The Rose Garden, commonly known as the Rose Garden Arena, is the primary indoor sports arena in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is suitable for large indoor events of all sorts, including basketball, ice hockey, rodeos, circuses, conventions, ice shows, concerts, and dramatic productions. The arena has a capacity of 20,630 spectators when configured for basketball; it holds smaller crowds when configured for other events. The arena is equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics and other amenities.

It is owned by Vulcan Inc., a holding company owned by Paul Allen, and is currently managed by Global Spectrum, a company which manages sports facilities (and which also owns several sports franchises). The primary tenant is the Portland Trail Blazers NBA franchise, also owned by Allen. Several other professional sports franchises, and the Portland State University men's basketball team, either currently play home games in the Rose Garden, or have done so in the past. In addition, the Rose Garden is a popular venue for concerts and other artistic productions.

Construction on the Rose Garden began in 1993, and the arena opened on October 12, 1995. The arena cost US$262 million to build; construction was financed with funds obtained by a variety of sources, including the City of Portland, Allen's personal fortune, and $155 million in bonds issued by a consortium of mutual funds and insurance companies. These bonds would become the subject of an acrimonious 2004 bankruptcy in which the Oregon Arena Corporation, the holding company which owned the arena at the time, would forfeit title to the Rose Garden in lieu of repaying the bonds per the payment terms. Allen would later repurchase the arena from the creditors in 2007.

Notable past events

While the Rose Garden has never hosted the NBA Finals (Portland's last appearance in the Finals was in 1992, three years before the Garden opened), it has hosted two NBA Western Conference Finals series, in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, the Trail Blazers were defeated by the San Antonio Spurs; in 2000 by the Los Angeles Lakers. Both teams would go on to win the NBA championship. One NBA-related event the Rose Garden—and for that matter, the Trail Blazers franchise—has never hosted is the NBA All-Star Game. The Trail Blazers are one of several franchises to never host an All-Star game; the Blazers' All-Star drought of 37 years is second only to the Boston Celtics, who hosted the game in 1964. According to the Oregon Sports Authority, the main issue is hotel space close to the arena; the city of Portland lacks the large "headquarters" hotel needed to host the NBA and media entourage which accompanies the game.

In 2004, Portland was selected as one of five cities in the U.S. to host the Dew Action Sports Tour, a new extreme sports franchise to start in 2005. Titled the Vans Invitational, the event was held at the Rose Quarter from August 17–21. The Rose Quarter hosted BMX: Dirt and Freestyle Motocross. The Dew Action Sports will return to Portland for a third year.

In the Winter of 2005, the Rose Quarter hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, an event attended by over 100,000 spectators. The Rose Garden would later host the 2007 NLL All Star Game on March 10, 2007.

In 2009, the Rose Garden will host first- and second-round games of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. It will be the first time NCAA men's tournament games are played in the state of Oregon since 1983, though the arena did host the finals of the 2008 Big Sky Conference men's basketball tournament. The state had been under an NCAA-imposed tournament embargo due to sports betting being legal in the state (specifically, the Oregon Lottery's "Sports Action" game, a parlay game which allowed bettors to wager on NFL games), but was awarded 2009 tournament games when the state Legislature eliminated Sports Action from the lottery's lineup. In addition to sports, the arena regularly hosts numerous other types of events, including concerts, circuses, ice shows, and conventions. Portland State University holds its spring commencement ceremonies at the arena.

Notable non-sports related events include the 1998 Portland State commencement ceremony, where the keynote speaker was then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The President, speaking before a packed house in the Garden (including a graduating class of 2000), gave a speech embracing immigration to the United States, and was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the university. On June 27, 2000, a Roger Waters concert at the Rose Garden became the basis for the concert video In the Flesh: Live.

The Rose Garden hosted WWE Unforgiven 2004 and WWE No Mercy 2008.

Oregon Arena Corporation bankruptcy

Claiming the local economy was responsible for reduced revenues which made it unable to make payments on the loans used to finance Rose Garden Construction, the Oregon Arena Corporation filed for bankruptcy on February 27, 2004. After negotiations concurrent with the bankruptcy failed to produce a settlement, the United States Bankruptcy Court ordered on November 8 of that year that the Oregon Arena Corporation transfer the Rose Garden to the creditors. A new corporation owned by the creditors, Portland Arena Management (PAM) took over operation of the Rose Garden.[5] PAM in turn hired Global Spectrum to operate the arena. For several years, the Trail Blazers (still owned by Allen) and the Portland Arena Management had a highly hostile relationship,[54] with the two entities competing for ticket sales.

The team made numerous complaints about a "broken economic model", and there was much speculation that the Trail Blazers might leave. The team was put up for sale in the summer of 2006, only to be taken off the market again several months later. Speculation intensified as to what would happen, and the team and Paul Allen were roundly criticized in the media. Despite the criticism and the team's poor finances the team insisted that bankruptcy was the right move.

Early in 2007, Allen and the creditors reached an agreement for Allen to repurchase the arena, and the team and the building were united under common ownership once more. After much speculation that Allen would hire Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) to replace Global Spectrum, arena management elected to extend Global Spectrum's management contract by one year in the summer of 2007. In September 2007, Global Spectrum announced that the arena would undergo US$13 million in renovations.