What we can learn from another franchise slipping away from Portland
Watching the lacrosse LumberJax run off to another city shows just how difficult it is in this town to run a professional sports team.
The lesson learned from the Jax applies just the same to about all the other franchises that have fled this city. Luring fans into the Rose Garden for indoor lacrosse was difficult, but the fan base was growing. Attendance was really not the problem for this franchise. Sponsorships and big-ticket sales were the real culprit.
Fact: There’s not enough corporate support in Portland for another major-league team. There is barely enough for the Trail Blazers and the assorted minor sports we support. I’ve always been the biggest advocate for bringing Major League Baseball to Portland — but right now, I’d say it can’t work. That’s not because of the potential fan base, either. Such a team would draw extremely well from all over the Pacific Northwest. It wouldn’t be a problem to find people to buy tickets.
The real problem is that the unfriendly attitude in this state toward big corporations has driven most of them out of here. Oh, yeah, that’s also why we have such a high unemployement rate, but that’s another topic for another blog.
When it comes to supporting a professional sport, the fan base is necessary, but it’s imperative you also have businesses willing to sponsor games on television and radio, to buy suites and high-end season tickets, to buy signage in the arena and once in a while, to even buy into the team itself. We just don’t have enough of that in Portland right now.
Of course, one thing I’ve learned over the years in Portland is that we never learn much here about the value of sports to a community. No matter how much the Trail Blazers teach us we so seriously undervalue what pro sports can do for a community’s attitude and its quality of life.
Our political and social leaders just don’t get it. When they see Portland all geeked up over the Trail Blazers, when they see the community rising and falling over the fate of its team, when they see the joy that franchise can give to our community and how it brings us all together — they never nod their head and say, “THAT’S what it’s all about. THAT’S the value of professional sports to a community. THAT’S why chasing a pro football or Major League Baseball team is a worthwhile endeavor.”
And to me, that’s why throwing a few million bucks into a stadium once every century or so is nothing to be ashamed of for a community. Here we are in Portland, agonizing over $50 or $60 million in a city where billions have been thrown at streetcars, trams, transit malls, convention centers, condos and bike paths.
Yes, I’m afraid that aside from the Blazers, Triple-A baseball and Major League Soccer are about all the business climate in Portland can support at this time. What’s wrong with doing it in a first-class manner? The last time a NEW ballpark was built in Portland was when Vaughn Street Park was constructed in 1901. And, of course, it was privately funded.
One of these days, somebody is going to realize that venues for sports are a legitimate investment in our community’s quality of life. Just about every other city in the world recognized that decades ago, but small-town Portland keeps sputtering along waiting for someone else to do it, recoiling in horror at the thought of actually putting public money into such a thing.
Can you imagine that this city has NEVER funded the construction of a new stadium? It has renovated Multnomah Stadium/Civic Stadium/PGE Park (originally built by the Multnomah Athletic Club) two or three times — which was, as Bill Cutler so appropriately put it in about 1971, “like putting silk stockings on a hog.”
I’m tired of it. It’s time sports fans finally get their share of the pie.
Baseball, Fans, Lacrosse, NBA, Soccer, Trail Blazers, small-town Portland | Dwight Jaynes | May 5, 2009
Convention Center, Dwight Jaynes, Portland, Portland LumberJax, Portland Trail Blazers, Rose Garden
Dwight,
I couldn’t agree more. Portland is the only large city in the United States that thinks and acts as if it were a backwater town AND we do it with pride. Look, we are the 23rd largest market in this country with but one major league team. There are cities that are smaller than Portland (among them are Kansas City, St. Louisand Milwaukee) that support at least two major league teams and it’s high time we recognize that this area can and should aspire to major league status. If we don’t, we’ll remain the provincial backwater that we’ve become.
Major League Lacrosse and Soccer are not exactly on the same level with the NBA, MLB and NFL. They’re more along the lines of triple A baseball, so its kind of apples and oranges comparing the fringe boutique sports to the REAL big name sports like NBA, MLB and NFL. Just sayin, Portland having mls and lacrosse certainly doesn’t make it a big league sports town, getting MLB and/or NFL would.
If portland got an MLB team and stopped shooting for the small MLS, Lacrosse and minor league caliber sports they would probably have more success. But we’ll never know because mls is the next big thing or something right? have fun with that.
Dwight, Billions being thrown at streetcars, trams, transit malls, convention centers, condos and bike paths, is the main reason that people who are against the new park just can’t stomach the city spending another 50 to 60 million that they don’t have. Just to replace a minor league park that we already have.
Graham — we DO NOT have a minor-league park. We have an ancient football stadium woefully lacking to serve as a stadium for anything but football or soccer. It was once a dog-racing track. We have not had a minor-league ballpark since 1956, when Vaughn Street was torn down. And as far as spending the money — hell, it’s OUR turn. You can have the trolley — I’ve never ridden it and never will. I want a ballpark.
– Dwight
Great points today. However, you have spoken out publicly now against the leadership of the People’s Republic of Portland, be afraid, be very afraid. I have said it before, but it is not what is best for the majority it is about the minority, the fringe or what special interests want. Portland’s reputation for being unfriendly to business is hurting the community in more ways than one. But like you said that is for another blog.
Dwight,
I agree with you about the investment in sports. However, I respectfully disagree about your statement about business friendliness. Bill Sizemore and the anti-tax establishment have crowed for years about how Oregon’s tax policies are driving away business in droves. Yet The Tax Foundation’s 2009 State Tax Business Climate Index list Oregon’s business friendliness in regards to tax policy as the 9th best in the country. (Best, not worst.)
I know its not a political blog, but the talking point that portrays Oregon as a unfriendly business environment is wrong – and it hinders our ability to make investments in things like pro-sports, because people keep parroting the mantra that our tax structure will not support big business, which in turn will not support sponsorships.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/bp58.pdf
Jeremy, You have got to be kidding!
And Dwight, please don’t mistake me for being a fan of any part of Portland’s mess transit system. I with you there.
The Jax are gone which means more room in the Rose Garden for the Winter Hawks. Get them in there NOW!
Graham,
I am not kidding. Don’t listen to the politicians, just go straight to the numbers. My business was previosuly located in Portland, and I would give anything to go back to that tax structure. You think Portland is bad, try Seattle, San Fran, LA, San Deiego, NYC (where I am now)or any other major city on the east and west coast.
I worked for two major companies that relocated their corproate headquaters to Portland. Portland doesn’t know how good it has it.
Portland’s sports franchise issues aren’t because of “friendliness.” Its a direct result of a relatively low population.
Sorry Jeremy, there just isn’t enough time or space to get into this. But just look at what has been done to the timber and fishing industy in this state. Our Govenor could care less about either of them.
This town has always approached the big endeavors with small time thinking
*Look at our light rail system. It is not double decker like most cities and they don’t provide enough public parking so you can use the darn thing
*Our convention center. Built woefully small compared to other cities and thus many major attractions do not come here. Parking is also a joke
*Building an outdoor amphitheatre- Paul Allen was very interested in building this(along with a Nascar style racetrack), but our city council made it into a living nightmare and a frustrated Allen walked away. Now Ridgefield and the state of Washington enjoy that revenue with their amphitheatre.
I could go on and on
Dwight, you must really love the northwest because as a sportwriter you have been screwed by this city time and time again. We should have 2-3 major sporting leagues in this town by now. However, our town and the city council and state kegislatures that run it are greedy and/or think small time…everytime
Boo hoo. I don’t care.
Professional athletes are societal parasites, and for the most part, completely worthless as humans. When an athlete is actually decent and hasn’t fathered sixty bastards, it’s so rare that its actually a news story. I’d rather have a strip club move in next door than some functionally illiterate basketball player- why should my tax money to attract that kind of creep?
The real reason professional sports don’t do well in Portland is because there’s a lot of others things to do besides shelling out sixty bucks and sitting on your ass.
Dwight,
I don’t know the specifics about the plans for a new stadium in Portland, but I can say that the recently built Nationals Park in D.C. is a fantastic facility and, in my opinion, adds something to the sports options in D.C. While it’s one thing to enjoy an evening of basketball at the Rose Garden (or at the Verizon Center in D.C.), it’s quite another to sit down with friends and family and have a relaxing time on a summer day at a great ball park. For those who have never done so, take a vacation and visit one of the many great ballparks in the U.S. during this upcoming summer (e.g. Wrigley Field). Come on, you’ll have a great time and will be helping the economy too.
PGE Park might not be a minor league park but the pro-baseball people wanted a major league team to play there while a MLB stadium was built.
If it was good enough for that, it should be good enough for the Beavers.
Let’s keep our options open and not destroy our chances of getting big league ball just to accommodate this plan. Think big Portland!
Graham: timber and fishing, both of which trade in finite natural resources, aren’t really good indicators of Oregon’s business friendliness. That’s akin to saying California isn’t business friendly (which may or may not be true) because gold prospectors are shrinking in numbers.
The real issue seems to be the lack of building any sustainable industry now that the Timber and Fishing industries have tapered off. We still have shipping to and from Asia and some high-tech bleed-off from California and Washington, but those are not big enough.
It’s easy to complain about Portlanders lack of forking out for a new stadium, but since wages have been stagnant since the late 70′s we are really tapped out. All you have to look at is credit card debt.
We’re broke and the economy has not transformed from a resource extraction base. Stop trying to frame this as “small minded” citizens who just don’t know no better.
C: If the point you are trying two make is that the two industries are antiquaked and out dated, then I must disagree with you. I have never been able to understand what is so finite, as you say, about cutting a tree and planting a new one or two to replace it, or catching a fish and hatching a new one or two to replace that one. The State of Oregon, as a whole, has restricted, regulated and controled the two to almost the breaking point. In my mind, not very business friendly to be sure.
Also, for the record. Gold prospecting in California is a boom industry right now.
Brad:
I agree with the general consensus here, but Portland is not bigger than STL and about the same size as KC. You have to look at the metropolitan area of a city to get a feel of how big the city actually is and what type of attendance to expect at sporting events. Not to be nitpicky, but being someone who was born and raised in STL, there really is no question the city has a MUCH bigger feel than PDX.
- Drew
Dwight this is one reason I have always found your journalistic musings to be an enjoyable and informative read. This is an insightful and even kind of a gutsy article. This is so off the grid in thinking and in logic in the PDX journalistic community. In most national journalistic circles this kind of honesty would be shot down in flames. I have my doubts that either the Trib or Oregonian would have the balls to print this. Why don’t you submit it to them anyway ? A few honest, independent, articles sprinkled in amongst their group think articles might actually win back a few readers.
Anyway, the stuff you write about in this article are many of the reasons why after living most of my adult life in PDX I finally had enough and had to leave the state altogether. I did not abandon PDX. It will always be my home. I abandoned the group think, regressive mind think, of PDX culture. PDX’s elite class like to think of themselves as progressive. However socially progressive they may be their policies and politics in reality make the cities economic growth regressive. It has indeed “ trickled down ” to the sporting community. The cities elites not only don’t get why it is a good thing to have the population all in on the Blazer’s organization they resent the fervor fans show towards the team or sports in general. All the corporate and small business ties that pro sport leagues have just do not fit into their progressively, regressive, elitist, panacea of a green, communal society. It is politics at heart. But it is not just the progressives that hurt their own communities with small, narrow minded thinking.
I was born and raised in Pendleton. Back in the late 60’s&70’s they had the opportunity to become the hub of that region of OR, WA. Their location and for that time larger, population made them an ideal location for business wanting to ship commodities to PDX, Seattle and East. City leaders however rejected every business opportunity to grow the city and economy. They had their Pendleton Round Up and wanted to keep the small town feel and atmosphere in tact. They succeeded in spades. They have hovered right around 15,000 population for 20+yrs. Hermiston, Stanfield and the Tri Cities are all the growth cities in the area. Pendleton is still clinging to their small town feel. Unfortunately employment is few and far between for most young people to remain and live in that wonderful cow town. PDX is something of the same on a metro city level for different reasons but largley the same effect.
PDX metro area: 2.1 million
KC metro: 2.0 million
STL: 2.9 million
Who cares about the Jax…. This was just a toy for the spoiled little princess Ms. Batinovich….
Great article Dwight.
Businesses will support sports programs when they are actual “BIG TIME” sports. The NBA, MLB, NFL & NHL are the only four that my company would support on a local basis.
MLS, lacrosse, lingerie football, etc. just are not “MUST HAVE” tickets.
Dwight,
I love reading your blog, but it’s pretty disingenuous to compare transit funding with money for a ballpark. Transit funds come from multiple sources, including hundreds of millions from the federal government. The feds are not going to help build a ballpark.
Transit systems are designed to improve the whole community on a daily basis, and the better the transit system functions the better our municipal area works. Even if you don’t ride the tram, it benefits our city (and you) to have fewer people driving.
On the other hand, professional sports franchises are for-profit, privately-held entities. They exist to make money and make their rich owners even richer. Why should taxpayers support that? If MLB or the NFL or any other pro sports league wants to locate a franchise in Portland, they’re not going to do it out of charity. They’ll be here to make money, not perform a community service. I understand local government making deals (as they do with many businesses) to get them to locate here. But those deals ought to be the benefit of all parties and building facilities with taxpayer money that will be used exclusively to make profits for private individuals I think is a mistake.
Thanks for the excellent blog entry today Dwight!
Unfortunately I tend to think this state is a lost cause as far as being pro business, and an international city that’s sports friendly.
@limelight, The city of Salem, the Willamette Valley, Willamette University (founed in 1842), Linfield, Pacific and Lewis and Clark College for that matter, were once the epicenter of western expansion, intellectual power & history. How did that hundred year head-start work out?
If you think small, you will remain small. Now even cities like Boise, Idaho and Spokane are far more business oriented.
Compare Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Clara, and Silicon Valley, and Stanford, once a cow pasture in the early 1900′s.
Sports and business are interrelated and interconnected, always have and always will be. The most successful business/metro areas have more sporting franchises.
Sorry, I like your sports commentary, but this is bunk. Portland has just as many big companies (Weiden Kennedy, Intel, Nike, Addidas, etc…) or MORE than other multi-sport, small-market teams like Milwaukie, Buffalo, Minneapolis, etc… This driving-them-off ranting is nonsense, as are all the hippy straw men being thrown around in the comments.
I also have to take issue with your obsession of equating public transit with financing professional, privately owned, for-profit sports.
You might like driving your car and grumble at taxes, but public transit is a critical investment in the city’s future. You might not like condos, but Portland was more-or-less saved by the condo boom and the accompanying mass transit movement. Wealthy people actually want to live in the city again instead of fleeing to the suburbs, and they bring their money with them to spend at small businesses. I remember the mid 90s, and Portland (especially downtown) was turning into a major **** hole. The infusion of wealth and the real investment in infrastructure are not a coincidence. They are symbiotic.
Portland’s in an awkward transitional phase where the transit system is not directly beneficial to everyone, but in 20 years there will be two categories of cities: congested, smog-filled hell holes, and places that are actually livable. Portland, thanks to people who are thinking decades ahead, will be in the latter group. I live in NYC now, and I can tell you a mature mass transit system is absolutely essential for a thriving, healthy city. It can move vast amounts of people all over the city in very little time, in moderate comfort, and do so cheaply. Despite having 10 million people and not being particularly green, NYC has no smog at all and I can get to anywhere in this massive city in 20-60 minutes, for $2, 24 hours a day.
We can love our Blazers and advocate for this or that project, but pretending there is an equivalency in value between sports stadiums and actual infrastructure investment is a myopic joke.
Interesting thread.
I agree with public transit. but problem with Portland and TriMet is they think that is streetcars, trams and light rail. Bus system is last priority. The main park and rdes are full early in morn, Trimet won’t add to them because you can make transfers. so people who might use buses just drive.
Money used for that street car could have added many park and ride spaces. but they do not add to the folksy image of PDX.
I get so tired of PDX bragging about being bike friendly. Is that the key point about PDX, sometimes it seems so.
I remember when one lane of Barbur Blvd was closed for bikes. that was my commute route. I rarely saw a bike rider in that lane.
And as retired Forest Service the past 20 years of politics have been a disaster to Ore and Wash National Forests. Once we managed those public lands now we look at them
Those are reneable rersources in the Forests just going to waste.
Oh yes best for some other discussion place. Sorry
The issue goes deeper than the current political climate. For those of us that have lived in the PDX area for over 20 years the writing was on the wall for sports when all the large local businesses began to be purchased by out-of-state entities. Remember when all the large banks were local…US Bank, First Natl of OR, Oregon Bank. Banks were always good supporters of the community. Bob Ames/First Natl Bank brought Champ Car to PDX along with GI Joe’s. Lots of the manufacturing was locally owned as well that is no longer local. Out-of state parent companies are more interested in supporting sports, arts, etc in the cities of their home offices before any regional areas. The problem with Oregon is that there are few large corporations locally owned now…and definately not enough to support anything new of signicant financial commitment. Nike, being the largest, seems to be very selective in what they support. Sad to say…but things are not Rosey here for sports.
and yet the roller derby league-with no “professional sports marketing” types behind it-is able to consistently draw sellout crowds and corporate sponsors-perhaps having a sport someone actually gives a toss about helps.
warrants mentioning.
Drew:
Whoops! I certainly did not mean to take anything away from STL. Not only does that city have a tremendous sporting heritage, it’s also a pretty nice town.
My greater point was that this city that prides itself on being so progressive is missing opportunities to expose itself to a greater degree to the rest of the world through sport.
Civic achievements notwithstanding, Portland is known throughout much of the world through the Trail Blazers. In Spain, millions of viewers watched with rapt attention as two of its own (Fernandez and Rodriguez) fought for playoff supremacy against the Houston Rockets. Can you imagine how many Spaniards have a favorable opinion of Portland as a direct result of this exposure?
We are a MAJOR metropolitan city. The 23rd largest and the most underserved with respect to sport. I like baseball, and I want to see major league players on the diamond but I want them here, not in Seattle. I want to see and cheer for NFL football on the gridiron, but I want to do it here for a team with “Portland” emblazoned on its jerseys.
If we continue to act like a provincial backwater, Portland can talk all it likes about aspiring to greatness; it will never achieve it without politicians and businesspeople that make the commitment to take a great leap forward and support major league sports in this city.
The time to build a new stadium is now but not one that is designed for Pacific Coast League baseball. Do we really see cities like Reno, Fresno, Round Rock and Tacoma as our peers? Or do we see ourselves as peers to Seattle, Houston Los Angeles and Denver? Those are MAJOR League towns. They are our peers.
It’s time to build a stadium all right. One built to Major League specifications. Build it on spec. Build it on the assumption that a team and then fans will come. Build it because it will enhance our reputation as a big league city. But dare to build it because it is the right thing to do.
If drawing another major sports league franchise to Portland hasn’t happened by now, it aint gonna happen for a long long time as evidenced by all the opposing views in just trying to relocate a minor league baseball park in the area. My question is: Why are we shoving aside a triple A baseball club that’s been a staple for generations to house a soccer team. SOCCER?! Give me a break!
Oregon isn’t “friendly” to big corporations? Boo hoo.
The places that are “friendly” to big corporations are China and Mexico — made possible by the pols in Washington, DC that have made quote “free trade” unquote the national religion and thereby ushered in the deindustrialization of America.
All the tax giveaways to corporate hogs that Dwight could dream up in 5 years of effort won’t unring that bell…
The city of Portland should NOT be spending a quarter of a billion dollars subsidizing the hobby-fun of a local millionaire. If Paulson wants to move his major league soccer franchise (now THERE’S a contradiction of terms if I’ve ever heard one!) or his AAA baseball team elsewhere to receive the largesse of Others More Stupid, Portland should just say “See Ya!”
Is there any local leadership or money at all?
Blazers are owned by a Seattlite.
Larry Weinberg lived in SoCal.
Robert Schmertz lived in NJ.
Herman Sarkowsky lived in Seattle.
Beavs/Timbers owned by an east coaster.
Previous Beavs owned by a NJ native and Pia Zadora.
Hawks were owned by an NYC/AZ/TX funbunch, now ownership resides in Calgary.
Portland Meadows operated by Frank Stronach.
MGP was owned/operated by Hollywood Park before closing.
I remember Phil Knight was once looking at the Clippers before Donald Sterling bought them. That’s about the extent of a local on the pro sports ownership scene.
Bowling alleys are about the only sporting venue/activity owned locally…
wow all i want before i die is major league baseball in portland…im 58 now and failing fast!!!
This article sorta points out more of some of the things in this blog from Dwight. It also sheds a bright hot light on some of the many reasons why OR has the highest unemployment in the nation. The governor does not mind at all that some of his desired policies will cost Oregonians money as long as it advances his and his clans agenda.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/lifestyle-and-the-carbon-cap/
Such impressive passion for sports…displayed by tangental bashing of progressive transportation infrastructure.
yawn.
c’mon guys. The trolly is virtually being paid for by the fed. The huge unflux of fed money for expansion announced yesterday will be mean a big uptick in related jobs, and also that we’re set to be the only domestic builder of streetcars, that the rest of the nations’ cities will probably be ordering from someday soon. It’s just one of the many reasons that makes our downtown city a great, progressive, liveable city…which DIRECTLY contributed to ours being one of the last real estate markets to turn sour, and turn very little it did indeed. That benefited ALL our pocketbooks.
My vote’s for not throwing everything the city does besides spend on sports arenas under the bus.
Yep, PDX is one of those liberal areas where people forget that corporations makes America go round economically. It ain’t the tye dye shirt store on Hawthorne Street. It should be obvious. Isn’t it? I know a country where there is fresh fruit and T shirt for sale: Mexico. How is that working economically? Hmm.
Bemoaning the loss of a lacrosse league?
That’s like complaining that we lost a professional jai alai league.
There’s been some rumblings about the Coyotes in serious trouble. It’s been a few years since we got the ol’ “LET’S BRING THE NHL TO PORTLAND” bullcrap.
Is Portland going to be used as a pawn in a stadium/relocation deal again?
Portland to the NHL is kinda like St. Pete/Tampa to MLB before they got the Rays. Seemed like every team having a bit of trouble in the 80′s and 90′s was headin to the Suncoast Dome…
Jay: Liberal bash all you want, but get your facts right first. Mexico is a disaster thanks to your mega corporations that moved there from the US and proceeded to destroy what internal economy they had– sending 100s of thousands of workers streaming into the US to further drive down our own wages already beaten down by your fanatastic large corporations.
I’d rather have a city full of small business owners that full of wage slaves.
The league will not place our fans, players, staff nor partners in a less-than-comfortable environment