Trail Blazers Give Travis Demers a Trial Run as TV Voice After the Braiden Bell Firing

The Portland Trail Blazers announced Braiden Bell as their new television play-by-play announcer on Thursday morning and fired him the same day, after a Portland reporter uncovered offensive tweets Bell wrote at age 15. Bell has now apologized, saying the posts were written 14 years ago and do not reflect who he is today, while the team has admitted its own hiring process failed, EssentiallySports reports.

Update, October 6: Bell has asked for the job back, and Portland has refused. Through his lawyer, Bell asked the club to reconsider and proposed community and educational outreach work; the Trail Blazers answered that they stand by last week’s statement. The new section at the end of this article has the details.

Update, October 14: Portland has its replacement, for now. Travis Demers, the club’s radio voice for seven seasons, will call the television games on a trial basis from the season opener. The new section at the end of this article has the arrangement and what it leaves open.

What happened on the day Bell was hired and fired?

The appointment lasted hours. Portland named the 29-year-old as the replacement for longtime voice Kevin Calabro on Thursday, with team president Dewayne Hankins praising his energy and fit for the franchise’s next chapter, Sporting News reports.

Then KGW reporter Devon Haskins, who had found the old posts on the X account Bell still uses, asked the club for comment. By later on Thursday the team had reversed itself entirely: the posts were “in clear violation of team and league policies,” the statement said, “therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster,” Reuters via Field Level Media reports. Bell made his X account private and had not commented at that point.

What was in the posts that cost Bell the job?

They dated to late 2012 and early 2013, when Bell was a 15-year-old in high school. The posts used derogatory names for women and included an insult aimed at Asians in a tweet that also described Bell himself as not racist, Reuters via Field Level Media reports.

Two details have shaped the reaction since. The posts sat on the same account Bell uses professionally as an adult, which is how a local reporter found them within hours of the announcement. And KGW’s own search found no similar offensive posts from Bell’s adult years, EssentiallySports reports, which is why the debate has split between the team’s zero-tolerance line and the question of what a vetting process is supposed to catch. It played out like a flagrant foul review: the contact was years old, but the ruling was made on what the replay showed today.

What did Bell say in his apology?

He took ownership of the words and pointed at their age. “I am deeply sorry for the language that I used on Twitter,” Bell said in a statement on X, via EssentiallySports. “These tweets, while wrong, were written by me 14 years ago while I was only 15 years old and have no reflection of who I am today.”

He added that he regretted the posts being his first impression on Rip City and apologised to anyone hurt by them. The apology is the reason this story is still moving days later: a same-day hire-and-fire is a one-day embarrassment, but a 29-year-old answering publicly for posts from age 15, against a team that has confessed its own failure, has kept the argument running through the preseason, in the same week the league’s new push-off emphasis produced its first call and broadcast voices explaining referee signals became part of the product Portland is now scrambling to staff.

What did the Trail Blazers admit about their hiring process?

That the failure was partly theirs. Alongside the zero-tolerance statement, the franchise said: “We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City,” Reuters via Field Level Media reports.

The context makes the admission sharper. Calabro, the voice since 2016, left in July after what Sporting News calls a derisory extension offer, so the search that produced Bell was already a sensitive one for the fanbase. Bell’s own path ran through Arizona State, Cal Baptist, the Phoenix Mercury and the Valley Suns, with an FS1 football debut last fall: a rising broadcaster, hired for the biggest job of his career and gone before he called a single game, closer to a 10-day contract that ended by lunch than to a normal appointment.

What happens next for Portland’s broadcast booth?

A second search, on a deadline. Portland opens the season at home against the Phoenix Suns on October 21, Field Level Media reports, and the play-by-play chair is the most public-facing job in the franchise outside the roster.

The team’s own statement promised the next broadcaster would reflect its values and that it would “do better.” Whether that means a veteran hire, an interim voice or a fuller public explanation of the vetting, the replacement announcement is the follow-up this story is waiting on, and it has to land within three weeks.

What did Bell’s lawyer ask for, and how did Portland answer?

A second chance, formally requested and formally declined. Bell’s lawyer Arnie Herz issued a statement on Monday night asking whether a boy’s words from 14 years ago should outweigh everything the man has done since, arguing that accountability means owning what you did and showing who you have become, Reuters via Field Level Media reports. Herz also said Bell had proposed educational and community outreach, including work with Asian American and Pacific Islander groups and organizations supporting women and girls in sports, Hoops Wire reports.

Portland’s answer, given to The Athletic, was one sentence of closure: the club stands by its statement from last week and wishes Bell the best, Hoops Wire reports. Hiring counsel gave Bell a formal channel to ask; it did not produce a lawsuit, and the club has shown no sign of reversing itself. The booth search, not the reinstatement bid, is now the live thread.

Who has Portland chosen as its television voice?

Travis Demers, the familiar voice from one floor up. Demers has called Portland’s games on radio for the past seven seasons and will now take over the television play-by-play on a trial basis, according to Joe Freeman of The Oregonian, whose reporting the New York Post, Hoops Wire, Sports Illustrated and Larry Brown Sports all carried on Wednesday. He works alongside analyst Lamar Hurd and courtside reporter Brooke Olzendam, and the arrangement will be judged game by game, Hoops Wire reports. Demers had already passed the only audition that mattered: pressed into the television booth for last week’s preseason opener against Golden State, the same game this article’s saga was unfolding around, he impressed the decision-makers, the New York Post reports.

The trial terms are the story inside the story. Portland is not making a long-term commitment: Demers can hold the job all season, but the club may also bring in another announcer for four or five games to evaluate other options and give him a break, Hoops Wire reports. The club had considered veteran Kyle Draper, one of the 10 candidates Bell beat in the original search, the New York Post reports, and chose the internal voice on probation instead. It is an understandable landing spot after a month in which the broadcast booth produced more news than the team: Kevin Calabro left in July and has since joined Minnesota, Hoops Wire reports, his replacement was fired within a day, and the replacement’s replacement now starts the season, on October 21 against Phoenix, knowing the seat is his to lose one game at a time. Bell’s own dispute is not settled by any of this. His lawyer has said the firing could carry significant financial consequences for the club, Hoops Wire reports, and that argument continues in the background while Demers calls the games.