PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A public meeting intended to answer questions and perhaps establish some common ground between the city of Portland and its NBA franchise seemingly underscored the distance between the two sides in an ongoing effort to secure the Trail Blazers’ long-term commitment to Portland.
The meeting and ongoing negotiations have sports economists, lawyers, and sports business experts watching from across the country, including Mark Conrad, a sports law and sports business professor at Fordham University.
“The Blazers are unique. An NBA franchise, there are a limited numbers of franchises. They have an identity. They’ve been in Portland for [like 50 years.] I don’t even know how long they’ve been there. That’s a big deal,” Conrad said in an interview with KATU.
Council President Jamie Dunphy told media members he thought the distance between the team and local government was “pretty significant”, while ultimately remaining optimistic a deal would be done by the end of the year.
“We need to get this done, and the people who are going to get it done are the people at the table now. So, I have every confidence that those professionals will get it done. I’m a perpetual optimist, I guess,” Dunphy said.
We met with Conrad to discuss the leverage each side may have and how he’s seen it used in other public negotiations with pro sports teams.
FULL INTERVIEW WITH CONRAD:
He said, undoubtedly, a team’s best piece of leverage is the threat of relocation.
“I think it depends on the circumstance, but some [owners] have used it very effectively,” Conrad said.
He pointed to the LA Rams – a team that moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis and back to Los Angeles – as an example of a team that used relocation to get what it wanted out of a stadium twice.
“Teams relocate for a number of reasons, and one of the reasons they will relocate is the facility,” Conrad said.
Critics of the relocation threat in the Blazers’ situation question where the team would go and whether those prospective cities would cover the cost of an arena. Tom Dundon has not explicitly stated he intends to move the team.
However, Conrad said even the threat creates leverage for the team.
Despite this, he said the city is not without its own leverage. When asked what leverage a public entity may have, Conrad pointed to the NBA itself.
“The leverage would be to make the NBA look bad. The league is very concerned about the reputation of its teams,” Conrad said. “The league wants a lot of goodwill. Basically, a sports league is an entertainment business and a people business. When you think of it down on the basic level, that’s what you’re really doing.”
He also pointed to a controversial provision in the Trail Blazers current lease agreement requiring the team to keep the arena in first-class condition. The team has said it believes the arena is currently in first-class condition for its age. It says a renovation would cover much more transformational work.
However, the team has said it won’t move forward in long-term negotiations until the city affirms in writing the arena is in first-class condition, and puts in writing it won’t sue the team over the clause in an effort to secure private investment in arena upgrades.
The city, for its part, has said the clause and associated lawsuit would only come into play if the team left, and the mayor would not commit to removing the first-class requirement.
Conrad said the team’s reaction shows it’s clearly worried about the provision.
“[Dundon] wouldn’t react that way if he didn’t say, ‘this is a way that they could get me,’” Conrad said.
Conrad said he’ll be watching over the next few months to see if the contentious nature of these talks changes once both sides get past an expected term sheet vote August 12 and move into more private negotiations.
“There is something about being in a closed-door [room], you know, just a few people there, that maybe it may be different than fighting this in the court of public opinion,” Conrad said.
The stated goal from the team and city leadership is to have a deal done by the end of this year. Conrad compared the state of negotiations to a popular game.
“It’s a game of chicken, ultimately. And the question is, who’s perceived to have more leverage in this game of chicken,” Conrad said. “The question is going to be, who would theoretically blink first?”