Why Utah is a Sanctuary for Pro Franchises

Shower Thought - April 9, 2025

Audio Transcript (excuse typos):

"You ever go on a vacation with other people and every decision you have a long talk about. Where are we gonna eat, well we heard about this place, well it's a little expensive, should we get seafood while we're here? Well, jim's allergic to scampi...alright well what's the plan tomorrow. Should we just hang at the beach, well we wanna go for a hike, I thought we were gonna zipline, well I read the yelp review and it sounds a little dangerous ahhhhh. And you can't wait to get home!

Well in the sports world, going on vacation with difficult people, is like trying to run a sports franchise in California, or a hockey team in Arizona, or a football team in St. Louis. We got have a hundred city council meetings about the stadium, let's do an environmental review, the citizens don't wanna pay extra tax, the art district can't be effected, okay forget it we're going to Vegas. We're going to Utah. For sports franchises going to places like Utah or Vegas is like going home from a busy body vacation with difficult people and going home. Utah just passed an infrastructure bill last Friday that they're gonna help fund Ryan Smith's vision for renovating the Delta Center, and the Salt Palace and downtown salt lake. At the last second there was an unexpected $300 million dollar increase to the bill they weren't expecting. Who cares. It's 0.5% tax increase. We value sports. Vote yes. Home for lunch. that's how you do it."