page_title: History of the Portland Trail Blazers
section_title: Background and franchise opening
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Portland Trail Blazers / Background and franchise opening
caption_attribution_description: The Memorial Coliseum (renamed Veterans Memorial Coliseum in 2011), in Portland, Oregon, viewed from the north, from the stairway of the east parking garage. The 1960 building is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
context_page_description: The Portland Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team in the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association. The Trail Blazers are currently celebrating their 50th NBA season. The franchise owner is Jody Allen, who assumed ownership upon the death of her brother Microsoft co-founder and Vulcan Inc. chairman Paul Allen, in 2018.
  The Trail Blazers' rallying cry is "Rip City", coined by play-by-play announcer Bill Schonely during their inaugural season. The team holds the NBA record for most consecutive sell-out games - set between April 9, 1977, and November 16, 1995.
  The Trail Blazers have retired several players jerseys, including Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members Clyde Drexler and Bill Walton. Jack Ramsay, who was the Trail Blazers head coach from 1976 to 1986, had the number 77 retired in honor of Portland's only NBA Finals victory in 1977. Portland has had four NBA Rookies of the Year; Geoff Petrie, Sidney Wicks, Brandon Roy and Damian Lillard. The only NBA Most Valuable Player that earned the award as a member of the Trail Blazers was Bill Walton in 1978.
context_section_description: Harry Glickman got interested in creating an NBA team in his hometown of Portland, Oregon as soon as the Memorial Coliseum was opened in 1960. The league commissioner at the time, Maurice Podoloff, refused on the grounds that Oregon was too far. Given that in the 1960s new commissioner J. Walter Kennedy expanded the league into the West, on February 6, 1970, the NBA board of governors granted Portland – along with Buffalo and Cleveland – the rights to a franchise in return for a $3.7 million admission. Glickman got the money from real estate magnates Robert Schmertz of New Jersey, Larry Weinberg of Los Angeles and Herman Sarkowsky of Seattle – who was recommended by Dick Vertlieb, then general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics.
caption: Veterans Memorial Coliseum was the Trail Blazers home court from 1970 to 1995.
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