Tom Dundon’s standard: a market deal

Rip City,
Not Rip Off

Renovate Moda. Keep the Blazers. Make a deal, not a donation.

Portland owns the Moda Center. The City’s draft asks the public for $573M and prices the public’s return at $99M over 20 years — no rent, no revenue share, no private construction dollar. Council can fix the terms before it signs. August 12 is when the terms get set.

See the deal → What a fair deal requires Email your councilors

March 13 → July 17

~$573M+ pledged · first draft on paper

The state’s comps (7/9) · the County’s reset letter (7/16) · the City’s draft (7/17): protections drafted, one revenue line.

August 12

The term-sheet vote

City Council sets the terms. The draft, scored →

Signing

The remaining column

What must appear — the complete list →

We’re just going to get a market deal and we’re going to be fully committed to it.

Asked whether ownership would have “skin in the game,” Dundon said public representatives should negotiate terms that are “great for them.” We took him at his word: we wrote the market deal — line by line, every term sourced to a deal his side already signed in Raleigh.

Read the Fair-Deal Term Sheet →

Tom Dundon · Blazers introductory press conference, April 2, 2026 · full video

Five numbers decide this

$573M	What the July 17 draft asks the public to put up: State $365M + City $120M + County $88M — every construction dollar public. The draft, scored →
$253M	What the City’s own consultant priced the full renovation scope at, in today’s dollars. The study →
~$99M	Everything the public is priced to get back over the 20-year lease — a $3M-a-year payment. The balance sheet →
$1.1–1.2B	What a market-standard package returns the public over 20 years, priced from 17 peer deals. The deals →
~$2.5B	What the building hands the operator across the lease — from an arena he rents for $1 a year. The money map →

How these numbers fit together →

A market deal passes three tests. This draft passes none.

Benchmarked?

Fails · $0

Ownership’s required construction money is zero. Peer ownerships paid 18–52% of renovation capital — in the State’s own comparables.

Tested?

Never

The operating contract has never been competitively bid or priced. Seattle’s city-owned arena drew a ~$1.15B private rebuild. The market test →

Reviewed?

Partial

SB 1501 orders an expert review of deal terms during this negotiation. What surfaced July 9 covers funding splits — not rent, relocation, or revenue shares.

Scored against the fifteen terms of the standard the draft addressed, it delivers 2 terms, leaves 5 open, and puts 1 at risk — the protections converged, the economics didn’t. Every term, scored →

What a fair deal includes

Five fixes — each copied from a deal somebody already signed, most of them by this same ownership:

Private capital: ownership funds the money-making spaces — ~$245M, mid-range among peers.
Rent: $4.5M a year — what this ownership pays in Raleigh — separate from any tax offset.
A formula PILOT: the greatest of the certified floor, the county’s own formula, or full appraisal.
A revenue share: a minority public share of the new premium, naming, and parking money.
Nothing erased: the ~$164M repair claim preserved, audit rights with copies, protections that survive drafting.

All 18 terms, priced and sourced →

Will they leave?

The Cityowns the building. The team operates it for $1 a year — and conveyed it by signed contract.

$1.5–5.7Bthe full-friction cost of actually moving: breached contracts, court, the league’s fee, a new arena.

22–8how the owners voted the last time a team tried to move to Seattle.

Relocation is not a unilateral threat — it is a priced decision the City can make ruinous. The leverage, clause by clause →

Don’t take our word — take the documents’

The Public Balance Sheet91¢ / 9¢ who puts cash in

Every priced arena dollar — badged Verified, Calculated, Modeled, or Unpriced.

What He Makes~$2.5B over the lease

The operator’s revenue, stream by stream, from a $1-a-year building.

The Renovation Study$253M vs. the public ask

The City’s own price — and the $341M of revenue upgrades inside the scope.

Peer Arena Deals17 deals since 2013

Portland’s is the only one with zero private capital and zero rent.

The full evidence library →

The questions everyone asks

All 21 straight answers →

Act now

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Dear Councilor,

The Moda Center vote is a 20-year public finance decision, with public costs potentially exceeding $1 billion over the life of the deal. The owner set the standard himself - "a market deal" - and the market now has numbers attached.

The City's negotiating team has put a first draft term sheet on paper (July 17), and it deserves real credit: cost overruns assigned to the operator, a non-relocation agreement with specific performance and clawback, an unconditional parent guaranty that binds any successor, and audit rights in principle. Please hold every one of those protections, unchanged, through the MOU and the definitive documents.

But the economics column is still nearly empty - and the benchmarks are now public. The state's own comparables summary (July 9) documents peer arenas built with 18-52% private capital, paying rent, and sharing revenue. None of that is yet in the draft, whose one revenue line is a $3M/yr tax offset.

Before any City commitment becomes binding, please require:

1. A market test of the arena operating contract - the one move that prices everything else. Issue a benchmark solicitation now for the post-bridge operating contract, and commit by resolution to a competitive process if final terms don't meet the peer market. To be explicit: the Blazers remain the tenant in every scenario, and the incumbent operator is free to bid and to win. Competition is the only instrument that reveals the contract's market price - Minneapolis and Orlando (in the state's own study) and this building's own 2004-07 history all show the team-as-tenant model working.
2. A private/operator capital line with a number on it. Peer ownership paid 18-62% of renovation capital; the draft's base contribution is $0.
3. Rent, separate from the tax offset. $4.5M/yr escalating is the schedule this same ownership signed in Raleigh.
4. A PILOT set by formula, not negotiation: the greatest of the certified pre-exemption tax bill (a documented $1.2-1.5M/yr floor), the county's own construction formula applied to the renovation ($5.1-9.4M/yr after completion), or full tax equivalency by independent appraisal - no offsets, paid to the taxing jurisdictions. The draft's $3M/yr starts above the floor but falls below the county's own formula once the renovation is built.
5. Revenue sharing from premium spaces, naming rights, and parking - never credited against required private investment.
6. One sentence protecting the City's accrued "first-class" repair claim (~$164M): the amended lease must state it is not a novation and that claims under Sections 5.4 and 10.2 are preserved.
7. The deal-terms review SB 1501 Sec. 6(2)(a) describes, published before the vote. The July 9 summary covers funding splits and governance - not rent, relocation, or revenue-share terms.
8. Audit rights finished: copies, not look-only, with public annual reporting.

This is not an anti-Blazers position. It is a pro-Portland position - and it is support for your own negotiators, who drafted the protections while the counterparty's listed contribution stayed at zero. Portland can keep the team, renovate the arena, and still insist that public money produce public value.

At the August 12 term-sheet vote, please do not approve a framework that pays first and negotiates the return later. If public money builds it, the public must share in it.

Respectfully,

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