The Portland Trail Blazers have hired a bank to begin the long-expected process of selling the NBA team.
The Blazers said in a social media post on Tuesday that the team had hired Allen & Co. The team is currently owned by the estate of late owner Paul Allen, who died in 2018. Allen asked that his sports teams—mainly the Blazers and NFL’s Seattle Seahawks—be sold after his death. The NBA team’s statement said that this news doesn’t affect the status of the Seahawks.
Sportico values the Trail Blazers at $3.6 billion, according to its latest NBA valuations. That ranks 23rd in the 30-team league.
Allen, who co-founded Microsoft alongside Bill Gates, bought the Blazers in 1988 for $70M. He later bought the Seahawks and a large minority stake in the MLS’s Seattle Sounders.
Allen’s will directed his estate to sell the sports assets and direct the proceeds to philanthropy. His sister Jody is the executor of his estate and has been serving as owner of the NBA and NFL teams. Because the seller is the estate, the process will likely unfold differently than the more common private sale of a sports team from one person to another. In that scenario, the seller has much wider discretion about whom to sell to and for what price. In most estate sales, the trust has a fiduciary duty to maximize the value of its assets, which generally means the team sells to the highest qualified bidder. This was the dynamic in place for the 2023 sale of the NFL’s Denver Broncos for a then-record $4.6 billion.
Nike co-founder Phil Knight is among those who have expressed interest in buying the Trail Blazers in the past. In 2022 he and Los Angeles Dodgers investor Alan Smolinisky made a $2 billion offer to the estate, Sportico previously reported. The last NBA team to formally sell was the Charlotte Hornets. Michael Jordan sold the team in 2023 in a deal that valued the club at $3 billion.
The NBA also said Tuesday that law firm Hogan Lovells would handle the legal side of the sale process, which is estimated to “continue into the 2025-26 basketball season,” according to the Trail Blazers.
(This story has been updated with additional details throughout.)
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