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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah now has its second "Big Four" sports franchise, as Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith finalized an agreement last week to purchase and relocate the Arizona Coyotes.
Players and coaches of the new — and unnamed — National Hockey League franchise are set to attend a celebration event at the Delta Center on Wednesday. Smith said on Monday the name of the franchise will ultimately be determined through a fan bracket. It's a major shift for Salt Lake City almost 45 years after it landed its first "Big Four" team.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall called it a "defining moment" in city history. Deposits for season tickets surpassed 20,000 — more than the capacity of the Delta Center — within about 24 hours after Smith Entertainment Group made them available, showcasing the level of excitement across Utah.
So how does it measure to the last time Utah landed a "Big Four" team? It turns out there are plenty of similarities in response to when the New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah 45 years ago this June.
How Utahns reacted to the Jazz move in 1979
Utah fans were "joyous" once the "on-again, off-again nature" of the negotiations finally ended, the Deseret News reported in a June 9, 1979, edition of the paper. That's because the whole process went through some ups and downs over nearly two months of uncertainty.
As was the case with the Coyotes, word that Utah could get an NBA team picked up around April as the New Orleans Jazz 1978-1979 regular season came to an end. April 12, 1979, editions of Utah newspapers are filled with articles about how New Orleans Jazz owners Larry Hatfield and Sam Battistone had made Salt Lake City their top target after nearly a year of scouting venues.
"Salt Lake is our first choice, and right now it's our only choice," Hatfield said at the time, according to a United Press International wire story.
The Jazz sought relocation for a somewhat similar reason, too. While it had a venue to play in — a much bigger one at the New Orleans Superdome — the owners claimed arena management had made it difficult to schedule future games because they preferred to book business conferences during the regular season. That forced the team to play on the road for weeks at a time.
That's on top of other issues the team dealt with, such as high amusement taxes and little local business support.
The request caught the sporting world off-guard, largely because the team preferred a venue four times smaller in a city without a major sports franchise at the time. The Associated Press reported the measure was a "surprise."
Unlike the process to sell the Coyotes to Smith, which officially began in early March, according to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, the final decision didn't come down until June 8, 1979.
The Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce received a "bombardment of phone calls immediately after" news broke that the league approved the relocation, as fans flooded the owners of the original Salt Palace with questions about how to buy season tickets, the Deseret News reported at the time. The chamber reportedly took orders with $25 pledges.
"I've always felt Salt Lake City is a basketball town," the Salt Palace's manager told the outlet at the time.
Then-Utah Sen. Jake Garn said he believed major league basketball would add to a city "already major in every sense of the word."
Comparing player reaction
Jazz players reportedly had mixed reactions in 1979. Some were generally supportive of it because of the situation they were leaving in New Orleans, while others were disappointed about moving after settling down in Louisiana.
New Orleans Jazz guard Gail Goodrich told the Salt Lake Tribune at the time he was "very happy about the move" partly because he owned property near Sundance — although the then 14-year veteran ultimately never played for the team in Utah or another NBA game again after the 1978-79 season.
"I'm a little closer to home, and I think Salt Lake is a big basketball town," he said.
Coyotes players have reportedly gone through the same emotions. Yet Goodrich's view of the matter is similar to Coyotes goaltender Connor Ingram, who said last week he books a rental home at Sundance every year when traveling from his primary home in Saskatoon, Canada, and Phoenix.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, I really like Salt Lake City," he said. "I'm excited for Salt Lake City."
Similar skepticism
But along with the excitement about the Jazz coming, there was some skepticism — much like some national pundits question whether Utah can now handle having two major winter league teams.
The late Arnie Ferrin, who was the University of Utah's athletics director in 1979, told the United Press International he was concerned if the city could support both the Jazz and the Utes at the same time.
"I question if a community this size can support both teams well," he said. "If both teams are excellent, they might stimulate interest for each other. But the difficulty is that if one is not a good team, the efforts to lure fans might destroy both."
Only time will tell how successful the NHL experiment will be, but the Jazz are still in Utah 45 years later.
The fans left behind
Fans in New Orleans had mixed opinions in 1979, the Deseret News also reported at the time. One fan said they hoped to find ways to watch the Utah Jazz from Louisiana, while another called the move a "dirty shame." Others were already checked out over the team's poor performance.
"They didn't even try to put a winner on the courts, so why should we care?" one season ticketholder said.
It mirrors some of the reactions reported in Arizona over the past week.
While several fans jeered Salt Lake City during the Arizona Coyotes' last game before the sale, others said they would consider rooting for the rebranded Utah team. Others left the final game in tears and others wished the best for Utah.
"Please, oh please, take care of our boys," one fan said.
