Salt Lake City: SERIOUS Push for MLB, NHL to Utah

Salt Lake City: SERIOUS Push for MLB, NHL to Utah

Here’s Brody Brazil you know this is kind of a crazy part of life I’ll go back four weeks ago let’s just say New Year’s Day 2024 I had no clue that back then I’d soon be doing a state of pro sports in the state of Utah

Video but here we are and for very good reason right now there seems to be a huge coordinated push to get more pro sports teams and leagues to Salt Lake City and I fully realize that’s not Salt Lake City that’s just the most beautiful Utah

Image I could come up with on Google so I put it here on the presentation let’s begin like this within the last two weeks this is when things have really picked up and I say this respectfully in my mind Salt Lake City has gone from a sleepy Sports Town

To a place where a major league baseball team made an official visit to check things out and there was an ownership group in Salt Lake City that made an official expansion request to the National Hockey League let me go back to that sleepy Sports Town comment for just

A second I realize some of you are watching this from Salt Lake City you might find that offensive like you’re not a good sports town or a big Sports town it’s not that it’s just that the Jazz have been the main thing certainly not the only thing we’ll get to that in

Just a second but it seemed like the scene in Utah and Salt Lake City was rather settled and I understand that there’s been popular growth and more people and more interest and more business and more possibilities and opportunities but you just didn’t hear a lot from Salt Lake City like you have in

The last two weeks and like I said the A’s visit up there and their official request to the NHL kind of coinciding with what’s going on with the Arizona Coyotes more on that in a second they seem to be capitalizing on certain opportunities and and making their voice

Heard but again Salt Lake City has never been just the Jazz a couple other franchises that are relatively new but some that have been around for quite some time Real Salt Lake of MLS real monarchs of MLS next pro league the Salt Lake Bees of minor league baseball the

Salt Lake City Stars they’re in the G League of the National Basketball Association and the East Coast hockey leagues Utah Grizzly so not even college sports but just at the professional ranks they’re actually pretty well covered in addition to the Utah Jazz which have obviously been around for

Multiple decades and that name Jazz no it never fit they came from New Orleans but they kept the name so this wouldn’t be the first time that maybe Salt Lake City would benefit from the relocation of an outside team yeah it’s not just the Jazz let’s be very clear when I said

Sleepy before I just meant that not much was on the radar but now it is in large part thanks to these two big big groups the Larry H Miller Group which includes former jazz owners they own car dealerships they have a restaurant and entertainment complex they run an

Advertising agency they’ve got a TV station this is a big Endeavor let’s say the Larry H Miller group they’re also the big ones behind the development of Daybreak which is where that new Salt Lake Bees Minor League Stadium is going to go that the A’s were actually touring it’s supposed

To open in 2025 so the Larry H Miller group wheen and Dean in Salt Lake City and then there’s also the Smith Entertainment Group Ryan Smith and his wife are the ones behind that uh Ryan sold qual Trix with his family to sap I think a handful of years ago for like8

Billion doll in cash Ryan went on to go buy the Jazz and Delta Center and Real Salt Lake that Smith Entertainment Group also runs a Media Group including a radio network etc etc so those two groups alone and by the way the Smith Entertainment Group bought the Jazz from

The Larry H Miller group so there is some familiarity there and some connections these aren’t necessarily as far as I can understand they’re not competing groups those are collaborating groups so you put their efforts and their resources together and you certainly understand what they’re capable of in Salt Lake City it’s also a

Town that is very much hoping to get the Winter Olympics back for 2034 they had it in the early 2000s and this according to the Salt Lake City Tribune the Olympics are coming back as Salt Lake City has been named the preferred host for the 2034 Winter Games

The sub headline says much would have to go wrong for the Olympics not to come to Utah after the Olympic Committee announcement again obviously that has not been finalized but they’re a front runner you’d have to think from North America or the United States that Salt Lake City could be adding the 2034

Winner games and that means by the way that there has to be a huge buildup of infrastructure and more venues and facilities and right now it’s the Delta Center that hosts the NBA they could temporarily take in a new NHL team whether it’s expansion or relocation and obviously there’s space and land and

Resources to go build other venues baseball’s not in the Winter Olympics but you understand my point they would have to expand their facilities and the way to do that is by adding some Pro Sports teams if they really are serious about taking on the 2034 Winter Games

And there’s a group up there that is specific to Major League Baseball and bringing it in and I think that holds true for both the baseball and the hockey efforts like big league Utah I don’t know that they’re exactly saying this out loud but it certainly seems like their interest is

To take either an expansion Big League team which baseball has said they’re interested in doing as soon as the A’s and rays are finalized and wherever they’re going to land obviously Nashville seems like a favorite out east who would be out west I mean Utah’s got

To be a front runner so they’ll take expansion but it also feels I don’t know that they’ve said this it also feels like they’d be up for relocation they’ll just take whatever’s quicker I didn’t want to say easier but they’re trying to get to pro sports teams as soon as

Possible and I’m not always saying that a group like big league Utah is necessary for a city to get a new pro sports team but you’d have to think it certainly does not hurt to have this level of organization and detail and connection and resources and influence

And even going back to the whole A’s and Las Vegas relocation situation this is something that Las Vegas never actually had but Utah is a couple steps ahead in the game of actually doing such and this is also a huge question right the Larry H Miller group they put up seven

Billboards the other day around Salt Lake City to say that Utah wants the A’s now again this is not an a video necessarily this is more on the state of Utah but it’s interesting that we know the team made a visit to Utah to check out that new ballpark in Daybreak the

Miller group put out that press release they’re the ones that put out that information now they’re putting up these Billboards and I think I said earlier they do run an advertising agency so it it makes sense how easily they facilitated this but that message is not 100% clear Utah wants the A’s in

2025 or temporarily or Utah wants the A’s permanently are they seeking that that’s even an option right now that Las Vegas is not guaranteed or Oakland is not on the table anymore like and that’s the whole point of Utah with the NHL and Major League Baseball they are super

Into this super aggressive about this and I’m not faulting them or making even a comment on that I’m just saying you can see how they are kind of making a huge push they’re going in on trying to bring in Major League Baseball and the NHL so again Utah wants the A’s dot dot

Dot I feel like that’s an incomplete sentence but it kind of purposely leaves It Wide Open to interpretation so that’s the Miller group let’s go back to the Smith group and they put out this release a couple days ago the Smith Entertainment Group the parent company of the Utah Jazz

Delta Center Real Salt Lake the Utah Royals and several other Utah based sports and entertainment venue aventures today announced that it has formally requested that the National Hockey League initiate an expansion process with the ultimate purpose of bringing an NHL Franchise to Utah scg has also made clear its immediate ability to welcome

An NHL team to Utah using Delta Center as an Interim Home for an NHL Franchise there’s two big things there which is I as I explained before they’re trying to get Sports as soon as they can in any way they can literally read the two underlying things there initiate the

Expansion process okay that’s one route and by the way I’ll explain later I’m not sure how exactly ready the NHL is to expand they’re already at 32 teams I don’t think they want 33 and to sit on that I think they at least want 34 but even if

They do 34 it’s 17 in the East 17 in the west you’ve got those odd numbers that just don’t seem to work perfectly like it is right now with 32 total teams 8888 or 16 and 16 anyway I digress but they either want to initiate the expansion process or they’ve made it

Clear that they have the immediate ability to welcome an NHL team as in the Arizona Coyotes I’m pointing here but I should be pointing here that’s the Tempe Arena which last May was officially voted down and since then almost a year later the coyotes do not have an ultimate

Destination or final plan or something they’re moving forward with still and there kind of has been a deadline set not officially at least publicly a lot of people are expecting that by the end of February maybe even the end of March that could be the coyotes deadline to have something new

Set in motion or wrapped up for the NHL otherwise by the end of this season they may not be as protected in consideration of what their future is actually going to be and I hate to speculate on that I hate to influence what sounds like a

Rumor I mean we don’t know but it does sound like the NHL has said we will give you the next couple months to figure this out but I think they are frustrated that the coyotes don’t have what’s next figured out anyway but the point is Salt Lake City from their Viewpoint they’re

Basically saying hey we want expansion that’s what we want to set in motion here but oh by the way we’re also ready there’s a reason they say the immediate ability to welcome an NHL team to Utah they are very specifically talking about the coyotes aka the desert dogs the

Population in Utah I should have made a fancier graph than this I apologize it’s so boring but you can see the trend and forget the the lineup to the 1960s and 80s and even 2000s look where it’s gone from 2000 to 2024 a population of 3.4

Million now I guess updated for uh this this current month and starting in January of 2024 but the population as I’m about to explain here has skyrocketed in the state of Utah it still ranks 30th overall in US population from a state perspective perspective 3.3 or 4 million residents

You get it it’s kind of in that ballpark but here’s the main one Utah has the highest per increase in state population since 2010 so of the 50 states none of them has have grown as quickly as Utah has percentage wise since 2010 it’s a relatively big state 85,000 square miles

Essentially but 80% of the population is centered around the wasach front that’s right I said it now that I got it in the comments section last video I was talking about Utah on the A’s I didn’t know the exact pronunciation I’ll say it again wasach front see now I’m a Utah expert wasach

Front it’s just an intimidating word when you didn’t know how to say it for the first time to nail it like that still pretty proud of myself anyway I got to spend more time in Salt Lake City clearly but yeah it just goes to show you that the state’s population is

Heavily concentrated around Salt Lake City okay so predictions here in my honest opinion I think Utah lands something in the next three years and it could be sooner than that when I say something I mean either Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League or both it could be a team literally

Right around the corner there like landing on the spot the coyotes or the A’s even on a on a temporary basis whatever it’s my feeling and just the way I can see the tea leaves Utah’s going to land something and they’re probably going to hang on to something

The way that they’re built and with their Ambitions I just I see one of these two things these two Avenues working out for them or maybe both they obviously have the current land and space and money and influence and resources to see it all through I go

Back to by the way uh Ryan Smith he posts posted on Twitter it’s still called Twitter uh about a week 10 days ago week or 10 days ago oh he just went out golfing with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred in Utah yeah so you can understand that they’re not playing

Around up there in Salt Lake City they have the ability to connect and be considered and I think something here along some line is going to work out I know a lot of promises get made about this will happen and that will work and it will all be fine

But in the case of Salt Lake City I I don’t know that I need any of that I can really see how things work there and how things will work there for these pro sports franchises the Jazz have always had pretty good support and you’d have

To think with the excitement of either a brand new NHL team or some type of Major League Baseball situation that Salt Lake City would offer a lot of the resources that professional sports franchises need even more pro sports franchises and maybe in the same way that we thought about

Phoenix one time is a as a market that was emerging in the Southwest desert well now look at it baseball basketball hockey football they’re one of the big four and I realize those teams are all spread out in different regions essentially but they’ve got the big four

In the greater Phoenix area and I I think Salt Lake City is kind of along those same lines of growth and possibility and opportunity and let me just go back to the NHL I I kind of already made this point but of all the leagues like baseball is probably going

To expand by two as for the NHL they recently got to 32 and if they get to 33 they’re obviously the only Pro Sports Major League in the United States that’s at 33 teams let alone they’d probably have to get to 34 and eventually they’d want to get to

36 and I really don’t see the the NHL expanding within the next couple years so if Salt Lake City really is serious about Landing a team and I hate to get into this game of stealing teams and making pitches and undercutting and all that stuff but it it does seem like Salt

Lake City’s best Avenue would be to go fishing for Arizona it it does kind of seem like that is that is their most immediate move and and maybe that’s why that press release was worded so carefully and so specifically they want to start the expansion process but they

Obviously realize that being a magnet for the KY might be their best route so yeah Utah’s push is definitely on for professional sports and it’s just kind of amazing again I I’ll end the video the same way I started it all of this has cropped up

Within the last two weeks I mean January 1st I wouldn’t have put much thought into oh an NHL team is right around the corner for Salt Lake City or that a major league baseball team is really considering and has a maybe really good chance of temporarily playing there

Maybe Salt Lake City and their ownership groups permanently want to attach to a team that billboard was very upfront but also not very specific in the same sense hey you made it here the end of the video you know I appreciate that Thumbs Up Down Below that’ll help me in the

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Chapters:
0:00 How quickly Utah has moved
2:00 Not just the Utah Jazz
2:51 Two BIG groups in Utah
4:25 2034 Winter Olympic Bid
5:36 Big League Utah
6:58 Utah wants the A’s… HOW?
8:30 Utah going after the Arizona Coyotes?
11:25 Utah population growth
13:04 Utah PRO SPORTS predictions

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