Pablo Torre Finds Out - Searching for a "Good" Sports Billionaire, with Henry Abbott

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Fans want a "smoking gun" with Kawhi Leonard. Portland doesn't want its new owner to move the team. Even Vegas is looking to fill a C-suite. TrueHoop's Henry Abbott — the skeptic-in-chief of NBA insiders — stops by for a reality check on the state of truth, big money and basketball scandal: Should you believe Adam Silver and his lawyers, who all answer to the 1 percent? Who gets to be in the most exclusive club in sports? And did an owner really have a threesome with the Larry O'Brien trophy?• Subscribe to TrueHoop by Henry Abbott• Previously on PTFO: RIFC, the Impossible Deal and Life After Aspiration(Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. This is like Joe Lacob taking the trophy into his bed. Did that actually happen? He bragged about it, yeah. Right after this. Henry Abbott, thank you for doing this. What a straight ahead introduction.

Just no small talk. How can I remind people of our prehistory here? Because you're kind of responsible for me? I remember we had a talk about you. going to interview the head of the PA? Michelle Roberts. Yeah. I feel like that was the first, like, meaningful back and forth we had.

I had a big sit-down interview with Michelle Roberts, then the new executive director of the NBPA. Yeah. And I remember the headline was like the woman who was going to change sports. Yeah. And I regret to inform everybody that that did not quite happen. Nobody changes sports.

Labor did not defeat management. I don't think labor really got much of anything, actually. as a consequence of that regime, and then the one to two regimes that came after, at least track sometimes of the succession. But it's been a couple of regimes since. Now we have a de facto hard cap and team valuations through the roof.

It's going to great for the billionaires. Well, this is bringing us to the fact that we are talking on Thursday. This is the day after we published our latest sequel in our Clippers, Kauai Leonard, Aspiration, but now Beyond Aspiration Saga, as the NBA's investigation into that stuff has expanded into other sponsorship,

parentheses S, deal, parenthesis S. And I want to know what you thought of what me and the mean and David Samson did on that episode because I think it was complicated to the level of maybe needing to explain why this stuff either demanded our time, 10 months of investigation, or felt like a vanity project.

to some people, and does any of it matter even? You pulled on a thread of Kauai and how we got to the Clippers and all this money that went through aspiration, and it's fascinating stuff, but then it ends up with this other very strange thing, which is Kauai and his former agent now, I guess, and his uncle owning LLCs that seem to have something to do with a soccer club in Rhode Island, right?

So, A, people are curious, so we just have to understand it. But B, I do think it now becomes a very common, in sports story, which is shady stuff is happening, hard to follow stuff is happening, and a bunch of tax payer money goes in, and a stadium is part of it, but so is a bunch of other stuff. And it's hard to know who's winning and who's losing in that, but we're probably not getting affordable housing out of it. I guess this is kind of where we land. Yeah, I say, I want everybody to watch it as the chefs, our production staff have intended, but it ends with the reveal that there have been zero units of affordable housing that have been built as everybody involved is claiming.

that this is the real reason why your public taxpayer money in the state of Rhode Island, which has a legitimate housing crisis, why that was needed. Which to me, there's so much going on here. One of them is, you know, Aspiration guy was like the tree planting guy. But did they actually plant trees? Not to the degree that they advertised, that nowhere close. Right. Just as this is now being led by the guy, Brett Johnson.

The head of fortuitous partners, which was running the RIFC Stadium deal in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Yeah. And benevolent capital is his... other entity, private equity real estate company, that all sort of adds to this aspiration feeling sense that I'm a good guy doing good guy stuff. I'm here to save people. And all I need is your support. So Joe Sandberg turned out to be an appropriate red flag that aspiration was a little too. Somehow it was like Silicon Valley and it was trees and it was huge ROI. Like it all fell apart, right? I'm not saying that this is true of Brad Johnson's you. I'm saying that he,

emerges as a similar type character. A hundred percent investment returns is the promise. A hundred percent. You know how investments work? Like, they don't promise you that. So I'm not saying, I'm just saying, right? Like, he already emerges as the next kind of like, we better look into that kind of figure,

which is I think part of why we're here, right? It's like, what the hell's really going on with that guy? Right. Why is there a trail when you follow the Clippers and their deals with Kauai Leonard that lead you to wonder, okay, what are these LLC? he's Kawhi Leonard made. Yeah.

And why are these deals he's made with these good guys coming out of Los Angeles, Brett Johnson and Joe Sandberg? Why are these deals kept secret from everybody? Yeah. Why can no one answer

straight questions about them? It doesn't make any sense. I want to acknowledge that there is a diversity of opinion about like, what does this episode really mean? Why is it relevant? For instance, on one side of the spectrum,

there's one former MBA general manager who has watched all 13 parts of the series and God bless him. His quote was, last night at 11.08 p.m. This whole thing is reminding me of the, it wasn't me song by Shaggy at this point. Yeah. And so there's just that for people who are tracking everything.

But then for people who are wondering, aren't we supposed to get a smoking gun now? I think there have been other people asking other questions. I heard from someone who's kind of like, boy, this just seems like a regular sports deal. And I'm like, yeah, that's exactly why it's been in the media, at least 1% of the media should cover this. It shouldn't be zero, right? I know it's like a little bit involved.

But, yeah, I honestly, maybe think about this guy, Rick Horo. Do you know that name, Rick Horo? Please explain. Okay, so he has really bushy kind of sideburns, silver hair. But I saw him speak and he has a book. This is the sports professor, Rick Horo. Yeah, yeah. He's written Beyond the Scoreboard, when the game is on the line.

When the game is on the line. and the Sport Business Handbook, Forward by Mike Shoshchevsky. So I'm pretty sure that if you read when the game is on the line, and by the way, if you read the book, it's his game. He's the one with the football with the game on the line in that story, right? Subhead, from the man who brought the heat to Miami and the Browns back to Cleveland, comma, an inside look at the high-stakes world of sports deal-making. So there was a decade or so when he was the guy to get a stadium built with public finance.

And if you read that book and you look at the numbers, which I did 15 years ago, whenever it was, he brought in taxpayer money into the NBA. Over that decade, the NBA didn't have any other revenue stream that was close. Ticket sales and TV revenue, like, no, no, no. The biggest source of income for a big chunk of time was taxpayer dollars.

Right. So, like, it's the big thing. It's not the little side thing. It's the big thing. Right? So this is from his About page on LinkedIn. As CEO of Horo Sports Ventures, Rick Horo has been the architect of 100-plus deals

worth more than $20 billion. There you go. In sports, performing arts, and other urban infrastructure projects, Horo pioneered the public-private partnership. Yeah. And infrastructure branding concepts that to date has enticed more than $4 billion in corporate funding

to cities and development projects. But it's all to say, and I am so glad we're having this conversation, I was not prepared for this. But I am now seeing that the public-private partnership started somewhere, and this guy is saying, you should thank me.

So hats off to Steve Balmer for building that stadium in L.A. with his own money, that's great. But what's happening in Rhode Island is a classic case of junior Rick Horo action, right? Where first they're going to get taxpayer money for the affordable housing component of their deal. Only private money to build the stadium. Only private money.

Again, this is a guy who's gone, this guy Brett Johnson goes to 10 million meetings just with love bomb, right? Just great news for everyone. And then as it unfolds, there's a pandemic and things get tight. and now we need all that money just for the stadium and we don't have any affordable housing.

And even then, it's iffy, if it's going to pass, Rhode Island has a housing shortage, this guy's not solving it, and then everyone goes to a Clippers game together. Spoiler alert. It winds up privately funded into a dome with the governor of Rhode Island and Brett Johnson, the head of the stadium buildout deal.

And by the way, on the hook now is the state of Rhode Island over the next three decades for $116 million dollars. In public money, that's what the deal was. You guys don't need to pay for this. Surprise, you're paying for this. I know another guy who I think he would appreciate me not saying his name now,

but he's a very, very plugged-in sports lawyer who went on to become a team executive. And at one point, I was like, what's the deal with these, like, it's just so hard to get a stadium built. And they go to all these meetings, blah, blah. And I was like, it's so much work. And he was like, well, like, you know, privately, like, you can get really rich doing this. So explain how. That's what I said. And, you know, we're in some old cafe and some airport or whatever.

And he's basically like, well, you know, there's some tax advantages that are underappreciated. And there's like, you know, being involved in the real estate component and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, like, you know, and I don't really understand it, but I'll tell you that that guy now did lead a stadium project in a major American city and he's fucking rich. And like, so I just will accept that that's part of it. So this is a story about a second tier professional soccer team in Rhode Island in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This does not seem like a cash machine. But when you realize that the actual sales pitch that Brett Johnson made to the state of Rhode Island, and one might presume was making to his investors, and in fact, we have him on tape making this pitch in public, which is, this is not

just a stadium deal. This is housing. This is jobs. This is the entertainment. I'll quote from Rick Horro's bio that we just had. This is the urban infrastructure. and, quote, performing arts and convention centers and schools and libraries and transit projects and tourist destinations. It is revitalizing a downtroddened American city like Pawtucket.

And so the whole notion is Brett Johnson is saying, this can be a billion dollar development. And he says it. Yeah. And so the money... It gives me 30 million.

Somehow a billion will appear. Well, and the upside that we can all share in is in the real estate. And so when the question is asked, like, so how do people really make money off of this, it's in everything in that package deal. I don't know what's happening here.

I'm learning from listening to your show, right? But the question that occurs to me while listening was, if you were Steve Bomber, and if you had a handshake deal with Kauai and Uncle Dennis to pay them more than the salary cap would allow, like, and if aspiration went out of business, so that mechanism was closed. And you had to now figure out, okay, we want Kauai Liner to take a sub-max extension. Right. He's feeling owed, presumably, all the money. that was supposed to come to him from the now out of business aspiration,

and he takes less than he could, right? Somebody, I'm, you know, boardman gets paid, right? Take all of our reporting about capture convention out of it. You have a deal in which this dude was introduced to this sponsor, the team founding sponsor of the Intuit Thome, and they could not pay him what he was owed. And so now he has to figure out, okay, I'm going to re-up with you guys and give you a discount now.

And along this timeline, the week before he signs the extension are the RIFC LLCs. Yeah, yeah. And so now just like hypothetical, I mean, if I go to some high-end lawyer and say, hey, you know, I'm very wealthy, is there any way I can funnel some money untraceably into this real estate project in Rhode Island? Like, I think there are a lot of ways. You know, I don't, I'm not saying that's what's happening. I'm just saying that like it presents a vehicle, right? Like, you need a bunch of, we've all seen the like Ozark or whatever. you know, money laundering thing, right?

We got all the LLCs and everything in place, right? We unfortunately, here, a Pablo Torre finds out, are not discovering how to funnel money for the first time. Right. We are trying to look at what is possible given various truly time-worn practices. Yeah.

And saying to ourselves, when would the signed confession show up? Yeah, that's not part of it. It's never part of it. I just think it's really important to not infantilize literally the richest people on the planet who are the best at making money such that they would not be aware of how to avoid leaving a signed confession for something that they know they should not be doing. It's not even part of it. Like, it's never going to be part of it. Like, it's not how the law works.

You don't only break the law if you signed a confession that you broke the law. It has nothing to do with it. Sitting in that chair once upon a time was the former federal prosecutor who launched the aspiration investigation that led to the sentencing and the conviction of Joe Sandberg, the same, as I always say, I'm like a wind-up toy at this point, the same investigation that had a roadmap initially provided by the two whistleblowers who alleged caps or convention, Kauai Leonard, and aspiration in the spring of 2023. And what Lou Manzo said to me was, in a real court of law, you often don't have the signed confession. You have, though, the ability to convict based on mountains of circumstantial evidence, otherwise known in the real world as evidence.

So I know that it's easy for this group of lawyers that work for billionaires, which is what the NBA is, right? To just tell a story, right? To CYA. And in that, I am happy to tell you, I will not believe their version of events here unless they have to tell me what did happen. Why did Steve Bomber's college roommate

invest in aspiration so far after the fact? Like, why do Kauai and his agent and his uncle have these LLCs with this Rhode Island football club? Like, I don't want just a negative version of events. I want to pop, like, what really happened? Get somebody on the mic NBA who can explain like, oh my God, I'll never forget the day that I got the opportunity to invest in the Rhode Island Football Club. It's like, fuck you, that didn't happen.

You are, I don't buy it. Like, yeah. It's also that when the Clippers say initially in response of reporting, this is provably false. Go on then. Please, it's been a year. Yeah, you got nothing. Why isn't it being proven or leaked? Where is your anti-smoking gun? So I should explain, and I've done a bad job of like truly fully giving you your fair do here. You were one of the original NBA internet journalists. I think I was the 12th blogger. 12th NBA blogger. You're like that weird rat that was there with the dinosaurs.

It's like, where is that mammal there? And Jay Skeets was like maybe number 10. Yes. Yeah. And you grew up loving the Blazers? I did. Yeah. And so as a proprietor of True Hoop,

I know that you have been a Blazers fan for a really long time. But only now in this news cycle, have I been thinking of that part of your bio? It's kind of a bummer. As relevant to this conversation. It is. It is. Yeah, so you nicely reminded me as we were sitting down that I wrote a thing, kind of a sunny thing

about Tom Dundon's arrival, and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'll remind you. Okay, good. Let's marinate in that for a while. Well, for people who think that Henry Abbott is just the most cynical person you will ever meet and is defaulting to assuming the worst in every billionaire, Here is a post on True Hoop, which is a fantastic newsletter you should subscribe to. Quote, it's hard to know who'll make a good NBA billionaire subhead, but people will like working for Tom Dunden.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever written. People won't work for them. August 13, 2025. And so this is at the outset of Dundon's introduction into this boardroom of billionaires. Yeah. My inner little, like, three-year-old is, like, filling up balloons for a party. You know, we're just like, it's going to be so fun. And, like, it's not fun. Why did you think that? I just looked at all this stuff from his hockey days. You know, he was someone who was on video talking about,

we want to reduce the time from when you park your car to when you get to the bathroom, to when you get to your seat. I never, I didn't grow up, set out, or intend to be in this position. So I want everybody to understand how I know how lucky I am. It's the responsibility to make sure fans and the community are proud of what we do. And like I say, part of that's winning, but it's also how you treat your fans, how long it takes to get in the building,

what the food tastes like. All these things are important, and I probably think about them more than most, and we won't stop thinking about it ever. We will continue to try to make the experience here great while we're expecting to win, and hopefully you'll see that over time. Also, he seemed amazing,

at letting the basketball things, and he's kind of awshucks. He's got a really good, some people use their southern twang in a way that makes you love them, you know, A plus work for top of the time. You fell for the folksiness. I did a bit. Oh, boy. I did a bit. Yeah.

But, and also maybe for the Stanley Cup. This year, he just won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricane. Unfortunately, he hadn't when I wrote that shit. But that's very kind of do. Some parts have aged fantastically. And then he engraved his entire family's name on this. That was so funny. Sometimes, sometimes when you search for supporting evidence,

you don't need to do better than the literal championship trophy, and we'll show a photo of it here. But he had, at the very top, him and his family's names above everyone else. That's all I need to know. The kids are there. Actually, to be honest, the first time I got nervous was there was a little video of him having newly purchased the Blazers wearing headphones and shooting around on their stadium court.

I know the Mark Cuban does this. I know it's not, but I'm like... Robert Perra. Do you know how many gyms there are in Portland? And that wouldn't be interfering with your team of super high achieving professionals who could probably use that court? You know, I just like, it's a d-de-mov.

That's why you buy it, though. So you can urinate on it. This is your trophy. This is your court. This is your asset. This is like Joe Lacob taking the trophy into his bed. Did that actually happen? He bragged about it.

Yeah. Did Joe Laco? fuck the lari. That's not what I said. That's not what I said. That's not showing up. I'm not fact checking. Oh, no, here we go.

Here we go. Joe Lacob told hot living in 2015 that he made a promise to himself to sleep with the trophy, adding, quote, Nicole and I did sleep with it. So, you know. And now, okay, and Steph Curry. That's his longtime fiancee at the time.

At the moment of that, Steph Curry was famously underpaid. did do the work to earn that trophy and is devoutly Christian. Like, you think he wants like a leg of Bs on his? Alleged. Barely hypothetical,

perhaps simply figurative. Yeah. No, but this is, but it's in line with bad people. Well, these, it's in line with billionaires by team,

billionaires hold trophy first. Right? Every ceremony. Yeah. Jim Dolan, we saw that. Just in June. Yeah. Adam hands the trophy to the owner.

And everyone stands around, and then they wait for it to be passed to them so they can figuratively engrave their names. It's a myth. I mean, it's a myth. Like, it's just a, you know, Mark Cuban, God bless him. He went on a roadshow and pumped up the value of this broadcast.com thing.

Found some suckers at Yahoo. They shut it down within a year. That's the reason that he owns the Dallas Mavericks. It's the only reason. Broadcast.com. He's good at anything else. He did that. that one time, and he was an un-he's openly talking,

he was an uncool guy, he didn't get to invite, he didn't get invited to the cool parties, and then he did this, and now he gets to be on Shark Tank, and he gets invited to the cool parties. As a master of business. As a master of business. And podcast guest on this very show. And someone who actually, I've had a sideline argument with him about your show.

I love arguing with Mark about my show. Yeah, that's the best. But yeah, he gets the trophy. To me, he hasn't earned it. Maybe there was once a world where none of those. would happen without Mark. But I'm like, no, they are in line to replace Mark. In fact, they got another one.

They already did for the Mavericks, right? So this is interesting because it brings us back to Tom Dunden. Yeah. Because in sports, of course, there's this notion, there's this analytic, this statistic, value over a replacement player. Yeah. And it's like, what happens if you sub in the next guy? And for Steph Curry, enormous Delta.

Yeah. Like really hard to replace Steph Curry. Yeah. But the question of, like, Tom Dundon's Voro? Value over replacement owner? Okay.

I do want to explain who he is. Yeah. How would you explain Tom Dundon's general deal heading into all of this? The reason he's a billionaire is because of like subprime auto lending. Yeah. That's, that seems like the repo man kind of thing, right?

The NBA has done this thing recently where Mattisbia comes in. Yeah. And by the way, these guys need to be voted in, approved. This is like kind of one of the most important things the league office and the board of governors do. Is who gets to join us in here. And they've chosen in Madish be a America's mortgage king. And also in Dundon, yes, a subprime car loan guy.

Yeah. And the reason, I mean, like, how do you win at that? It's like, well, you win by getting people who can barely afford cars to pay you a little more than they would the other guy. that's nasty business. When I put it like that, it's not great. I'm a little worried about it. But he seems very nice.

He's got the twang. Your Honor, he's got the twang. It's all relative. I mean, a kind of deeply personal, honest part of this is like I do love sports, and I love athletes and, like, all the work that goes into it, I don't take for granted.

And I think that I want the league, part of the reason I'm animated here is because I want the league to be a safe place for Steph Curry to depose. his best work and feel like it's going to be well taken care of. Yes. My business partner troop is David Thorpe, who personally trains a really outstanding

list of NBA players. Big names that you know, they call him every day. Thorpe is, again, an OG trainer. Depending on you ask, he maybe kind of founded this like pro players having their own person. He is the Henry Abbott of private basketball training. He has a lot better head of hair than I do. But, you know, so I have firsthand reports from Thorpe of just the earnest personal effort of just, you know how many things you have to not go to to be an elite athlete?

Like, you have to just love this game. Most of them now don't have a single sip of alcohol all season. Like, it used to be that have a beer. No, it's just the game's too hard. And so to me, the thing I'm already aware of is that for many of them, the biggest limitation in their career is that their team is very poorly run. Just their team, the typical, the spurs are an exception, the thunder's an exception. I guess the Knicks now are an exception.

But mostly, like, the reason Victor Muboniyama signs for less. in the Max is because he would hate to play for the Pelicans. His whole life would suck, right? Because they're just mostly, they're very poorly run organizations. And so this is what we have. This is the product of these kind of 30 God kings that vote each other in and police each other through Wachtel Lipton, right? And they just, they just fuck around.

And they have sex with a trophy. Like, you know, like, it's not a professionally run thing. Like, if you were merely... I can't decide as Sam Presti is seen as like an absolute wizard genius, right? Running the thunder. Running the thunder. I can't decide if he really is or just the only one that's run like a regular business. Well, but this is where it's interesting because how a regular business is run is also something that over time one should be cynical about.

I have been generally unimpressed by the how when it comes to how did people get rid of. How are they maintaining their wealth? How is it that sports is shooting up in value? Like, what did you guys do to profit from one of the few green arrows that we have left in the U.S. economy? Yeah. And, well, it's because, spoiler alert, you have a fan base that loves it so much that the demand seems inelastic. Like, you can do anything. Out of their own pockets comes taxpayer money to keep.

a building, hopefully, like the modus center, in all of its dustiness in Portland. Right? And so you have Tom Dundon, the subprime car loan guy that, and I should say this too, according to ProPublica, this was after you wrote that post, in fairness to you. But in 2026 in March, ProPublica reports that internal documents revealed

that as CEO of Santander Consumer USA in 2013, Dundon pushed to drop proof of income requirements on subprime car loans to drive loan volume. And Santander charged higher fees to offset those risks. The default rates, as you alluded to, went up, repossessions went up,

and the practice led to a settlement, this multi-state settlement, with state attorneys general, organs included in 2020, to the tune of $550 million. And Dundon, for the record, did not respond to ProPublicas written questions, their reporting, the summaries thereof,

the copies of internal email sent to his investment firm, PR staff, or legal counsel, Republica, again, a masterful journalistic entity that thrives given documentation. But historically, he has defended subprime car loan strategy in media interviews. After he left Santander consumer in 2015, this is after all of this stuff was being alleged. He told the Dallas Morning News that his business provided essential access to transportation for people overlooked by traditional banks, stating, quote, just because someone has bad credit doesn't mean they are a bad person. end quote.

And so we are back to the language of we're the good guys. Finance is really backwards right now. It's really dirty. There aren't... I asked a friend of mine who works in finance, like, who are the players who are bragging about being clean?

Like, to me, it's kind of like doping. In track and field, there's a clean movement in that sport. Is there a clean movement in banking? And he was like, he's like, I don't even understand what you're talking about. He was like, if legal signs off,

like, you're good. And I'm like... And, you know, I don't... want to impugn Balmer, but like, if we're asking ourselves, like, you know, is it possible Balmer's aware of the seamedier side of finance? You know, he's just this guy who just has Microsoft stock, right? It's like an honest way to make it. Do we not remember what Microsoft is or was?

But, like, the thing I'm obsessed with, and this is like, I'm forcing into the conversation here improperly because I want everyone to know, like, A, B, B. B. B. B. Crongard was the banker who took Microsoft public. He was a weird choice, but he's the one. He's the guy who made them. super duper rich. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, this is where they made their money.

And then, boy, two out of three of them had really incredible connections to Epstein, while A, B, B, B, Buzzy Crongard went to be A, the number three at the CIA, and then he went on the board of Apollo Global. And when Apollo Global founder, Leon Black, was Jeffrey Epstein's greatest source of income. So to me, like, that's how even Balmer,

who's generally seen as like the kind of cleanest billionaire, the cleanest path to the billions, even he has this guy hanging over his first big dollar. And I'm like, I don't think you can make a case there's a single billionaire, even though I tried last summer, who's like the good guy, right? It's like, I think to get that amount of money, I've yet to see a case of you just ran a really good business

that had great R.O.I. Well, it's interesting because we can go to Bill Gates. Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation, which has done real important work over time, helping address malaria and global disease all across this planet, right? It will maybe not shock you if you've been following at all the Jeffrey Epstein news cycle to learn that Bill Gates is up in that. A lot. A lot to the point of having to then apologize to the employees of the Gates Foundation

slash clarify, this is why I'm in these photos, this is nothing to see here, but I am embarrassed by my associations. And Melinda, on the record, saying it's a part of the reason for their divorce. And as a related matter, perhaps, his first appearance after the Epstein Files News cycle is sitting in between Steve Balmer and Dennis Wong at a clipper game, court side. What's going on with the Clippers? Went to Harvard guys hanging out. But this is all to say that Bill Gates was the paragon of the good billionaire because he was giving away all his money. Yeah.

And helping others. And in the background, there is all of this context. And so I am not saying that there aren't billionaires who want to do good things. What I am saying is that everything I have learned by studying finance and sports and meeting these people and trying to pressure test my own cynicism, it leads me to understand that the game that they win is set up for the public interest to be diminished. to their benefit. And this is not the product of any one individual

who designed it that way, but it is certainly a system that has been supported by all of the people who have profited from it. And that's where it's like, yeah, a billionaire as a concept is a hard thing to justify philosophically. And this brings us to the next question for Tom Dundon, right?

So he's threatening, effectively, I'm going to move this team out of here. And Bill Orham at the Oregonian, who's been covering this closely, one of the lines from his reporting is that Tom Dundan is a first-class bully. And again, certainly there are people in his life who really like him.

Perhaps their names are inscribed on a Stanley Cup trophy. But the point being that he sees, frankly, an asset. This heirloom is an asset that's portable. Maybe, yeah. You're not going to give me your public taxpayer money to revitalize the building that I need. Well, then I'm getting out of here. And so the question, given that Tom Dundon, has lots of money, thanks to the subprime car loan biz, is when is it enough? Right.

When is it ever, for any of these people, what does enough even look like? Either he's playing hardball with the city, which I believe could be true. still. And in that, he would have the league's backing, right? The league doesn't actually want, like, the stuff the city council president is a little bit like, hey, are sports a sensible use of our precious money? Like, that's not, that's why Seattle's been punished for these decades is because they deigned to ask that question, right?

That's what happened in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Right. They lost the Pawsox because they didn't want to give the POSAX public money for a new stadium. They do want to, like, they, you know, because of Rick Horo and his public private model, and all, you know, they do really want to publish these city council. And there's always, like, the Kansas city people are raring to go, right? There's always like this, they just have to have one more city that's willing to just dump money on an NBA team, right? And they always do.

And, you know, Dundon has a stadium in North Carolina. I have a little theory about, you know, the Mavericks. Dundon lives in Dallas. The Mavericks are owned by an organization that is headquartered in Las Vegas. There's going to be an NBA team in Las Vegas soon. This is Miriam Adelson and her. son-in-law Patrick Dumont that purchase the team.

Everyone would be happy. Famously clean sheet, by the way, don't Wikipedia be Aidelson's. Yeah, that's fine. Nothing to see there. Those are the good billionaires. But yeah, conceivably, Dunn could have a team in Dallas.

Adelson could have a team in Las Vegas and you could have a special teams in Portland and Seattle. I don't think it's going to happen, but it would be tidy for everybody if that happened. Those are good markets. But yeah, he could be playing hardball,

in which case, I could actually come around on him. If this is just a period, you know, and then we're going to win the Stanley Cup and he can put all his kids' names on it, but it's the NBA trophy. Yeah, go ahead. I'm fine with that. But I fear that in fact, it's a lot more like how

Clay Bennett wrangled the Sonics to become the Thunder. And that was all lies. It was all just stupid lies, right? It's just a perfect example of this kind of Joe Sandberg model of like, just say whatever you guys say. They get the deal done. Later we'll get the money, you know?

I do like, though, that what you try to sneak in just then is like, maybe my take isn't going to be as bad. Exactly right. We don't have all the evidence yet. In all these stories, we can wring our hands about this

is what billionaires do. This is how they operate. This is a system that props them up. And this is why the NBA needs to pretend. Like, it's not just a bunch of these guys in a room together. Yeah. Treating you, the public, as fungible. But in the end,

the only thing, I mean, it's so interesting. Like, I have been wondering, like, what is the line beyond which the NBA must change how it operates? Where is it? And it's just hard to think that there is something short of literally taking the team out of your city that they feel like they can't tolerate. Yeah. Their pain threshold feels remarkably high. Well, and you have talked a little bit about the antitrust exemption, which I think is coming into play here a little bit.

That was a brilliant episode of you guys. I loved that Demerese-Smith episode. So they negotiated between the labor and management, essentially. They didn't negotiate in the rights of the third party, which is the public. Mm-hmm. Right? And that feels, I'm going to teach a college class this fall, and I've been calling pro-sports teams to try to, like,

get the students in the sports tourism class some access to teams. Yeah. One of the teams told me that they have deals with some local universities who are sponsors of the team, and they let those undergrads go to practice. But to protect that investment, they don't let other undergrads go to practice. Right. And so I was like, out of curiosity, how much does it cost? And they're like, oh, but to me, I'm like, the fucking public trust?

You know what I mean? Like, you are milking for profit, even. Just like which 17-year-olds get to bring a microphone and go, excuse me, Mr. Leonard? You know, blah. Like, even that has been sold. No, Henry, Henry, these microphones have been reserved. I know. They're not for you.

And the players can only talk with their freaking Gatorade bottle there. You know what I mean? Like, they have milked every single, like I've peed in urinals that were the urinal sponsored in stadiums, right? Like, they have milked it. And not money's not going to the public, right? Like, these are the same people. Right now, Tom Dundan's going to the, I guess they're, you know, meeting today and saying, you know, oh, we couldn't possibly function without you guys providing X, Y, and Z.

The Portland City Council position here is, I think they speak for all of us. It's very reasonable. They're keeping an eye on the schools and the roads and the garbage collection. Right. So they should. The everyday struggling Americans that have shown up as the victims in these stories that we exhaustively try to cover. They're trying, at least right now, with the city council. meeting, it seems, to prioritize the public interest.

Or just have it. Or even acknowledge it. Make a gesture towards it. Yeah. And I feel like right now, I guess I'll take that as a win. The way this is supposed to work is that we are supposed to supply the information to the public that gets people to those meetings so that the meeting turns a little bit, right? And it's been a tough time for sports journalism, right?

and a lot of people have the time to do this kind of research. And so by and large, I think regular folks are like, well, you know, it's confusing what's happening. Everyone's mad. But I do like having the Blazers in town. Right. You know, and that's an important way to get reelected if you run city council in Portland, right?

It reminds me of like, what are the brass tax with this Kauai Leonard trade that's been frozen? Yeah. As he is in limbo between Toronto and the Clippers. Yeah. And this investigation, according to ESPN, this is on Wednesday. It may stretch into 2027 if there is a fight. If Steve Balmer says, I have the most money of anybody,

I'm going to make this so that I fight longer and harder in ways that you've never experienced before. Well, what happens if this stretches into the season and beyond? And so the brass tax, to me, as always, is like, are the fans of these teams, going to demand something. Yeah. And I guess what we are wondering, what we will find out as time goes on, is do they want the truth?

Right. Or do they want the asset? Right. Henry, thank you for reminding me how we first got to know each other and for giving me a couple of visual images that I wish I could forget. I have done my job. Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez. Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim,

Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tuminello. Studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersick, Digital Strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern, theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And we'll talk to you next time.