Utah
Jazz owner Ryan Smith reportedly met with NHL commissioner
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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Jazz proprietor Ryan Smith hasn’t been shy about want to herald one other sport to the state.
Final August, the Smith Leisure Group — the mother or father firm of the Jazz, and which additionally holds possession stakes in RSL, the Utah Royals, and Vivint Enviornment — added Arctos Sports activities Companion, a personal fairness agency, as a minority investor with the specific intent on buying a brand new sports activities franchise.
And the wheels may simply be turning on Smith’s subsequent enterprise.
In line with Elliotte Freedman of Canada’s SportsNet, Smith had dinner this week with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman following an NBA Board of Governors assembly in New York.
Might a possible partnership be brewing?
Freedman stated that Smith was rumored as a possible purchaser when the Pittsburgh Penguins had been on the market in 2021. That franchise ultimately was purchased by Fenway, however that did not sign the top of Smith’s curiosity within the league.
“I used to be instructed to maintain his identify on my radar, as a result of he is within the NHL — and the NHL could be very taken with him,” Freedman wrote.
Nevertheless, Bettman stated a pair weeks in the past the league wasn’t at the moment taking a look at growth.
“We’re not in an growth mode proper now,” stated Bettman after the league’s annual basic supervisor conferences. “There continues to be numerous folks, entities and cities expressing curiosity in having an NHL franchise the place they do not have one, locations like Atlanta, like Houston, like Quebec Metropolis. Nevertheless it’s not likely one thing, at the least proper now, that is anyplace near the entrance burner for us.”
The Ottawa Senators are on the market, but it surely seems there are buyers who would preserve the workforce in Canada.
The Columbus Blue Jackets, Arizona Coyotes, and Florida Panthers have all handled current monetary hardships and have been linked to relocation rumors.
Whereas it is positively noteworthy that Bettman is assembly with Smith, it isn’t like Utah is NHL-ready in the mean time. Vivint Enviornment was not constructed for hockey, and SEG sources instructed KSL.com final fall that it might make extra sense to construct a brand new area for a possible NHL workforce than to renovate the Jazz’s dwelling area.
Freedman identified that if Salt Lake CIty did win the bid to host the Winter Olympics once more within the subsequent decade then a brand new stadium may observe.
And that will simply set the stage for the NHL, as effectively.