Tom Dundon is bringing his Carolina Hurricanes playbook to the Trail Blazers, and Portland just saw a brutal round of layoffs hit their broadcast team. On Tuesday, the organization slashed the majority of its familiar voices, including analyst Michael Holton, who had been with the Blazers for nearly two decades. This isn’t just about cuts, it’s about a complete overhaul, and it’s happening fast.
Longtime Voices Silenced as Dundon Reshapes the Broadcast
The shake-up hit hard. Beyond Holton, hosts Neil Everett and Jamie Hudson are gone, along with analytics expert Tom Haberstroh, a prominent writer with a statistical bent who even ran a popular Substack. Everett, a Portland native, had been a fixture on Blazers broadcasts from 2021 to 2025 after a massive 23-year run at ESPN, anchoring *SportsCenter* for 12 of those years. This news, first reported by Forbes, comes after the organization already laid off dozens of employees back in May, just two months after Dundon bought the team from Paul Allen’s estate in March. And get this: the status of the team’s TV and radio play-by-play announcers, Kevin Calabro and Travis Demers, respectively, is still up in the air, with their contracts also reportedly up for renewal.
The “Hurricanes Playbook” Means Controversial Moves
This isn’t some new strategy from Dundon. He pulled the exact same moves after buying the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes in 2018 for $420 million. He laid off a huge number of staffers, including their broadcast team, and then hired a coach, Rod Brind’Amour, at a sub-market rate, paying him less than $2 million annually before a new deal in 2024. Now, the Blazers are seeing the same pattern unfold. They hired Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori in June to replace Tiago Splitter as head coach, and Nori signed a three-year contract that immediately drew fire. The last two years of Nori’s deal aren’t even guaranteed! J.B. Bickerstaff, the head of the National Basketball Coaches Association, did not hold back. He called the contract “a slap in the face,” telling ESPN, “I feel like he was put in a situation that he shouldn’t be put in with having to make a choice of this nature because of the structure of what the contract is.” He added, “It’s unfortunate that you have a dream, and from our perspective, it’s like someone’s taking advantage of your dream and devaluing what we feel like coaches have earned over the years.” That’s strong stuff!
What’s Next for the Blazers? Think Simulcasts and Remote Games
To Dundon’s credit, his aggressive approach actually worked out for the Hurricanes. They became an NHL powerhouse, winning their first Stanley Cup title under him in June, defeating the Golden Knights in six games after three previous conference finals losses. So, he’s got a championship to back up his methods. But he’s clearly not done applying that playbook in Oregon. Forbes reported that the Trail Blazers could shift to a TV/radio simulcast and even remote broadcasts for road games. Right now, no other NBA team uses its TV broadcast as a radio simulcast, and only the Raptors do remote radio road broadcasts. Guess who’s been doing simulcasts for years? Yep, the Hurricanes. Portland is seeing changes nobody expected, and it feels like the hard decisions are far from over.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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