Paul Allen sells Portland down the river

With $17.7 billion in tow, Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen does whatever he wants.

After co-founding Microsoft Corp. with Lakeside School buddy Bill Gates, Allen went on to even greater things. He opened institutes for brain science, artificial intelligence and cell research, pledged $100 million to help fight the Ebola virus, and donated over $40 million to separate departments of his alma mater, Washington State University. Perhaps the greatest of all, though, was purchasing the Blazers back in 1988 from previous owner Larry Weinberg for a mere $70 million.

Without Allen running the show, the Moda Center (known as the Rose Garden previously) may never have come to fruition and fans would still be taking in home games in the aging Veterans Memorial Coliseum – home games that now appear to be numbered.

That’s right, Allen had tried and failed to obtain the Sonics franchise before it was ripped and shipped off to Oklahoma City, and his roots in Seattle seem to have gotten the best of him: He has filed relocation papers with the National Basketball Association to move the beloved Blazers out of the Rose City and to the Emerald City.

Of course, the transition also brings the naming rights back to the original Super Sonics, not unlike Charlotte dropping “Bobcats” in favor of their original Hornets moniker.

So, how could Allen, the man who quite literally has everything, decide to uproot a professional team from a town he has so much invested in? A franchise, mind you, that has grown to five times its net worth since Allen’s purchase – to $356 million – and risen to rank No. 14 of the NBA’s most valuable. This was all Allen’s doing; the Blazers’ ascent doesn’t happen without his ownership.

He’s currently not responding to media inquiries, so there are still so many unanswered questions for fans who until now had been cheering the Blazers’ unexpected push for the playoffs this  season.

Besides the obvious hometown ties to Seattle, speculation is centered towards a prior rift inside the organization, stemming back 20 years ago.

Allen initially financed the Portland arena’s construction in 1993, borrowing $155 million on what his corner called ‘unfavorable terms’. He then hired away Bob Whitsitt from the Sonics after the 1994 season to take the general manager helm in Portland. Whitsitt had been instrumental in building Seattle’s rising squad that went on to face the Chicago Bulls in the 1996 NBA Finals, and was Executive of the Year before leaving Seattle. In 2003, however, he resigned amid reports of financial woes within the Portland club and his own mismanagement of team funds. The Oregon Arena Corporation, holding company for the newly built Rose Garden, filed for bankruptcy in 2004, blaming the local economy for reduced income after the organization was unable to make payments on its construction loans.

The company was eventually dissolved after bankruptcy proceedings, its assets (chiefly the Rose Garden and the land it sits on) liquidated to become property of the lien holders in 2005. With Allen only having primary control of the Blazers, the new management arm of the Rose Garden directly competed with him for ticket sales, thus creating a toxic relationship. The Blazers had difficulty turning a profit, and Allen, along with the creditors, eventually put the team up for sale. Although it attracted quite a few bids, he pulled them back off the market in 2006.

Then-NBA Commissioner David Stern said at the time, “My goal on behalf of the league would be to keep the team in Portland, playing in the Rose Garden, with economic prospects that make some financial sense” – foreshadowing the situation the city is now facing.

With the Blazers contractually obligated to play in the Moda Center until 2023, how could Allen possibly force the team’s relocation?

In 2007, he regained ownership of the arena, and has sought a number of options on getting out from under the contract, from filing a suit against the lease agreement, to simply selling off his rights. But it now appears he will do the unthinkable: lift the entire structure using aerial cranes, and set it back down on the plot of land he recently purchased in downtown Seattle.

What a sight to behold.