Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

Forty Under 40

Forty Under 40

Paulson

Paulson
CRAIG MITCHELLDYER
In May of 2007, Merritt Paulson purchased Portland’s two minor league franchises — the United Soccer Leagues Timbers and the Class AAA baseball Beavers — for a reported $16 million. The decision to launch his ownership career in Portland came after a three-year search for the right community.

“We looked at about 15 different deals. Portland stood out,” Paulson said. “The properties we were acquiring hadn’t been well-managed, and there was a fair amount of organic growth potential.”

Paulson, eldest son of former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson Jr. and a former senior director of marketing for NBA Entertainment, said he started his revamp of the two teams with basic investments. He signed a TV deal with the local Fox affiliate and began marketing the teams on local radio and print media.

Then Paulson turned his attention to a larger project: gaining the Timbers entry into Major League Soccer. The linchpin in that project was convincing local taxpayers to agree to a $31 million renovation of PGE Park, to increase the stadium’s capacity from 16,000 to above 20,000. Convincing Portlanders to go along with the project, Paulson said, became a public — and at times ugly — debate.

“There is a very vocal group of local activists who are extremely anti-commercial, and [the PGE project] became a lightning rod,” Paulson said. “I developed thick skin. I never had it before.”

In January 2010, MLS approved the Timbers as the league’s 18th team. Two weeks later, the Portland city council voted 4-1 in favor of Paulson’s stadium plan, in which he paid $8 million up front and an additional $11.1 million in rent to the city, which borrowed $11.9 million for the remainder of the cost.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber credited Paulson for having “a passion for soccer and sports business.”
“I’m amazed at how quickly he’s been able to integrate himself in the Portland community, and not just be a key business person, but have influence on the city,” Garber said.

Age: 38
Title: Owner and president
TEAM: Portland Timbers
Education: B.A., English, Hamilton College, 1995; MBA, Harvard Business School
Family: Wife, Heather; one daughter
Career: Last title was NBA senior director of marketing and business development, responsible for marketing and business development efforts of NBA TV and NBA League Pass; assumed ownership of the Timbers in 2007; team named the 18th MLS franchise in March 2009
Last vacation: Colorado skiing holiday at Keystone


What's on your iPod: Eclectic: Brandon
Flowers’ (of the Killers) new album, Eminem’s “Recovery,” Zac Brown Band, Kid Rock, Kanye
West
Guilty pleasure: US Weekly magazine
Best stress release: Trail running
Pet peeve: People who are late
Greatest achievement: Securing the deal with the city of Portland to get the public/private financing for the MLS venue completed; getting married and having a family
Greatest disappointment: Not being able to finalize a deal for baseball as well
Fantasy job: Pro bump skier
Business advice: Run toward problems.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/21/Forty-Under-40/Merritt-Paulson.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/21/Forty-Under-40/Merritt-Paulson.aspx

CLOSE