Speaker 2: stadium renovation from twenty twenty five onward. Stadiums like the
Speaker 2: Delta Center in Salt Lake City have lower projected renovation
Speaker 2: costs than Moda despite needing a complete conversion from a
Speaker 2: basketball arena into an arena that can accommodate both basketball
Speaker 2: and hockey. That is a very expensive renovation, and yet
Speaker 2: they also negotiated a thirty year contract instead of the
Speaker 2: twenty year contract we have in Portland. Here, we're on
Speaker 2: track for a fully publicly funded renovation because, as I
Speaker 2: highlighted earlier, Tom Dundon said he didn't want to put
Speaker 2: any money in. The Oregon state legislature capitulated almost immediately
Speaker 2: along with our extremely unpopular governor, showing out about three
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty five million dollars, not including interest, and
Speaker 2: the county followed suit with approximately another one hundred million.
Speaker 2: In this process, the Blazers have not actually shared what
Speaker 2: they want to use the city six hundred million dollars for.
Speaker 2: We're riding blind because they've effectively stone walled ust while
Speaker 2: simultaneously making threats that they'll leave if we don't meet
Speaker 2: their every demand. They've justified this by claiming they're worried
Speaker 2: we'll sue them if they leave, leveraging language in the
Speaker 2: previous lease which states the primary tenant is required to
Speaker 2: maintain the arena in quote first class condition. Let me
Speaker 2: put that another way. Rip City Management, the operator of
Speaker 2: the Moda Center, asked for essentially a blind contribution of
Speaker 2: six hundred million dollars while simultaneously maintaining that the stadium
Speaker 2: is already in first class condition. Because they're afraid of
Speaker 2: a lawsuit due to the contract they signed a few
Speaker 2: years ago. The math does not add up. It kind
Speaker 2: of sounds like the stadium is not actually in first
Speaker 2: class condition, or they're scraping the taxpayers for unnecessary renovations.
Speaker 2: And all they really had to do to enforce their
Speaker 2: agenda was dump a couple one hundred thousand dollars into lobbying,
Speaker 2: then refuse to participate in good faith negotiations. It really
Speaker 2: should go without saying your city, state, and county should
Speaker 2: not throw out hundreds of millions of dollars technically more
Speaker 2: than a billion when you consider debt and other payments
Speaker 2: without seeing the actual details of the renovation. It's like
Speaker 2: a fucking loot box, except we might literally get nothing
Speaker 2: of substance back. Beyond stonewalling and lobbying, the other tactics
Speaker 2: i'll call creative math and finding a fool. Finding a
Speaker 2: fool is simply grabbing business shills who will publicly support
Speaker 2: your propaganda campaign. In Oregon were spoiled for choice, and
Speaker 2: creative math is the coal that fuels the flames. For example,
Speaker 2: the Portland mayor, city councilors and county commissioners have thrown
Speaker 2: around that the region containing the Mota Center produces six
Speaker 2: hundred seventy million dollars in annual economic activity. According to
Speaker 2: the website Ripcity not Ripoff, a community effort posing the
Speaker 2: billionaire handout. About two hundred and ninety million dollars of
Speaker 2: this is just from players salaries. A lot of this
Speaker 2: money likely does not stay within Portland. This concept is
Speaker 2: called leakages in that paper by Seagfreed and Simplest. When
Speaker 2: this creative math doesn't do the trick, sports teams apparently
Speaker 2: will often seek out impact analyses from consulting firms. And
Speaker 2: here's the particular the animated clip of Brad Burry talking
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 3: I want to jump here. I want to talk about
Speaker 3: these economic impact studies. We would tell you they don't exist.
Speaker 3: Economists don't do analyzes like that. These things are totally
Speaker 3: made up garbage. And I'm not even going to be
Speaker 3: nice anymore because I'm tired of having to deal with
Speaker 3: this from city to city. That's not how economists do studies.
Speaker 3: They simply just throw numbers in a barrel and roll
Speaker 3: out bigger numbers. And I'll tell you how you know
Speaker 3: this is true because you most people don't know. They
Speaker 3: hear me say that's not true. Someone says, oh no,
Speaker 3: but the other side says it is true. And the
Speaker 3: way you know it is you say, could you show
Speaker 3: me some examples where you've predicted a number and that
Speaker 3: it came true? And they will never ever respond because
Speaker 3: they have never once predicted it right. And I've been
Speaker 3: asking for years can you show me one example? And
Speaker 3: every time I meet one of these consultans, can you
Speaker 3: show me an example where you predicted correctly? They say,
Speaker 3: I'll get back to you, and I never hear from
Speaker 3: them ever again. These people are just their shields or
Speaker 3: just that they make a living doing this, and we
Speaker 3: need to start calling them out for doing that.
Speaker 2: In Portland's case, one of the DSA City councilors, Mitch Green,
Speaker 2: said he asked to see the data for the impact
Speaker 2: analysis put together by consulting firm Echo Northwest. According to Green,
Speaker 2: the person who conducted the analysis wanted to give him
Speaker 2: the data, but the blazer said it was under an NDA.
Speaker 2: So we've kind of gone full circle back to stonewalling.
Speaker 2: If all those fails, teams may rely on astroturfing and
Speaker 2: bold faced corruption to get a deal through. In Portland,
Speaker 2: a group known as we Are Rip City started up
Speaker 2: claiming to be an independent community effort, but they have
Speaker 2: the tail signs of a corporate astroturfing campaign. They list
Speaker 2: hundreds of coalition supporters on their website, from real estate
Speaker 2: groups to local businesses to unions, but their leadership is
Speaker 2: made up of business executives and they worked with the
Speaker 2: political consulting firm March Strategies, who previously contracted with the
Speaker 2: Blazers and is made up of former high level Oregon
Speaker 2: government staffers. The head of we Are Rip City is
Speaker 2: Jim Etzel, the CEO of Sport Oregon, a nonprofit promoting
Speaker 2: sports in the region, but Sport Oregon is funded in
Speaker 2: part by the city of Portland. In effect, the city
Speaker 2: has paid to lobby itself and it somehow gets even worse.
Speaker 2: Portland is located in Moltnomah County, which is currently set
Speaker 2: up to contribute around one hundred million dollars to the
Speaker 2: arena themselves. A chair of the Moltnomah County Commission, Jessica
Speaker 2: Vega Peterson, who is not running for reelection this fall,
Speaker 2: hired the county's negotiator for the deal. Guess who she
Speaker 2: hired the fucking board president of Oregon who also used
Speaker 2: to work for the Blazers. Here's a clip from the
Speaker 2: County Commission meeting when this came out. Speaking is Commissioner
Speaker 2: Meghan Moyer?
Speaker 3: Did I miss hear? He is on the board of
Speaker 3: Sports Oregon that is currently lobbying us on how much
Speaker 3: we should contribute to this deal? We hired a negotiator
Speaker 3: just on the board of an organization that is lobbying
Speaker 3: us on this issue.
Speaker 1: How is I'm not a wild conflict of interest? Oh?
Speaker 2: Meghan, I feel you. Even after this revelation, Moyer was
Speaker 2: the only one of five on the commission who voted
Speaker 2: against their one hundred and one million dollar term sheet proposal.
Speaker 2: And trust me, I haven't even touched on all of
Speaker 2: the craziness surrounding this, but the underlying goal of the
Speaker 2: team seems to be total control over the conversation. Dundon
Speaker 2: has pulled off a masterclass in this. In reality, it
Speaker 2: would likely cost him millions, if not billions, more to
Speaker 2: relocate the Blazers than to just fund the entire renovation himself.
Speaker 2: There's also debate over whether there's even a location for
Speaker 2: them to move to, since the NBA has already floated
Speaker 2: an expansion of teams, which rakes in huge amounts of
Speaker 2: cash for the NBA owners versus relocation, an estimated ten
Speaker 2: billion dollars per new franchise. According to industry executives and
Speaker 2: league experts consulted by The Athletic, all of our government's
Speaker 2: negotiating leverage was thrown out like a bag of dogshit
Speaker 2: when the Blazers stepped in front of Oregon politicians. I've
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time dunking on Portland City Council,
Speaker 2: but to be fair to them, the state kind of
Speaker 2: screwed us from the outset. And I guess that's kind
Speaker 2: of my message with all this. You've really got to
Speaker 2: try to catch it early. They will absolutely try to
Speaker 2: shove it down your throat, and these owners know how
Speaker 2: to wage a strong propaganda campaign. What I've really tried
Speaker 2: to emphasize in all of my reporting is that supporting
Speaker 2: an arena subsidy, especially of this scale, is just out
Speaker 2: and out choosing the upper class and a sport over
Speaker 2: the people struggling on the streets. We have record heat waves, wildfire, smoke,
Speaker 2: people starving, and yet we are giving money to a billionaire.
Speaker 2: The sickening irony is not lost on me watching a
Speaker 2: Boys and Girls Club representative testify in favor of a
Speaker 2: public subsidy. Yet when I drive by the Blazer sponsored
Speaker 2: Boys and Girls Club in North Portland, I see the
Speaker 2: same woman sleeping outside on the sidewalk, her bones starting
Speaker 2: to protrude from her skin. It's not lost on me
Speaker 2: when the supposed liberals on Portland City Council vote to
Speaker 2: give Tom Dundan stronger rent control protections than everyday people
Speaker 2: in the city. Certainly there are things that are worse
Speaker 2: than another billionaire handout, but I don't know that I've
Speaker 2: ever been more personally disgusted by the people who claim
Speaker 2: to represent me, at least at the local level. The
Speaker 2: worst part is that they pretend to care. They might
Speaker 2: even think that they do actually care, But people have
Speaker 2: literally been yelling this in their faces. It was impossible
Speaker 2: for them not to hear. There truly is no excuse.
Speaker 2: They've sold us out, and will get a sense of
Speaker 2: the full damage in December when all the negotiations come
Speaker 2: to an end. I don't expect these deals will become
Speaker 2: any less common across the country as the national economy worsens.
Speaker 2: I would not be surprised if cultivating local economic desperation
Speaker 2: becomes a center point in any NBA owner's playbook. Either way,
Speaker 2: it happened here. I hope it doesn't happen to you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. It could Happen Here is a production
Speaker 2: of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 3: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts can now
Speaker 3: find sources for it could Happen here listed directly episode descriptions.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.