Nike’s Knight, Dodgers co-owner offer more than $2B for Blazers

Phil Knight, co-founder of athletic apparel company Nike, and Alan Smolinisky, an entrepreneur and part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, have submitted a bid to purchase the NBA’S Portland Trail Blazers, according to people familiar with their bid.

The offer from Knight and Smolinisky to purchase the Blazers is more than $2 billion and was submitted in recent weeks, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the offer was private.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Blazers said: “An offer was made by Phil Knight. The team remains not for sale.”

The Blazers are owned by a trust controlled by the family of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who died in 2018. Knight and Smolinisky have been in conversations with Jody Allen, Paul Allen’s sister and chair of the trust, about a potential deal in recent weeks, the people said.

The trust also owns the NFL’S Seattle Seahawks.

How close the parties might be to an agreement was unclear.

Paul Allen purchased the Blazers in 1988 for $70 million.

Jody Allen did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Knight, 84, who cofounded Nike in 1964, has long been Oregon’s richest person and has a net worth in the tens of billions of dollars. He is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Nike but remains on the company’s board. Despite his deep involvement in sports, Knight has never owned a team, and in 2011 he even told a reporter that he specifically was not interested in owning the Blazers.

Knight’s involvement could suggest that there are no plans to relocate the Blazers from Portland, Ore., as has been suggested over the years.

Smolinisky, a real estate entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, joined the Dodgers ownership group in 2019.