SALT LAKE CITY — Ryan Smith understands that owning multiple professional sports franchises comes with some added pressure.
As part of a recent interview with The Athletic, the owner of the Utah Jazz was asked about the prospect of adding an NHL team to his portfolio. Smith invoked the names of Ted Leonsis and Larry Tanenbaum, who own NBA and NHL franchises in Washington, D.C. and Toronto respectively.
“Sometimes it’s probably easier to only do one. You just have fans yelling at you for part of the year,” laughed Smith.
Smith could be in line to inherit the Arizona Coyotes in the weeks ahead, which would put him at the top of the organizational chart for two franchises playing out of the Delta Center this fall.
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Why Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith is hellbent on bringing an NHL team to Salt Lake City
Smith’s passion for basketball is well-documented. He’s a lifelong fan who is present with a courtside seat for virtually every Jazz home game. Smith is involved in key decisions for basketball operations, but says he allows his leadership team consisting of Danny Ainge (CEO basketball operations), Justin Zanik (general manager) and Will Hardy (head coach) to have the loudest voices in the room.
“If those three agree on something, I’m probably not going to override them,” said Smith. “I am almost certain that if those three are aligned, I’m going to be aligned.”
The 45-year-old Smith acknowledges he will adopt a very similar approach if he secures an NHL franchise in Salt Lake City.
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“When it comes to hockey, I’m going to want to know what’s going on. I’m going to want to be involved with the ins and outs of everything we’re doing. But do I want to micromanage every decision? Absolutely not,” said Smith. “I will be a better leader for everyone if I know what’s going on. But I don’t want to be a leader where every decision comes through me or the organization doesn’t move. Being involved and being in the know is very different than making sure you are the lynchpin in every decision. That is not my style.”
Smith purchased a majority stake in the Jazz from the Miller family for $1.6 billion in the fall of 2020. Since then, he has put his fingerprints on the organization in a myriad of ways.
To help NHL fans understand how Smith operates as a professional sports team owner, Tony Jones — the Jazz beat writer for The Athletic — has provided answers and analysis to a handful of questions. Jones has covered the Jazz for the entirety of Smith’s ownership in Salt Lake City.
What are the biggest changes fans in Utah have noticed since Ryan Smith took over ownership of the team at the end of 2020?
When the Miller family owned the Utah Jazz, they were a team that stayed competitive while typically playing things relatively close to the vest. John Stockton, Karl Malone and Jerry Sloan made the Jazz elite by the late 1990s and the franchise twice played for an NBA title. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer took the Jazz to the Western Conference Finals in 2007. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert made the Jazz the top seed in the Western Conference in 2021. The philosophy was always a bit safe. The franchise promoted a family atmosphere. The franchise put heavy emphasis on internal development, seeing that the Utah market wasn’t one that typically attracted elite free agents — Boozer notwithstanding.
Spending typically came with a cap.
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Smith took control of the franchise in 2020. In his first year as majority owner, he paid the luxury tax. Soon after, he hired Ainge to oversee basketball operations. The changes to the franchise in the last four years have been many — some subtle, some overt. The changes have been aggressive, many that have worked, some that haven’t — like the rebrand to highlighter yellow jerseys.
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The biggest change, and one that the Smith family was always hesitant to do, has been embracing bottoming out. The Jazz, to be fair, did do this in 2013, and they somewhat did this the year after Malone and Stockton left the organization. But this is the first time the Jazz did this while trading two all-star-level talents in the prime of their respective careers. The Jazz bottomed out last season after the All-Star break. They’ve done the same this season. There isn’t a right or a wrong way to go about winning a title. But Smith has taken some hits on social media this spring while the Jazz went through a period of losing 24 of 27 games. Smith and the front office want a championship. And the way they are going about trying to do so does represent significant change from previous Utah Jazz eras.
If the Arizona Coyotes move to Salt Lake City, they would play at the Delta Center, home to the Utah Jazz. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
How long did it take before Smith put his “stamp” on the team? Did he overhaul the front office right away, or was he a patient owner when he first took over?
It took about a year before major change came about. Some of it was subtle, but then came the substantial change. Front office executive Dennis Lindsey was relieved of duties, with Smith having a central role in that. Quin Snyder resigned as head coach. Ainge was brought on board after leaving the Boston Celtics.
Then came the rebrand. Smith took over the franchise and he waited and took stock of where it was. But when the changes came, they came in droves. What we have is a franchise still very much in transition — at least on the court and in basketball operations. But it’s certainly being modeled after Smith’s liking.
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In many ways, Smith is young, brash, not afraid of change, and certainly not reluctant to take chances. It’s how he was able to buy the Jazz from the Miller family, largely without much of a hint. It’s how he was able to relatively swiftly put himself in position to secure an NHL franchise. And it’s how he’s put himself on the potential shortlist for a Major League Baseball franchise, if one were to become available.
How would you describe his approach? Is he a win-at-all-costs guy? A fan-first owner?
Winning is what Smith wants, which is why he brought Ainge on board. To be fair, the two are longtime friends, but Ainge built the Celtics into a champion in 2008, and he was the architect of the current Celtics team that will enter the postseason as title favorites.
Look at the blueprint between the two franchises. Ainge dealt Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, secured a bunch of draft picks, bottomed out the franchise, and built it back to where it was by drafting Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. He’s trying to do the same with the Jazz, with the sole goal of winning a title.
But if you look at Smith, think of a young Mark Cuban. In that sense, Smith wants to have a say in basketball matters. He’s omnipresent courtside at almost every Jazz game. And to his credit, he’s been at almost every Jazz game this spring, when the Jazz haven’t been an easy watch. He’s not all the way Cuban in the sense of making decisions. He leaves that part to Ainge and general manager Justin Zanik. But the overall direction of basketball operations is a conversation he is a part of.
As a younger owner, he keeps the fans in mind and consistently has a presence on social media. He’s been known to give tickets away on X. The highlighter yellow jerseys of the rebrand were scrapped because Smith and his people listened to the fan base, who almost universally hated it. It shows an owner who has a bit of self-awareness, while being as aggressive and maybe even more aggressive as you might expect from a young owner in his first years of running a major franchise.
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In addition to owning the Jazz, and his potential acquisition of the Coyotes, Smith owns Real Salt Lake, Utah’s Major League Soccer franchise. This is a person who dropped out of Brigham Young University in order to devote his time to managing Qualtrics, the company that built his fortune.
Smith was aggressive and a guy who took chances to get to where he is. And he’s been aggressive in moving forward since becoming owner of the Jazz.
Smith comes across as a progressive owner, particularly in matters related to social causes. How would you characterize his ownership style in that realm?
Smith has been a champion for social justice, particularly when it comes to matters within the state. When Izzy Tichenor, a 10-year-old bullied Black student from Utah tragically died by suicide, Smith was vocal in support of Tichenor’s family and the need for improved race relations in Utah. In 2021, Smith created the Utah Jazz Scholars Program, which gifted collegiate scholarships to a student of color for every Jazz win that season. The award covered the full undergraduate education for each recipient. It’s obviously one thing to talk about social justice and the need for social justice. It’s another to show action, and Smith has shown action in his time running the Jazz.
(Photo of Ryan Smith: Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)
Randall will be among several key visitors in attendance for a meeting on March 6
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus during an event on Feb. 7.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump this week.
Randall is expected to be among several attendees at a White House roundtable meeting on Friday to discuss solutions for the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics with the president, a U. spokesperson said.
The meeting could be postponed, however, due to the war in Iran. As of Monday, “the odds of it happening this week are 50-50 at best,” according to Yahoo Sports.
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If the roundtable happens as scheduled, the guest list includes several current and former notable figures in sports, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, golf legend Tiger Woods and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed in a social media post on X that he would be in attendance as well.
“Thank you [President Donald Trump] for inviting me to participate, and for your commitment to addressing challenges in college sports,” Cox said on X. “[Taylor Randall] is a great university leader who will work with us on solutions for this critical issue.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus on Feb. 7.
Earlier this year, Randall was called on by the federal House Committee on Education and Workforce to schedule a briefing to discuss the school’s planned private-equity partnership with Otro Capital, according to a report from Sportico.
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The Utes announced their proposal in December of last year, which is a first-of-its-kind agreement between a university’s athletic department and a private equity company.
Utah’s deal with Otro has yet to be finalized. In a Feb. 10 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Randall said the university is “still just working through all of the issues systematically.”
“We want to do this in the right way to set both of us up for future success,” he added.
The move is expected to infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.’s athletic department to help sustain the financial future of the program with rising deficits across the industry.
“I don’t think any of us would prefer to be in this situation right now,” Randall said in a faculty senate meeting in January. “But it just is what we’re facing.”
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SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The 2025-2026 winter season isn’t quite over, but it’s no secret that it’s been a rough one when it comes to snow. Right now, statewide snowpack numbers are hovering around 60% of the median.
But you don’t have to know those numbers to understand what a strange winter it’s been.
“It’s kind of good,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives in Salt Lake City. “I mean, I like it because I like a milder climate. But I realize this summer is going to be hard.”
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“I’m not sad I’m not shoveling,” said Sally Humphreys of Salt Lake City. “But it’s definitely worrying.”
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State water officials are also worried. The clock is ticking to bulk up those snowpack numbers.
“We’re running out of time to get the snowpack that we need,” said Jordan Clayton, supervisor of the Utah Snow Survey. “We have about 40 or so days until our typical snowpack peak.”
There is still some time to make up lost ground, but the odds aren’t great. Clayton estimates a 10% chance of reaching normal by the end of the season.
“Those are terrible odds,” he said.
In fact, the odds of having a record low snowpack are greater, sitting at 20%. It’s a grim reality that has officials looking toward the summer anxiously.
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“I would expect to see watering restrictions outdoors for a lot of places,” said Laura Haskell, Utah’s drought coordinator.
It’s unknown what the next few weeks will bring, but if Haskell had to guess, she doesn’t see state reservoirs filling up much from where they are now.
“In the spring when that runoff hits, we do get a noticeable peak in our reservoir storage,” Haskell said. “The water just starts coming in. But this year, we don’t anticipate getting that.”
Haskell says we have enough reservoir storage to likely make it through the summer, but there are other implications to worry about.
Our autumn season was pretty wet. That led to decent soil moisture levels, which can then lead to higher vegetation growth.
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“If we then have a snowpack that melts out really early, we’ll have a longer than normal summer, if you will, with forage growth that might dry out, and so that’s kind of a bad recipe for promoting fire hazard,” Clayton said.
Utahns have dealt with low snowpack levels in the past. Many Utahns are familiar with their lawn turning brown because of water restrictions.
“We’ll probably just let it go that nice, sandy, golden color that it gets in the summer in a dry climate,” said Dea Ann Kate, who lives in Cottonwood Heights.
As we wait to see what the next few weeks bring, people like Carrie Stewart are just reflecting on an unusual winter.
“It is worrying,” she said. “We need snow. We’ve only shoveled once this season, and that’s very unusual.”
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Water officials are now hoping for something else unusual: climbing out of the snowpack hole that’s been created.
“But there are no times going back where the snowpack totals for the state were close to where they are right now, and we ended up actually at a normal peak,” Clayton said. “So while it’s possible, it’s very unlikely.”
SALT LAKE CITY — The presence of federal immigration agents tracking immigrants has increased in Salt Lake County-area courtrooms since mid-February as have complaints about how they’re carrying out their duties.
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents may have carried out operations at the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City, according to Lacey Singleton, a public defender who’s regularly at the facility.
“Now it is like they are there all the time … They just basically hang out, and they’re either sitting in the courtroom, or they’re lurking in the hallways,” she said. They wear normal street garb, she said, but for regulars in the courtroom, “they stand out.”
Immigration enforcement action at courthouses around the country has become “a cornerstone” in the efforts of the administration of President Donald Trump to detain and deport immigrants in the country illegally, according to the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group. Since an arrest of one of Lacey’s clients around Feb. 12 or 13, she and others say, the practice has become more and more common in Utah.
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ICE didn’t respond to a KSL query seeking comment, but the practice aligns with the Trump administration’s push to crack down on illegal immigration. Agency guidance notes that the people ICE seeks may appear in courthouses to address unrelated criminal and civil matters, and that such facilities are typically secure.
“Accordingly, when ICE engages in civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses, it can reduce safety risks to the public, targeted alien(s) and ICE officers and agents,” reads a May 27 memo on the matter.
Critics, though, say immigration agents’ efforts can be disruptive and could spur immigrants, otherwise trying to resolve their legal issues, to steer clear of court, jeopardizing their cases. As word spreads of the activity, it could also spur fearful immigrant witnesses and crime victims to steer clear of the legal system, Lacey worries.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera brought the issue up at a Salt Lake County Council meeting on Tuesday, saying her office has received “multiple complaints” about ICE agents’ activity in Salt Lake County courthouses, where sheriff’s officials, serving as court bailiffs, provide security.
U.S. agents have ratcheted up immigration enforcement action at Utah courthouses, prompting criticism from some. The photo shows attorney Lacey Singleton, center, questioning a suspected agent recently at Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City. (Photo: Salt Lake City Bail Fund)
Part of the problem, she said, is that the agents typically wear plain clothes and don’t identify themselves, not even to bailiffs. Another issue relates to the actual process of taking an immigrant into custody, which Rivera says should occur outside of public view with the suspects’ lawyers present.
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In one instance, she said, a bailiff heard a scuffle and thought someone was getting assaulted, only to find out it was ICE agents detaining somebody.
A bailiff and an ICE agent subsequently “got into a verbal altercation,” Rivera said. “We are addressing that issue, but I want you to understand, these deputies are put in a really tough situation, and in this situation, I understand how he could get to that point where he had no idea who they were, and he was trying to make sure that somebody wasn’t being assaulted at the time.”
Video from last week, posted to social media by the Salt Lake City Bail Fund, shows Lacey walking past a suspected immigration agent at the Matheson Courthouse, asking for identification but getting no reply. The Salt Lake City Bail Fund, critical of ICE activity, sends observers to the Matheson Courthouse to monitor the agency’s activity.
“That’s a problem because it’s like, who are you?” Lacey said. “For all I know, you’re some random dude who is just, like, off the street and participating in kidnapping people.”
Video supplied to KSL shows an incident outside Riverton Justice Court on Wednesday — four apparent immigration agents in plain clothes wrestling on the ground with an apparent suspect they were trying to take into custody.
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“Don’t resist,” someone off-camera says in Spanish while filming the incident. “Son, don’t resist. Calm down. They’re going to hurt you more.”
The woman asks for his name and contact info after the agents cuff him and take him to a nearby car, while another man on the scene shouts at the officials and berates them. “You guys are disgusting,” the man says.
Anna Reganis, a public defender with the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association, like Lacey, said immigration agents detained a man at Salt Lake City Justice Court on Wednesday. She didn’t witness the actual detention, but heard the aftermath.
“All of a sudden, in my courtroom, we could hear from the lobby blood-curdling screams,” Reganis said. She went to the main lobby, finding a woman holding her infant baby “just inconsolably screaming and crying.” Turns out the woman had gone to the courthouse with her husband, and he had just been detained by immigration agents.
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Lacey maintains that the people the ICE agents seem to be pursuing aren’t the most hardened of criminals, which the Trump administration said would be the focus when the crackdown started. Reganis echoed that, noting that those with business in the Salt Lake City Justice Court face relatively minor offenses.
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“Myself and my co-workers all had a bit of a wake-up call because we kept telling ourselves that this wasn’t going to happen at the justice court because all of our cases are class B and C misdemeanors and infractions,” she said.
The Salt Lake City Bail Fund launched training sessions late last year for volunteers to serve as courthouse observers, particularly at the Matheson Courthouse. Liz Maryon, who helps oversee the effort, foresees another round of training to get more help. “We’re currently working on expanding our capacity so that we can be there every day,” she said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
