What Phoenix Suns' Record-Breaking $4 Billion Sale Means for Trail Blazers

This story has been updated to reflect that Vulcan Sports, Inc. owns the Moda Center while the city of Portland owns the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and surrounding parking garages. A previous version stated that Vulcan owned the entire Rose Quarter campus.

LAS VEGAS — 98 days.

That's how long it took from Sept. 13, when the NBA released the findings of their investigation that corroborated allegations in an ESPN report about Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver's years of racist and misogynistic behavior, to Tuesday, when they officially announced an agreement to sell the team to mortgage lender Mat Ishbia at a valuation of $4 billion.

If that seems like it came together quickly compared to most multibillion-dollar deals, it's nothing compared to the 34 days between TMZ publishing audio of Donald Sterling making racist comments about Magic Johnson on April 25, 2014 and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer agreeing to buy the Clippers for a then-record $2 billion on May 25 of that year.

Scandal has a way of accelerating these things.

In both cases, timing was on the NBA's side, too, with a lucrative new television deal on the horizon and franchise values primed to go through the roof. Ballmer's $2 billion purchase of the Clippers blew any other potential bidders out of the water and completely reset the market; five teams sold in the ensuing years, with the lowest price being $850 million for the Hawks in 2015. The Rockets and Nets each went for north of $2 billion, while the Jazz and Timberwolves sold for well over $1 billion apiece.

Tuesday's sale of the Suns at a $4 billion valuation (Ishbia's group agreed to buy a greater than 50 percent stake, including Sarver's entire interest, which is believed to be a little more than 30 percent) is going to reset the market in much the same way. NBA teams are going for NFL money now, with a new TV agreement set to explode revenue in 2025 and expansion potentially on the table after that.

In other words, the $2 billion that Nike founder Phil Knight offered for the Trail Blazers in June ain't getting it done.

Not that it ever was. From the beginning, letting that offer go public via ESPN felt like the opening of negotiations, not a real offer. And Jody Allen's out-of-nowhere statement a month later that the Blazers and Seahawks weren't for sale felt like confirmation of that, not a statement that the team truly is not for sale. After all, the Paul G. Allen Trust says the team has to be sold at some point.

Since it became clear following the league's investigation that Sarver keeping ownership of the Suns would not be tenable, the entire league, and the sports industry at large, have been bracing for the kind of number that came out this week. If the Utah Jazz and Minnesota Timberwolves went for $1.6 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively, in the middle of a pandemic when league revenues were down across the board as two teams in small markets, it makes sense that a contending team in a major media market like Phoenix, in a state with Arizona's very low income tax rate, would fetch something in this range. And that's going to drive the price up for the next team that sells.

That's especially true for the Blazers, given that the Vulcans own the Moda Center campus outright (the city of Portland owns the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the attached parking garages). That isn't true of the Suns—Ishbia's purchase of the Suns and Mercury at the $4 billion valuation is just getting him the teams. The city of Phoenix owns the Footprint Center, the arena in which both teams play.

Whenever the Blazers do go up for sale, the arena will presumably be part of the deal, which would drive the price up from what it would be if you were just valuing the team in the 20th-largest media market in the NBA. Knight's partner in the June bid was Alan Smolinisky, a California-based real-estate investor who is a part-owner of the Dodgers. If Smolinisky is still involved whenever Knight does re-engage with the Vulcans, the arena and surrounding area would undoubtedly be an attractive part of the purchase for him.

That's not to say Knight will be the only interested party, or that he'd even have the inside track. Without seeing the actual terms of Paul Allen's trust, I couldn't tell you if the eventual sale will require a formal auction and bidding process. This was the case for the Denver Broncos, which sold for $4.6 billion in June after being auctioned from late owner Pat Bowlen's trust.

Knight is the biggest name that's been linked to the Blazers, and one of the most powerful people in the history of sports. But if the Blazers are truly put on the auction block, there's no shortage of billionaires on the waiting list, whose money has been vetted by the league office and other owners already.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellision has wanted an NBA team for over a decade. Jeff Bezos is rumored to be interested in the Washington Commanders and could be looking to buy into the NBA as well, especially if Amazon gets involved in the upcoming media-rights deal. The Fenway group that owns the Red Sox and Liverpool wants an NBA team, but the prevalent rumor is they're already lined up for the Las Vegas expansion team Adam Silver is currently pretending isn't a done deal. Vancouver, Washington-based billionaire Kirk Brown, the founder of ZoomInfo who has publicly expressed interest in bringing a WNBA expansion team to Portland (an effort the Blazers fully support, by the way), could get in the mix as well.

Knight appears to be the NBA's preferred choice, given his name value, the league's close association with Nike and the idea that an ownership group with local ties will keep the team in Portland. Maybe now that he failed in his effort to buy the recent Oregon gubernatorial election for Republican Christine Drazan, he'll turn his attention and money back to the local professional basketball team.

As for the "when" part of all this, that's still unclear. I laid out the dynamic in a piece I wrote in July: the league wants a sale to happen soon, but it's in Jody Allen's best financial interest to hang on until after the league's new TV deal cashes in 2025 because she'd get to keep that money, unlike the proceeds of the eventual sale that her brother's trust requires go to charity.

In the months since Knight's initial offer, the selling off of the assets in the trust has continued. Last month, Paul Allen's art collection sold for a record $1.6 billion. In a story in the New York Times about the auction, Jody Allen answered a set of emailed questions about her brother's passion for art that is, to my knowledge, the first and only interview she's given since his death in 2018.

With serious trade talks a little slow to develop, the talk of the NBA personnel in attendance at the G League Winter Showcase has been Tuesday's Suns sale—and what it means for the future sales. It would appear that the Blazers are next up...eventually.