Tom Dundon Isn’t Acting Alone

Tom Dundon and the Portland City Council remain in a standoff. In early August, the city approved a $120 million expenditure of public money for renovations of the Blazers' longtime home arena, located in the city's Rose Quarter entertainment district. The city's proposed terms included a new 20-year lease, a $3 million annual payment to the city (compensation for property taxes the team avoids by playing in a publicly owned arena), and for the team to commit to using unionized labor. Dundon's response, as delivered by underlings at a July public meeting, was a resounding hell no. Portland is too crummy a town, says Dundon, to expect those kinds of compromises. It is beset by a "stagnant business climate, high income taxes, and [a] divisive political environment," and Portland's civic leaders need to get serious about what constitutes a "market-rate deal" for such a place. Dundon's title is "controlling governor," and he is the face of the team's new ownership group, which bought the Trail Blazers in March 2026. But he is not the all-powerful franchise owner, the way we tend to think about sports owners. In order to purchase the team from the Allen family, Dundon had to pull together a team of investors and pool their resources, and as a consequence of that arrangement there are only so many things he can do unilaterally. Defector spoke last week with a Blazers source familiar with the ownership group's decision-making process and was told that on the matter of, say, relocation, there would be a vote of governors, and in that process Dundon's vote would count the same as anyone else's. Dundon puts a Darth Vader-y countenance on decisions made by this group of governors, but he is not absolutely empowered to dish vengeance on the city for opposing him too strenuously in arena negotiations. For that, he would need the support of at least two of his four fellow co-owners. That is probably encouraging to Blazers fans, especially because there is another guy out there, with the job title of "alternate governor," who is putting a different kind of face on the new ownership group. His name is Sheel Tyle, and in a profile in The Athletic published back in early April, when the ink on the team's bill of sale had not yet dried, Tyle is depicted as a happy-go-lucky, hoops-loving, regular-type Joe, who lives in Portland and is friends with Damian Lillard. Better yet, he is described in the profile as a "local Blazers co-owner" and as "one of the only Oregonians to own a share of the team," one whose "local presence" will "give Portland a voice" if Dundon ever broaches the topic of relocation.

Read it at Defector ↗

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