Paul Allen bought the Portland Trail Blazers for $70 million in 1988, making him one of the longest tenured owners in the NBA until his death last week at age 65.
For now, questions around the future ownership of the team remain unanswered. Allen leaves no spouse or children, and if he put a succession plan in place for the franchise it has not been made public.
Blazers President and CEO Chris McGowan said the team will discuss the franchise’s future at another time. He met with team employees the day after Allen died on Oct. 15. “I wanted to talk to the staff that Paul entrusted us in running a great organization and our job is to continue that mission,” McGowan said. “Right now we are getting through this and the next step for us is to get focused on launching the season and then all those other questions will be answered at a later date.”
McGowan, who worked with Allen for six years, said the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft was very active in running the franchise.
“He was passionate about NBA basketball and the Blazers,” McGowan said. “I realized it early on when I started. He frequently was at games and on the road and watching practice. I got to interact with him a lot and sit with him at games over six seasons. It is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. We are in Portland because of him. He weathered a lot of things that a lot of people wouldn’t.”
Though Allen lived in Seattle, he was deeply engaged in the Blazers franchise during his ownership tenure.
“I dealt with him a lot over email, video conferencing, quarterly board meetings,” McGowan said. “He would let you do your job but he definitely was interested in making sure we were doing things at a high level. He wanted us to be innovative. He was available whenever you needed to bounce things off of him. He was always focused on what the fans were thinking.”
