Canzano says Blazers being prepared for auction

if you can bear Canzano's whiny narratives... here is more discourse on the topic. brian berger is always insightful.

 

Berger mentioned another name who apparently has already expressed interest in being a minority owner of other sports franchises around the country. Berger said the league would like to make her a majority owner candidate.

Laurene Jobs

 

You can't just dream up scenarios that might be different.
Expansion brings revenue. They don't consider expanding into areas that would not bring revenue. Los Vegas and obviously Seattle will bring revenue.
Seriously.... They pay really smart people with the very best data to look into this stuff.

 

Give me Larry Ellison.

 

The Las Vegas Blazers DOES have a ring to it……

 

Would that be a specific stipulation of a contract with the Blazers? I ask because i don't know, but I do not think what you are saying isn't always the case, or an nba mandate?

See the Grizzlies for example.

 

Ahhh. Good point.

However, how about the Lakers? They had a history with a championship in Milwaukie at one point, didn't they?

 

Still, as Mr. Julius noted 5 championships is serious history. Minneapolis got another team in the Timberwolves. I wonder if they would prefer to be the Lakers and have that championship history?


If another team is expanded to Seattle and they are named the Sonics, does that mean they get to share in the history of the team winning a ring? If so, i would feel fairly jaded that my championship history left with the team if i lived in Minnesota.

 

I'm not dreaming anything. If expansion is such a certain great thing than why hasn't expansion happened recently? Why stop at expanding two more teams, why not expand to 100+ NBA teams?

Mark Cuban was quoted as saying there are downsides to expansion and it is not certain owner will be for it. The owners all have plenty of cash if they need money, expansion would hurt their individual TV revenue split forever. Of course Vegas or Seattle would bring some incremental additional revenue. But the league would have to split the national TV contract 32 ways instead of 30. They would have to split it forever. The TV contracts dwarf all other revenue. Do the new TV partners care if the NBA is a 32 or 30 team league? Probably not much for Vegas and Seattle.

There are financial reasons to expand (expansion fee, addition revenue from new markets)
There are financial reasons not to expand (smaller cut of national contracts, opportunity cost lost of future expansion, dilution of existing fan bases, additional player salaries, additional franchise expenses)

The league hasn't expanded for 20-30 years, so seemingly the reasons not to expand have exceeded the reasons to expand in these times.

Could it swing the other way and we have expansion in the next few years? Sure that is possible.

My point of replying in this thread was there are financial reasons to not expand, as the original comments I replied to sounded as though expansion fees are free money to owners with no downsides; which is incorrect.

 

I don't think a new Blazers owner needs to have Portland history, but I think it could be beneficial if the owner after purchase of the Blazers lives in Portland.

Ballmer is a good example, he lived in Seattle, but when he bought the Clippers he then moved to LA. He has been engaging with getting a new arena, free agents, hiring good management and staff.

If a new owner buys the Blazers but lives in NYC they won't have any ties to keep the team in Portland, and may not help the franchise succeed as much as other owners.

Its not a be all end all, as you could have a shitty owner live in the city or a good owner live elsewhere. But in general I think the franchise would be better if the owner had a significant physical presence in the PNW.

 

But the Raiders have had plenty of history.

 

You are forgetting Kevin!