The NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers were reportedly up for sale for $2 billion, but a team official claims the team isn’t for sale.
‘Phil Knight made an offer,’ according to a Trail Blazers statement released on Thursday. ‘The team will not be sold.’
According to ESPN and The New York Times, Knight and part-owner Alan Smolinisky of the Los Angeles Dodgers presented a written $2 billion bid. The team stated that an offer had been made, but did not identify the amount.
Despite the fact that the Blazers aren’t officially for sale, ESPN reports that buyers are queued up to purchase the franchise from the Paul Allen Trust. Allen, a Microsoft co-founder who bought the club for $70 million in 1988, died in 2018 at the age of 65 following a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Allen’s sister Jody has been in charge of the trust, which also owns the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League.
Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals in San Francisco on Thursday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the potential of a Blazers sale. According to Silver, the team will be sold at some point.
‘I don’t know all the specifics of Paul Allen’s trust,’ Silver told reporters. ‘What I understand is that Jody Allen, who is Paul Allen’s sister, is the trustee of the estate and that at some point, the team will be sold.
‘I don’t have any sense of the precise timing. I read that same statement today in which she or someone on behalf of the estate said the team is not currently for sale.
‘But at some point it will be for sale. This is a hugely complex estate, and although it’s been several years, these things take time.
‘It will work its way out, but I know Jody and her advisers are very focused on it. As to the timing, that is something her brother left in her hands.’
Silver stated that he wants the team to stay in Portland, despite the fact that it is one of the league’s smallest markets with some of the most fervent fans.