The value of the Trail Blazers franchise "has increased more than four-fold" since team President & CEO Chris McGowan took the helm in '12, and the team is "reliably profitable, having climbed out of red-ink territory" in '16, according to Andy Giegerich of the PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL. On the court, the Trail Blazers "have played near-top tier level basketball" that have made them a consistent playoff team since the '13 season. Below are excerpts from a Q&A with McGowan, some of which have been edited for clarity and brevity:
Q: There's never a good time for something like this, but COVID landed at a pretty critical juncture for the Blazers.
McGowan: It pretty much shut down our business. You look at our arena, where we're doing events every other night the majority of the year, being dark for more than six months at this point. Fortunately, we work in a very progressive league that put together the bubble in Orlando.
Q: The bubble worked well. What will the NBA look like in the 2021 season?
McGowan: Our plan is that we're going to be back in our arena for the 2021 season in some form or fashion. The examples out there right now, that's what the MLS is doing and they've been pretty successful at it. The NFL is doing it, not in a bubble scenario, but they've been so far, knock on wood, successful and so has Major League Baseball.
Q: Are you talking about testing, like, everyone who comes into the arena?
McGowan: Yes, clearly athletes and people associated with teams are being tested to ensure safety. ... There's been talk about whether fans will have to be tested to be able to come to the games. That's obviously something we're evaluating, but not something that we will do unless it's a requirement and it's feasible to do based on testing capacity.
Q: Talk a little more about some of those ideas.
McGowan: With tickets, there’s a system where you just walk by a screen and your cell phone scans, and that's how you enter the building, compared to the old way, where you would transfer your phone to someone who would scan it, or you give your ticket to someone who would scan it and walk into the building. So it's going to be very much more of a contactless entry process, which we think minimizes risk. We're going cashless in our arena, so there will be contactless payment. ... We're looking at creative queuing, so people can come in and exit at a distanced fashion (BIZJOURNALS.com, 11/5).
