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AIPROPX ReportYahoo Sports · 1h ago
NBA and Portland fans could learn about Tom Dundon from Hurricanes media and fans
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - JUNE 20: Owner Tom Dundon addresses the media during the Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup Final Victory Parade on June 20, 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina.(Photo by Jaylynn Nash/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Billionaires do not need defending.
Let’s start with that, because if someone has several billion dollars they really couldn’t care much about what you think about them. They just want to get your money, and they got those billions by getting your money. Sports team owner billionaires are perhaps a special level of the type that don’t need defending.
Maybe that’s why few in the Hurricanes media and fanbase have been tapped into when it comes to the Portland Trail Blazers situation and their new billionaire owner, Tom Dundon. Not only is Raleigh a smaller market in a lesser league, but that market just watched their team win a championship and so their first instinct must be to defend the guy who signs the paychecks.
That’s crossed my mind—and others locally—as we’ve watched Portland fans just start to fret over the direction of their team under this new owner. They are seeing the effects of his ways from players being left behind , massive layoffs in the front office plus their broadcasat team , and none other than massive NBA fan and prolific podcaster Bill Simmons dubbing him with the wonderfully creative name “El Cheapo.”
Yes, the phrase Bob Barker used to use to describe the second half of the price of a car in The Money Game being the lowest number on the board.
In all of this, the experience that hasn’t been received is of Hurricanes fans and media who lived through all this before. Chip Alexander did give one interview on a Portland Radio Station , but for the most part the NBA at large has ignored a pretty sizable chunk of people that know first hand what it’s like to be involved with a team owned by Dundon.
Yes—Bill Simmons, Portland fans, and NBA fans, you need to actually talk to Hurricanes fans.
Maybe reach out to Cory Lavalette, or Ryan Henkle, or Chip Alexander, or Aaron Beard, or Sara Civian, or any of us here at Canes Country, or any in the sea of nearly 200,000 people that watched the victory parade a month ago. We’re going to be intimately aware of this owner and his ticks. He’s annoyed us too!
As Joe Ovies referenced above, the whole broadcaster mess is nothing new. Do you realize that for all the noise that’s being made about the broadcasters Portland won’t bring back, the team actually had multiple TV hosts, both a radio and play-by-play crew, and essentially owned and operated their own TV network as they were earlier victims of the collapse of the regional sports networks.
Before this season was over, Hurricanes media and fans could have told you they were about to be shipped out. Good-bye longtime radio caller Chuck Kaiton, hello TV simulcast. Good-bye veteran play-by-play man John Forslund, hello much reduced contract for Tripp Tracy, moving beloved sideline reporter and all around great guy Mike Maniscalco to the play-by-play side, and elevating an in-arena host to the role that would then be paid by the regional sports network. This was all before the Canes were consistently winning and it felt like the whole thing was still a house of cards, but few outside of the area said anything because “it’s just the Hurricanes.”
We could have told you about the guy Rod Brind’Amour calls “Business Tom.” It’s that Mr. Hyde alter-ego of Dundon that will let him spend to the cap on players but try to get anything else for the lowest price he can. It’s cut-throat, and it’s run people who have long been associated with the team out of town to the point where it’s napalmed bridges. Yet, despite this, there are also multi-decade employees still with the team, Brind’Amour figured out how to handle “Business Tom” to get what he needed, and that same mentality that made Dundon want to win off the ice made him want to win on it, too.
There are a lot of parallels from the situation in Portland pre-Dundon to the Hurricanes. The Trail Blazers were owned by someone who wanted to create a family environment, and valued loyalty. It showed in different ways between Allens and Karmanos as Peter Karmanos probably stayed too loyal to too many people for too long, and then couldn’t afford to look outside nor spend on players. The abrupt shift in style rubbed a lot of people wrong when they thought the team was a family.
It isn’t anymore, it’s a business.
Hurricanes fans could have also told you that Dundon is quick to start out very hands-on. It was well-known that for a long time Don Waddell did both the hockey and non-hockey work—of course part of that was saving the money on the two jobs, but a part of it honestly was it would be fewer people he’d have to talk to in order to get something done. It has only been recently when the non-hockey side of the coin has grown to such a degree that he realized he needed a person like Brian Fork to handle that side, leaving hockey to Eric Tulsky—and it took Waddell leaving for him to realize it.
Honestly, we’d also tell you he hates empty seats. Right from the beginning, he was trying to fix the empty arena problem by offering unique discounts, creating mini-plans out of nowhere when there were a lot of games not selling, and he’s been unafraid to undercut the value of Season Ticket Holder tickets solely to make sure that people come to games. Now, is that because he wants them walking around, paying for parking, buying merchandise and concessions? Of course, but you can’t sell those things if people are at home.
We’d also tell you that he’s going to do all of this in Portland because he’s like a lot of billionaires—he thinks if it worked in one place it’ll work in the other. It’s why he’s not paying a lot of money for a head coach and likely never will, but he immediately cut checks to make sure the Hurricanes would be better on and off the ice. He did spend money on training facilities, and he’s spent to...
NBAPortlandTom DundonHurricanesAllRALEIGHNORTH CAROLINAOwner Tom DundonCarolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup Final Victory ParadePhotoJaylynn NashGetty Images
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