Tickets & premium seating
Separate existing receipts from the renovation’s incremental demand and margin.
The arena business
What the arena
earns.
Price the commercial rights using actual accounts, rather than an assumed return on construction cost.
The short version. Premium seating, naming, concessions, parking and events are valuable rights, and almost all of them land with one owner who is both the building’s operator and its anchor tenant. Their net value is unverified; the former $2.5 billion headline is withdrawn.
The rights to value
Naming & sponsorship
Trace bundled agreements, prepaid rights and surviving license periods.
Parking & concessions
Use the defined fee bases and deduct real costs and contractual offsets.
Events & other uses
Reconcile event-level settlements, calendars and affiliate allocations.
Why one owner collects so much
The Blazers’ owner wears two hats at the Moda Center and collects from a third tenant besides. Almost every dollar a fan spends in the building lands in one place, which is why the commercial rights are worth pricing and why their net value cannot be read from outside the books.
The operator: Rip City Management
Runs the City-owned arena and keeps the revenue from the events in it, concerts, family shows and other sports included. During the bridge term the City’s capped capital match, the City Contribution, is sized by the prior year’s Blazers-game ticket fees and parking revenue (Arena Operating Lease §10.9).
The tenant: the Trail Blazers
The anchor NBA tenant: 41 regular-season home dates plus preseason and any playoffs, with the gate, premium seats, suites and the naming deal. Same ownership as the operator, so team money and building money flow to the same place.
A paying tenant: the Portland Fire
Since May 2026 the WNBA’s Portland Fire, owned by RAJ Sports rather than the Blazers’ owner, have played their home dates at the Moda Center. Their rent, facility fees and concession share flow to the operator; the terms are not public. Unpriced
Sources: Arena Operating Lease approval exhibit · Development Agreement approval exhibit
What the City itself collects
The City’s own figures, recited by staff at the June 24, 2026 Council work session, put the public ticket fee’s take from non-Blazers events at $4.3M against $2.9M from Blazers games in FY 2024–25, with City parking widening the gap. Most of the public’s arena revenue comes from the rest of the calendar. Those receipts are the City’s, not the operator’s income and not a measure of it; confirm them against the official recording before citing. The figures as stated on the record →
If the team ever left, the event calendar, the Fire and the City’s own fees would not leave with it. What a replacement operator would pay for those rights is one of the operating alternatives the Register says must be valued, not assumed. The opportunity cost →
Source: City of Portland Council work session, June 24, 2026, figures as stated on the record.
The records needed to price the bargain
- Venue-specific historic revenue and expense statements reconciled to audited records.
- Event-level ticket, premium, concession, parking and sponsorship settlements.
- Affiliate allocation rules, concessions/ticketing contracts and vendor-funded assets.
- Current naming agreements, bundled rights, prepaid cash and surviving license periods.
- Incremental demand and margin forecasts with closure, price and attendance sensitivity.
- A reconciliation preventing overlap with franchise-wide media income and valuation.
What we can’t see without records requests
- The team’s audited financials, which would resolve the profit gap between the Forbes and CNBC figures below.
- The concessions contract: commission versus management fee, and who holds the liquor license.
- The full-season suite and premium-seat price list; only per-game rates are public.
- The Portland Fire (RAJ Sports) lease with the operator: rent, parking and concession share.
- Who charges the service and convenience fees the Development Agreement carves out of the ticket-fee base (§28.2.1), and how much they are.
- The current naming agreement and any bundled or prepaid rights, which the City told Council on June 24 it cannot see.
Profit is not visible from outside. For the same 2024–25 season Forbes reported the team’s operating income at $111 million while CNBC put EBITDA at $15 million: different measures of different things, and the audited books that would reconcile them are not public. Modeled Neither figure is a venue account, and neither prices the arena rights.
Sources: Forbes, Portland Trail Blazers valuation profile (2025) · CNBC NBA valuations (2026) · Development Agreement approval exhibit · June 24 work session record
How these numbers fit together
$573MProposed public renovation portion: State $365M, City $120M, County $88M. The adopted negotiating documents still need a reconciled funding plan and complete project budget. Proposal verified
Up to $288.6MContinuing contribution ceilings: City $275M plus County $13.6M. Annual limits and actual-receipt conditions matter; these are not unconditional cash commitments. Proposal verified
$861.6M$573M + $288.6M: combined nominal framework ceilings before financing costs. This is neither a present value nor a binding all-in expenditure. Do not add repayment of the same borrowed principal twice. Calculated
$3.17M + $3MProposed initial annual rent and tax-offset payment. Rent begins at the specified post-renovation commencement and escalates by the lesser of CPI-W or 3%; the tax offset grows 5%. Start dates, recipients and credits still matter. These are not the public’s only receipts. Proposal verified
UnvaluedThe maintenance claim, new commercial rights and operating alternatives require legal, engineering and financial valuation. A lifecycle cost estimate is not a damages award; gross venue revenue is not profit.
Verified describes what a source says, not that a proposed obligation is signed or funded. The reconciled ledger and sources →
Corrections to the earlier estimates
We retire the combined $1.1–1.2 billion “market-standard return” floor, the $2.5 billion arena-value headline and the claim that security is free to a compliant owner. Comparables show feasible mechanisms; they do not prove every favorable provision can be combined at the same price. PFM includes fully publicly funded renovations and notes limits to what its capital comparisons capture.
An assumed yield on construction cost does not establish demand, new revenue or profit. Gross receipts are not net income. Franchise appreciation may capitalize earnings already counted. Avoided repairs, future maintenance, guarantees, principal and debt service can overlap. A tax deduction’s value depends on the actual taxpayer and timing; a generic cents-on-the-dollar claim is inadequate.
Relocation has obstacles and requires NBA action, but its probability is not established as zero. Expansion exploration is not a completed award of two markets. Conversely, neither a forced franchise sale nor a tenant-controlled option is an alternative the City can simply elect. Price the actual choices, including delay and tenant disruption.
Sources: State PFM comparables review · NBA expansion announcement · Exclusive Site Agreement approval exhibit