The Economic Impact,Decoded
The deal's backers told the Legislature the Rose Quarter generates roughly $670 million a year. The city's own consultant, in a study covering fiscal year 2022-23, put tax revenue at $17.9 million a year ($11.3M from the Blazers) — against $573 million of public renovation funding and up to $288.6 million of continuing support, before financing. Every number, traced from the headline to your pocket.
Quarter is “worth”
doubled by a “multiplier”
puts on the whole Rose Quarter
the $861.6M of framework ceilings in 20 years
What this page reads, and what it does not. The study below covers fiscal year 2022-23 and was the document in front of the Legislature. It is the historical baseline, not the current case for the renovation: the deal’s newer economic modeling is reviewed separately at The Model, Reviewed. And a modeled figure is an estimate, not a fiction — the substitution critique below argues that spending would have moved, not that it never happened, and the study’s tax lines are model output rather than certified receipts from any revenue department.
Skip to: is it enough?The “$670M a year for the local economy” claim traces to the City’s own consultant — and inside that study, the money that actually reaches governments is a fraction of the debt it would service.
$17.9M Verified — the study’s own annual tax figure for all governments ($11.3M of it Blazers-related), against ~$29M a year of bond service. Verified means the study says it: this is the consultant’s estimate, not a receipts audit, and it comes out of the same model as the $631M headline. That is the point of setting them side by side.
Council is being asked to treat gross economic activity as if it were public revenue. The study’s own tables say otherwise.
How these numbers fit together
Verified describes what a source says, not that a proposed obligation is signed or funded. The reconciled ledger and sources →
Follow the $670 million
into the study
Pro‑deal testimony tells legislators the Trail Blazers and the Rose Quarter generate roughly $670 million a year in economic activity. The figure traces to a study the City itself commissioned — and the study does not say what the talking point implies.
In FY 2022‑23, the City of Portland — not the team — commissioned Crossroads Consulting Services of St. Petersburg, Florida to estimate the economic impact of the Blazers and the Rose Quarter Campus; Crossroads delivered its final report on August 30, 2023.
Gross churn, not government money
The study's headline — $631.0 million — is “total output”: every dollar that changes hands as activity ripples through the regional economy. Not income, and not a dollar any government collects.
Team-supplied, unaudited
It runs on data “provided by…the Portland Trail Blazers and Rip City Management,” which Crossroads says “was not audited or verified and was assumed to be correct.” The study's most important input — how much of the players' ~$145M in salaries counts as local Portland money — was set from “confidential information provided by” the team.
$11.3M — on page 10
The same study puts tax revenue to all local and state government at $17.9M a year — $11.3M of it from the team. It sits on page 10, a fraction of the headline.
Sources & method ▾
Sources: City of Portland – Office of Management & Finance, Economic Impact Analysis: Portland Trail Blazers & the Rose Quarter Campus, FY 2022‑23, Crossroads Consulting Services (final report, Aug. 30, 2023) — full PDF, cover letter and pp. 1–10. On the two job figures: the pro‑deal pitch cites “$670M, ~4,500 jobs, 1.6M visitors” in legislative testimony (OLIS doc 247805); the study says $631M and 5,940 jobs — the pitch's round numbers appear nowhere in it. This page uses the study's figures throughout. See Relocation analysis.
The five headline numbers,
built from the bottom up
The study presents five metrics, each stacked on the one before it: direct spending is the seed; a multiplier turns it into output; output becomes jobs and labor income; a sliver surfaces as tax. Here is what each box measures, in the study's own words.
Metric 1 · Direct Spending — $322.07M, the seed ▾
Study's definition: “the initial change in spending that occurs as a direct result of Team and Rose Quarter Campus operations.” Three buckets — team operating expenses, campus operating expenses, and attendee spending outside the venues — adjusted down for leakage and displaced local spending.
Study's definition: “the total direct, indirect (business‑to‑business purchases) and induced (household spending of income) spending effects.” This is the “$631M” — rounded up to “$670M” in public.
Metric 3 · Employment — “5,940 jobs,” of what kind? ▾
Study's definition: “the number of full‑time and part‑time jobs supported by operations of the Team and the Rose Quarter Campus.” Note supported — these are not 5,940 paychecks at the arena but modeled job‑equivalents spread across the whole economy.
The study attributes 5,000 of the 5,940 jobs to the Blazers. The other 940 are the campus jobs — the real venue workforce, averaging ~$66,330 — and they keep going if the Blazers leave. An NBA team directly employs ~15 players plus a few hundred staff; the rest are modeled, mostly part‑time, induced jobs. What those pay is the question Metric 4 answers.
Metric 4 · Labor Income — $293.91M, mostly 15 paychecks ▾
Study's definition: “the wages and salaries earned by employees of businesses associated with or impacted by operations.” Look inside the Blazers' $231.56M share:
Study's definition: tax revenues including “personal and business income tax, transient lodging tax, property taxes, and other sources.” This is the entire fiscal return — every tax, both levels of government:
Tax revenue is 2.84% of the headline — $11.3M of it the Blazers' share, $6.6M the campus — and even this splits across tourism partners, districts, and “arena improvements” before any of it is discretionary.
Sources & method ▾
Verified from the study (Portland‑area table, p. 9; tax revenue, p. 10): direct $322.07M; output $631.03M; 5,940 jobs; labor income $293.91M; tax $17.9M. Player‑payroll figure (~$145M, Spotrac’s 2022–23 cap table) is external; the study does not disclose its salary input, so the “~$145M / 63%” split is our reconstruction Modeled, bounded in the next section.
The jobs illusion:
take out the players
“5,000 jobs and $231.6 million in wages” sounds like a working‑class economy worth protecting. Divide it out and the average job pays $46,312 a year — a blend of about fifteen athletes earning ~$145M and roughly five thousand modeled, mostly part‑time jobs. Pull the athletes out and watch what's left.
To be clear: the real venue jobs — ushers, security, concessions, box office, operations, plus the trades who would build the renovation — are real, they keep going if the team leaves, and a fair lease protects them. We dispute only the habit of folding ~15 players' salaries into a “5,000 jobs” headline.
Take the millionaires out of the study's own numbers and what's left is part‑time, poverty‑level work — at most ~$30,400 a year, even on the most generous count of the players' pay.
Strip out the ~15 athletes — whose pay a renovation neither creates nor protects — and what's billed as a Blazers “job” lands at or below the minimum‑wage line.
The average craters because fifteen people are three‑tenths of one percent of the jobs and between a third and two‑thirds of the wages.
Sources & method ▾
Verified (study, p. 9): Blazers $231.56M labor income / 5,000 jobs = $46,312; campus $62.35M / 940 = $66,330. Modeled: roster ~15 players; gross payroll ~$145M (Spotrac’s 2022–23 cap table); Oregon‑allocated ~$79.8M (duty‑days, see Section 05). Ex‑player averages = (231.56M − payroll) ÷ 4,985. Benchmark: Portland‑metro minimum wage $14.75/hr × 2,080 hrs = $30,680 (Oregon BOLI, 7/2022–6/2023). The true ex‑player average lies between the two bases.
How Rose Quarter money
reaches the public — and where it doesn't
To see what the public actually keeps, separate three things the talking point blurs together: gross activity, tax revenue, and money the general fund can spend on services. They shrink at every step.
Economic activity is not net fiscal return. An event can support local businesses, jobs and civic enjoyment without generating enough net new tax revenue to repay its public cost. Separate existing activity, genuinely additional activity, displacement from other local spending, visitor spending and the share of each receipt available to the government that pays.
Public value may justify an explicit subsidy. The analysis should disclose that policy choice rather than count gross output as money available for debt service. Construction activity is temporary, and public money has alternative uses.
| The stream | What it is | Where it actually goes |
|---|---|---|
| $631M output | Gross spending that changes hands across the tri‑county economy. Mostly local money and team payroll. Most attendees are local; their spending would have happened somewhere in Portland anyway. | Nowhere, as public money. $0 of it is a payment to any government. |
| $17.9M tax | The model's estimate of all taxes thrown off — income, lodging, business, property — across both state and local government. $11.3M Blazers / $6.6M campus. | Split many ways: lodging tax to tourism partners, property tax to districts; only a portion is discretionary. The study itself lists “fund arena improvements” as one of the destinations. |
| 6% ticket fee | A user fee on every ticket — about $150M collected 1995–2026. It never touches the team or the arena operator. | Ring‑fenced to the City's Spectator Venues Fund, recycled back into venues. To the general fund: $0. |
| $11.23M fees | The one real, audited cash figure in the study — user fees, suite fees, parking and event revenue the City actually received in FY 2022‑23. Campus‑wide, not Blazers‑only. | Also ring‑fenced to venue operations — earmarked for the buildings, not general services. |
| What's left for services | Of a “$670M” headline… | a sliverA fraction of $17.9M — and SB 1501 is built to divert even that. See below. |
+ user fees + any rent
- District income tax → Oregon Arena Fund — which by law can only be spent on the arena (SB 1501)
- 6% ticket fees + parking → the City's venue fund
- Any rent the public charges → recycled back into the Arena Fund
- Lodging tax → Travel Portland / Travel Oregon
- Property tax → school & other districts
The statutory chain, section by section ▾
And the capture reaches the team's own payroll, by definition chain: the bill defines “performer” to exclude the home team (§1(6)), which makes the Blazers an “operating organization” (§1(5)) — so the Oregon withholding on Blazers player and staff wages for work in the Rose Quarter moves quarterly from the General Fund to the Arena Fund (§4(1)(a)), and visiting players' “jock tax” follows via the annual performer estimate (§4(1)(c)). The $11.3M “the Blazers generate in taxes” doesn't fund schools under this deal — it funds the arena's own debt, until the later of lease expiry or full bond retirement (§4(3)).Sources & method ▾
Sources: tax destinations and “fund arena improvements” language, study p. 10; 6% user fee and ~$150M to the Spectator Venues Fund, History; $11.23M City fees, study p. 10; Arena Fund diversion, enrolled SB 1501 (2026) & Deals analysis; General Fund redirection −$72.3M (2027‑29) / −$82.6M (2029‑31), LRO Revenue Impact, SB 1501‑B (3/2/2026).
So what do the Blazers
really generate?
The study hands us $11.3M and refuses to break it down — no split by tax type, no disclosed salary input. So we ran the one calculation the study wouldn't: the actual Oregon income tax on the players, from public salary data and Oregon's own duty‑days rule.
Sit that next to the study. Crossroads attributed $11.3M a year in all tax revenue — every type, state and local — to the Blazers. Our estimate puts $7–8M a year on a single source: state income tax on the players' own salaries, paychecks funded substantially by local ticket buyers. It is Portlanders' entertainment spending, taxed once on its way through.
Note the modeling quirk this exposes: IMPLAN applies average tax rates to labor income — it does not know these are top‑bracket earners — so the personal income tax inside the study's $11.3M is almost certainly lower than what the players actually pay. The one tax figure most relevant to a deal built on tax revenue is the one the study never isolated.
Sources & method ▾
Method: Oregon nonresident‑athlete duty‑days allocation, OAR 150‑316‑0175; Oregon top rate 9.9% on income above $125k single / $250k joint, Oregon Dept. of Revenue; payroll from Spotrac’s 2022–23 cap table. Excluded (all of which would raise Oregon's real take): front‑office salaries, visiting‑player jock tax, and the Multnomah County Preschool‑for‑All tax. Modeled denotes our estimate.
Is it enough?
The test any banker would run: does the asset throw off enough to cover the debt? First, the bill — and where every dollar comes from.
$573 million to build it, up to $288.6 million to keep it running: none of it is new money
The August 12 term sheet, as amended, describes $573 million of public renovation funding (State $365M, City $120M, County $88M) and up to $288.6 million of continuing support (City up to $275M under Exhibit D's $275,000,016 ceiling, County up to $13.6M), all before financing; the State alone expects $166–258M of interest to carry its bond. The $861.6M sum of those ceilings is neither a present value nor a binding all-in expenditure. Ownership's construction contribution is $0.
LRO: −$72.3M, then −$82.6M per biennium
Sources & method ▾
Sources: state $365M net bond proceeds and $531M–$623M total debt service, LFO Fiscal Impact, SB 1501; General Fund redirection −$72.3M / −$82.6M, LRO Revenue Impact, SB 1501; City $120M of construction funding and the $275,000,016 continuing-support ceiling, August 12 City term sheet, as amended (Exhibit D); County $88M plus up to $13.6M of continuing support, County Resolution 2026-050, with KGW / OPB; sale approved 3/30/2026 at ~$4.25B, Trail Blazers / NBA. The bar shows the $573M of renovation funding, the $288.6M of continuing-support ceilings and the LFO's interest range at its ~$212M midpoint; the $861.6M sum of ceilings is neither a present value nor an all-in expenditure. Figures may shift in final agreements.
The public side of the framework: $573 million of renovation funding and up to $288.6 million of continuing support, before financing; none of it new money, none of the construction capital from the team. Now, does the building throw off enough to cover it?
Use the full financing model. The City and County funding assumptions need reconciliation. Show existing and new receipts separately, after costs, offsets and restrictions. Compare annual cash flow with debt service under lower receipts, higher rates and delayed construction. Preserve legally conditioned continuing contributions.
- ~$29M/yr if the $573M of renovation funding is spread over 20 years (State $365M, City $120M, County $88M)
- + up to ~$14M/yr if the $288.6M of continuing-support ceilings (City $275M, County $13.6M) are drawn evenly
- = $861.6M ÷ 20 ≈ $43M/yr, a sum of ceilings, not a present value or an all-in cost Calculated
- Financing sits on top: the LFO puts State debt service at $531M–$623M to repay the $365M bond, ~$27–31M/yr on its own
- $17.9M — every tax, state + local (the city's own study)
- + $11.2M — user, suite & parking fees
- It does cover the state bond alone (~$29M/yr) — the deal's strongest case
- But most never reaches the General Fund: the tax is diverted, the fees ring‑fenced
Put differently: the payback period
Put every public dollar the Rose Quarter generates — ~$29M a year, all tax plus all fees — toward the cost. The lease you're buying is 20 years.
The $573M of renovation funding
the build alone · $573M ÷ ~$29M/yrThe bare build takes as long as the 20‑year lease to recoup, at zero interest, using every tax and every fee.
The $861.6M sum of framework ceilings
build + continuing support · $861.6M ÷ ~$29M/yrA decade past the lease you're paying for, counting no interest and treating every ceiling as if it were fully drawn.
The State's bond alone
LFO debt service · $531–623M ÷ ~$29M/yrEvery dollar the whole campus throws off is spoken for by the State's repayment before the City or County see a cent.
So what would actually break even?
Run it backwards: the most the public could spend and still break even over 20 years, set against the real ask.
Crediting every tax and every fee, 20 years of Rose Quarter revenue recoups ~$583M: about the $573M of renovation funding at zero interest, and roughly two‑thirds of the $861.6M ceiling sum, with nothing left for financing. The $252.9M is the VSG workbook's sum at its 2024 cost basis, a lifecycle capital figure rather than a price for the proposed renovation, and it is shown for scale only.
For negotiators: every number derived ▾
Inputs: $365M state bonds and 20‑year term, SB 1501 (2026); “true cost” $531M–$623M ($166M–$258M interest), Oregon LFO estimates via Deals analysis; the earlier floated $600M ask (Blazers‑originated placeholder), Renovation study; City, County and continuing-support figures: August 12 City term sheet, as amended, County Resolution 2026-050 and the City CFO financing memo. Tax revenue $17.9M and user/suite/parking fees $11.23M, study p. 10 — the most generous basis, ~$29M/yr, even though the tax is diverted and the fees ring‑fenced. Coverage, payback, and break‑even figures are ours Modeled: payback = cost ÷ ~$29M/yr, run against the $573M of renovation funding, the $861.6M sum of framework ceilings, and the LFO's $531–623M; break‑even = ~$29M × 20 = ~$583M at 0% interest; gap = $861.6M minus ~$583M = ~$279M (~$14M/yr); $252.9M is the VSG workbook's sum at its 2024 cost basis, a lifecycle capital figure rather than a transformation price; the 5% rate is chosen to land inside the LFO range. Hankins and Dundon quotes and the $800M+ Raleigh development: Bill Oram, The Oregonian/OregonLive, May 29, 2026.
The doomsday number assumes
the whole building goes dark
“Lose the team and you lose $670 million” only works if the arena empties out entirely. But the City owns the building, and by the study's own attendance figures most of the calendar has nothing to do with the team.
Turnstile attendance was 1.7 million across 264 events (study, p. 2). The 41 Blazers home dates draw roughly 750,000 — about 44%. The rest is the concerts, family shows, and Winterhawks booked under the “Rose Quarter Campus” ($148.1M), which continue whether or not the team is the tenant.
Your night out doesn't leave Portland
when the team does
A family's entertainment budget is roughly fixed. If the Blazers leave, the money goes to the next local thing. Flip the switch.
night‑out budget
Whether the family buys Blazers tickets or concert tickets, the dollars land in Portland either way — the same local workers and businesses.
And the City could do better than “keep paying”
Seattle faced the same problem — a city‑owned arena needing a billion‑dollar renovation — and did the opposite.
| The same situation, two outcomes | Seattle — Climate Pledge Arena | Portland — Moda Center |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays for the renovation | The operator — privately financed~$1.15B; the operator carries every cost overrun | The public$573M of renovation funding plus up to $288.6M of continuing support, before financing; operator carries no construction risk |
| Operator's share of the cost | 100% | $0 |
| How the operator was chosen | Competitive public RFP (2017) | Handed to the incumbent — no bid |
| Who owns the building | The public | The public |
| What the operator put in | Everything | Nothing |
Sources & method ▾
Verified (study): 1.7M turnstile attendance across 264 events, p. 2; Rose Quarter Campus output $148.06M, p. 9; 1.4M at Moda Center / 300k at VMC, p. 5. Modeled: ~750k Blazers attendance = 41 home dates × ~18,300; the ~44% / ~56% split is derived from these. Climate Pledge Arena (formerly KeyArena, city‑owned): ~$1.15B renovation, privately financed by the operator, selected by competitive RFP — Seattle Times, Construction Dive.
Pay for the arena.
Keep a sliver.
The public was told it would lose $670 million. The city's own study says the team yields $11.3 million a year in actual tax revenue — and the deal is built to divert even that into paying the owner's renovation.
— The case, in one sentenceStack it up. The public is asked to commit $573 million of renovation funding and up to $288.6 million of continuing support, before financing, against about $11.3 million a year in Blazers tax revenue by the city's own estimate — much of it already earmarked elsewhere. The one genuinely real cash stream, ~$11.23M a year in City fees, is ring‑fenced for the venues. And SB 1501 redirects new income‑tax growth into the Arena Fund to service the debt itself.
What does the public keep at the end? A renovated building it already owns, a 20‑year lease, and a general‑fund return that rounds to zero — while the franchise that grew from ~$70M to ~$4.25 billion lists its base contribution at $0.
Every figure attributed to the study is quoted directly from the City of Portland's Economic Impact Analysis (FY 2022‑23), Crossroads Consulting Services — the full PDF is posted here so you can check the page citations. Cost and bond figures come from our other sourced pages (Renovation, Deals, History), each tied to primary records.
Where a number is our own estimate — the player income tax, the annual debt service, the coverage ratios and payback periods — it is tagged Modeled and its method is shown. Figures quoted from the study are tagged Verified; arithmetic from the study's own tables, Calculated. We never present an estimate as a fact, and we will correct anything the records contradict.