Press & Media
A volunteer Portland campaign on the Moda Center public-funding fight. Keep the Blazers, renovate the arena — but publish a fair lease before the public commits more than a billion dollars. Lease enforcer, not deal killer.
The story in one paragraph
Portland — the public — owns the Moda Center. The City is preparing to commit $1 billion+ in public money to renovate it for an owner who just bought the Blazers for $4.25 billion, pays $1 a year in rent, and is being asked to contribute $0 in base project capital. The July 17 draft adds one direct public cash stream — a $3M annual property-tax offset that grows 5% — but still includes no rent, arena-revenue share, or base private construction capital. City Council votes on the term sheet Aug 12, 2026 — and under SB 1501, no bonds issue until the City signs, so the terms can still be set. The campaign's ask is simple: publish the lease, revenue waterfall, ROI model, and benchmarks, and land inside a market range before the vote.
Contact
Edan Krolewicz & Jonathan Pulvers, organizers
Message us on Bluesky: @ripcitynotripoff.bsky.social — happy to go on the record, walk through the documents, or brief your desk.
Quote sheet — attributable to the organizers
“We’re Blazers fans. We want the team to stay and the Moda Center renovated — we just want a fair lease in place before the public commits more than a billion dollars. That’s not anti-Blazers; it’s how a serious public-private deal works.”
— Rip City, Not Rip Off“Portland owns this building. The owner pays a dollar a year, just sold the team for $4.25 billion, and is being asked to put no base capital into construction. Peer arena deals routinely return rent, revenue, private capital, or some combination. Council holds the leverage — under the law, no public money moves until the City signs. They should use it.”
— Rip City, Not Rip Off“We’re not asking Council to kill the deal. We’re asking them to publish the terms and land inside a market range before the August 12 vote. The December ‘deadline’ isn’t in either statute — there’s time to get this right.”
— Rip City, Not Rip OffPress kit
- The Public-Protection MatrixThe August term-sheet checklist: owner capital, rent or substitute rent, revenue share, cost cap, audit rights, PCEF line-item scope, relocation BATNA, and disclosure status.
- The Market-Deal ScorecardSeven things a market deal returns to the public ($1.1–1.2B over 20 years), each with its peer precedent — and the $0 the current deal returns on every line.
- The money map: what the owner already makes~$100M+/yr from a building he rents for $1, with a 20-year revenue chart. Clean share image: og-what-he-makes.png (1200×630).
- Peer NBA/NHL arena deal tableA sourced, peer-by-peer comparison: private share, rent, revenue, relocation protection, and net public exposure. Portland vs. the league.
- The Fair-Deal Term SheetThe constructive ask, every term sourced to a peer deal or Portland’s own 2024 lease. Print version: PDF.
- The Councilor CompsTwo pages: the July 17 draft vs. named peer deals, revenue stream by revenue stream — PILOT vs. PILOT, capital vs. capital. Print version: PDF.
- Why Relocation Is Not UnilateralOne large-print page: the approval requirements, signed constraints, costs, and uncertainties in plain English. PDF.
- The City’s Draft, ScoredThe July 17 draft term sheet read against the published standard: delivered · partial · open · at risk, with the draft’s own language quoted.
- The Rose Quarter Public Balance SheetEverything Portland owns, is owed, and grants away in the deal — priced with an evidence badge on every number, ending in the count-once scorecard for what the final deal actually returns.
- The December “deadline,” fact-checkedWhy neither statute contains the December date the City cites. One page; PDF.
- The Cost-Cap Test — five questionsHow to tell a real guaranteed-maximum cost cap from a press release. PDF.
High-resolution chart exports and the verified 16-deal dataset are available on request via Bluesky.
Watch — the case, in clips
Campaign co-founder Edan Krolewicz on the Wake Up Rip City podcast (July 2026), in ten segments — each plays the exact excerpt, timestamped for verification. Full episode →
Questions reporters should ask before Aug. 12
- Will the term sheet include owner/operator capital, rent, or substitute rent?
- Will the public share in new premium-seat, naming-rights, sponsorship, parking, ticket-fee, or district revenue?
- Which PCEF-funded line items are climate outcomes, who owns the improvements, and who keeps operating savings?
- Is the PFM funding summary (surfaced July 9) the State’s answer to SB 1501 §6(2)(a) — and if so, where is the deal-terms review (rent, relocation, revenue shares) it describes? Will it be public before the vote?
- If relocation risk is driving concessions, what written relocation BATNA has the City reviewed?
These questions are tracked in the public-protection matrix.
The City’s June 9 page vs. the City’s own documents
The City's facts page is a start — here are five places it doesn't match the City's own documents. Not a hot take. Just the numbers.
The 2024 assessment — “not updated for inflation” — shows $482M to maintain the building.
$482M is the inflated number — the study's $505M 20-year plan minus the finished scoreboard and decommissioned ice plant ($23M) — and that plan already escalates costs 3.5%–3% every year for 20 years. The same study's today's-dollars figure is ~$253M, less than half. The reconciliation →
The arena “generates $600 million for the local economy.”
That's “total output” — gross churn. The same study puts actual tax revenue to all state and local government at $17.9M a year ($11.3M from the Blazers), and almost half the headline is a modeled multiplier on money nobody spent. The numbers, decoded →
“No money would go to the Trail Blazers or their ownership.”
The operator — Dundon-owned Rip City Management — runs the building and keeps the revenue from every event, and the 2024 lease routes the City's ticket user fees and parking revenue back to the operator as the “City Contribution” (§10.9). The City's page even concedes the principle — no public dollars for “tenant-specific upgrades like an owner's box.” Now apply it to the ~$341M of suites, clubs, bars, and retail in the City's own study. Who keeps the revenue →
The state has committed to contribute up to $365 million.
“The State of Oregon and the Legislative Assembly do not have a legal obligation to deposit moneys in the fund… The Legislative Assembly declares its current intention to issue debt instruments sufficient to yield $365,000,000” (SB 1501 §3(4)). An intention is not a commitment — so the City should not make binding commitments against a non-binding one. Council's obligations should be expressly conditioned on actual bond issuance.
“To fulfill the bond requirements, a new lease… must be signed by December 2026. Without this, the City will not receive State funding.”
Neither law contains that deadline — and the City's page cites no statute for it. SB 5701's first $200M of bonding authority runs through June 30, 2027 (§4); the remaining $165M is already enacted for the biennium starting July 1, 2027 (§6); SB 1501 has no date at all. If December slips, OPB itself reports lawmakers “have a chance to introduce an identical bill” in the session convening mid-January — and the City's same page schedules the binding vote for Q1 2027. The deadline, fact-checked →
How we got here — a sourced timeline
- 2024The City takes title to the Moda Center; the bridge lease sets the public-return principle — capped City match, operator-funded capital, repayment if the team leaves (Ord. 191857/191858).
- March 2026The Blazers and the arena operation sell for ~$4.25 billion (Tom Dundon’s group).
- Apr 27, 2026Gov. Kotek signs SB 1501 (the Arena Fund law); SB 5701 authorizes the bonds. Neither contains a December lease deadline.
- June 9, 2026The City publishes its $573M proposal — every dollar public, $0 from ownership — and opens a public survey.
- Aug 12, 2026City Council term-sheet vote. This is when the terms get set — and where the public’s leverage is.
- ~Dec 17, 2026Final lease vote.
- Q1 2027Definitive documents.
Who we are
Rip City, Not Rip Off is a volunteer-run, unfunded campaign by Portland residents and Blazers fans. We take no money from any team, the City, or a competing developer. We read the bills, ran the numbers, and publish our sources — and we correct ourselves on the record when we get something wrong.
In the press: KATU · KGW · Willamette Week · CBS Sports
ripcitynotripoff.com · Press contact: @ripcitynotripoff.bsky.social. Every figure on this site is sourced to an enacted statute, an executed contract, a verified peer deal, or the City’s own study; primary documents are hosted on the site.
Who we are
We're a grassroots group of Blazers fans who want Portland to negotiate like a serious public owner. We love this team, and we expect a lease that respects the people paying for the building.
We started this campaign because no one else was making the case that Portland already owns the Moda Center, that every other city negotiated rent and revenue sharing, and that relocation shouldn't be treated as proven leverage without evidence. The early reporting was thin, and the timeline left little room for public scrutiny. So we built this site, read the bill, ran the numbers, and started organizing.
If the Council signs without negotiating, the leverage is gone forever. That's why we're here.