It has been an eventful offseason for the Portland Trail Blazers. First, they brought back star point guard Damian Lillard and signed him to a three-year deal worth $42 million. Then on Wednesday, the franchise was bought by billionaire Thomas Dundon of New York, New York for $4 billion.
The Trail Blazers are one of two major professional sports franchises Dundon currently owns. The other is the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League. Dundon became the majority owner of the Hurricanes in 2018 as he bought 52% of the franchise.
Dundon bought the Trail Blazers from the Paul Allen family. Allen passed away of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2018. When he passed away, it was part of Allen’s will that the sale of the teams that he owned would go to various philanthropic endeavours. According to Rogers Sportsnet, Allen also owned the Seattle Seahawks and a quarter of the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer.
Ironically, Allen’s former girlfriend Monica Seles made headlines this week. On Tuesday, it was made public that Seles, the nine-time grand slam tennis champion, was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis.
Dundon is also involved in a sport that is extremely popular at this time–pickleball. Dundon is actually the chairman of pickleball.com, a website that contains information about everything pickleball related. His other sports interest is golf. He is an investor in Top Golf Callaway Brands, a global sports company based in Carlsbad, California that designs, manufactures, markets and sells golf equipment. Dundon’s estimated worth is currently between $1.2 and $1.7 billion according to basketnews.com.
