Trail Blazers News: Will Jody Allen Be Portland’s Permanent Owner?

She inherited a variety of teams when her brother passed. Will she look to sell?

Oct 23, 2019; Portland, OR, USA; Portland Trail Blazers Chair Jody Allen applauds team before they play in the home-opener against the Denver Nuggets at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports / Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports

When longtime Portland Trail Blazers majority owner (and Microsoft co-founder) Paul Allen passed away in 2018 due to complications from his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, his younger sister Jody was named the executor and trustee of the billionaire's estate. Beyond the Blazers and several properties, that haul also included majority ownership of NFL squad the Seattle Seahawks, plus a minority stake in MLS team Seattle Sounders FC.

Will she look to sell?

During a recent fan mailbag earlier this month, Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report (an essential Substack follow for any Portland fan) fielded a fan question about Jody Allen's future with the franchise.

Apparently, even if Jody Allen wanted to retain a majority stake in the club, her late brother's will would preclude such a move.

"The Blazers are going to be sold," Highkin asserted. "According to the terms laid out in Paul Allen’s trust, all of his assets have to eventually be sold. Some of them (two of his superyachts, his art collection, the Cinerama movie theater in Seattle) already have. The rest will at some point, and that includes the Blazers and Seahawks."

The Blazers are currently valued at $3.28 billion, per Raul Barrigon of HoopsHype. The Seahawks, meanwhile, are worth an estimated $5 billion, according to a 2023 Forbes valuation.

So when will either team get moved?

"The timeline for the sale is still a complete mystery," Highkin revealed. "Jody Allen has never done an interview or a press conference to answer questions about this (I’ve tried). The NBA league office has declined comment whenever I’ve asked if they have an imposed sell-by date for the team."

Why she's dragging her feet, six years into her stint as executor of the Paul Allen Trust, is a bit of a mystery. Highkin speculated that Jody Allen may have in part been holding to begin looking for bids until after the league inked its new TV broadcast rights deal. Now that that agreement is in place, for an estimated $76 billion, perhaps the hunt for a new Portland owner won't be far behind. With a long-rumored expansion to 32 teams from 30 in the works, attached to lucrative expansion fees that will be paid out evenly among the 30 current owners, it would behoove Allen to at least wait out that process, too.

Are there any stipulations that mandate the team remain in Portland, or at least the Pacific Northwest? That much is unclear, but given that the team recently inked an extension to stay at its current home, Moda Center, through 2030, it seems that — at least in the short-term — the club will stay in Rip City.

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