Blazers Hire Dewayne Hankins As VP Of Marketing

The Portland Trail Blazers have hired former AEG Sports executive Dewayne Hankins as their new VP of Marketing.

Hankins handled digital strategy for the National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings and Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy. He was one of two voices behind the Kings' Twitter account, which earned attention and praise for its snarkiness. A Deadspin.com rundown of their success is here.

Earlier this month, Portland Trail Blazers president Chris McGowan, also an AEG alum, said that his new team's websites would be re-done.

"I'm not happy with any of our websites," he says."I'm more of a fundamentals as opposed to a flash guy. Over the next six months, we'll redesign, relaunch and hopefully make our websites more functional for fans."

Last fall, the Blazers' former Senior Vice President of Tickets and Marketing was one of the executives included in McGowan's first round of layoffs.

That first round of layoffs followed the resignation of former COO Sarah Mensah in November, the resignation of top lawyer, Mike Fennell in October, the resignation of former president Larry Miller in July 2012, and the resignation of Senior VP J.E. Isaac in June 2011. There was a second round of layoffs in January.

Image via @DewayneHankins

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter